Game of the year

Uncharted  2: Among Thieves is awesome (Spoilers ahead). It does everything right. Perfect gameplay, gorgeous graphics, amazing sound. This is an experience that should be had by anyone even remotely interested in gaming. It only thus makes sense to make this the killer title for the PS3.

I did play Uncharted: Drake's Fortune but for some reason I wasn't quite immersed into the story aspect of it. Also maybe the reason I quit halfway thru, was looking at greenery thru low end resolution. But once I picked up Uncharted 2, I sat thru it for a nonstop 13 hours until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore and had to get some sleep. Now that I have finished the game am thinking of going back and doing a playthrough of it again, just to experience the awesomeness one more time.

Graphically this game is so gorgeous that you won't realise when a cinematic cutscene gets over and you get back control. Also this game has some of the best water and snow effects I have seen. Yes, AC2 (Assassins Creed 2)  did have a lot of water effects (Venice) but this game tops it.
In the Audio dept, amazing large over the top orchestra pieces are arranged to pull you right in (For those who have played Crimson Skies you will get my drift here). Also the voice acting is just superb. Excellent lip sync.
Gameplay wise this game does everything right, you get to do parkour like AC2, ass-kicking like Batman:AA, puzzle solving like PoP and also cover based third person shooting.

The overall experience is just extremely detailed and photo realistic. Like there are some sequences which are set in Nepal and Tibet. These are just perfect, you will even be able to make out the Indian influence over here by looking at signboards and hoardings along the streets. This is what you would expect if you actually went to Kathmandu and Daramshala. ( I have personally traveled as far as Gangtok, Sikkim and the Indo-China border and can see the similarities.)

Hitting all the right notes is a very difficult task to do in video games because more often than not particular sections start to get boring and tedious. Like goto point A, press button/ move crank B, goto point C and repeat previous steps again. Also it helps that Uncharted 2 doesn't have levels but rather chapters (like Halflife) and thus the story seems all the more seamless.

I generally don't do game reviews but this is breakthrough stuff. If you do not have a PS3 yet, Uncharted 2 would be the reason to get one. For those who have a PS3 but haven't played this game yet, sell it :P

Btw I haven't played the multiplayer aspect of this yet.