Day and night difference to the first one, one of the best video game sequels I know of (only other big contender is MGS2).
Obviously starting the game with dangling out of a train car on a cliff edge, will get you interested in what happened.
But directly after the museum heist grabs you. Everything plays smoother, it's more colourful, the music grounds you in the setting and the new stealth mechanics give you a reason to be creative with your movement in a level.
Then boom, Borneo, a little bit of a throwback, which makes you notice how much better the gunplay feels and that you have room to experiment with how you want to take on enemies (played on Hard).
Then crazy street and rooftop fights in Nepal.
Then climbing on beautiful Buddhist sculptures.
Then the incredible train level.
After we reach the point in the story where we began in medias res, I did lose engagement somewhat, although the convoy and parts of the monastery chapters did get me back in, I sort of got exhausted by the pacing of the game and the introduction of the supernatural dudes.
I do think that I wouldn't like this game as much, if they weren't riffing on Buddhist art and concepts, but even then, they should have gone further with it.
The phurba is supposed to help overcome spiritual challenges like delusion, desire and hate, and a lot of the "puzzles" seem to necessitate two people cooperating or are made of statues reaching their hands out to each other.
There is great thematic subtext here, that is left mostly untouched. Nathan doesn't save the day, because he became a better person through his travels or knows when to put his trust in others, but because he shoots guns the bestest and is basically a living monkey god, with his invincible hands and infinite stamina.
Nobody meaningfully grows or changes, the closest is probably Drake "believing" in the power of the Cintamani Stone because of Schäfer, but he saw with his own two eyes in the first game, that the seemingly supernatural exists, so even that feels undercut, and also just not that interesting for a character.
A must-play for action game fans
Obviously starting the game with dangling out of a train car on a cliff edge, will get you interested in what happened.
But directly after the museum heist grabs you. Everything plays smoother, it's more colourful, the music grounds you in the setting and the new stealth mechanics give you a reason to be creative with your movement in a level.
Then boom, Borneo, a little bit of a throwback, which makes you notice how much better the gunplay feels and that you have room to experiment with how you want to take on enemies (played on Hard).
Then crazy street and rooftop fights in Nepal.
Then climbing on beautiful Buddhist sculptures.
Then the incredible train level.
After we reach the point in the story where we began in medias res, I did lose engagement somewhat, although the convoy and parts of the monastery chapters did get me back in, I sort of got exhausted by the pacing of the game and the introduction of the supernatural dudes.
I do think that I wouldn't like this game as much, if they weren't riffing on Buddhist art and concepts, but even then, they should have gone further with it.
The phurba is supposed to help overcome spiritual challenges like delusion, desire and hate, and a lot of the "puzzles" seem to necessitate two people cooperating or are made of statues reaching their hands out to each other.
There is great thematic subtext here, that is left mostly untouched. Nathan doesn't save the day, because he became a better person through his travels or knows when to put his trust in others, but because he shoots guns the bestest and is basically a living monkey god, with his invincible hands and infinite stamina.
Nobody meaningfully grows or changes, the closest is probably Drake "believing" in the power of the Cintamani Stone because of Schäfer, but he saw with his own two eyes in the first game, that the seemingly supernatural exists, so even that feels undercut, and also just not that interesting for a character.
A must-play for action game fans