Marco Polo set sail from the Mongol Empire in 1292. He was headed for Europe with a fleet of 14 ships, each loaded down with a fortune in gold, silk and spices.

Only, the ships never made it.

Polo arrived in Italy a year and a half later, sailing a single ship with a crew of 18 men, down from the original 600 he left with. He never told anyone what happened on his journey or what became of the riches once carried with him.

Flash forward to the present day: Fortune hunter Nathan Drake is hired by a group of thieves to break into a Turkish museum. Their goal is to steal an oil lamp that once belonged to Marco Polo and may point the way to the lost treasure.

Along the way, Drake is betrayed by his old partner Harry Flynn, forms an uneasy-alliance with professional thief Chloe Frazer and ends up on the trail of the Chintamani Stone, a mythical wish-fulfilling jewel. Also, there's a fugitive war criminal with his own private army trying to beat them to it. Many gunfights ensue.

"Uncharted 2: Among Thieves" is a summer popcorn flick, full of heroic exploits, daring acts of bravado, dastardly villains and high-stakes action sequences. It's a roller coaster ride that moves from a museum heist to shoot outs in the jungles of Borneo, from decaying monasteries to a desperate fight with a mercenary helicopter onboard a passenger train.

Play-wise, it follows the "Gears of War" formula pretty close. Walk into an area and there are these little obstacles we can hide behind, to take cover, and shoot at the enemy. These guys are pretty smart, try to flank around us, throw grenades behind our cover, things like that.

And we shoot them. And they shoot us. And then the game designers throw us for a loop: Now we're inside a building, crumbling to the ground, shooting at guys as we fall. Or we get across an area, only to have the enemy come up behind us, using the positions we just used to defeat other enemies to defeat us.

It gets pretty crazy, and it works because the game makes us feel like the main character, Nathan Drake.

We remember back when the first game, "Drake's Fortune," came out, and everyone rushed to call it "Dude Raider" or "Tomb Raider with a Dude." And, really, Drake is the quintessential dude.

"I don't know, I'm just making this up as I go along," is a regular comment by Drake, and we get the sense that he really means it. The level design constantly hints at where to go, what to do, but we never felt pushed in a given direction. Occasionally, we stop, look around. What to do? Aw, crap, Chloe's looking at us, expecting us to do something -- hey, wait, there's some loose bricks over there. Maybe I can climb up that!

"I think we can climb this," Drake says. "Hang back, let me check it out." That's what we were thinking!

There was one time where, randomly, we aimed our gun at a propane tank. Without warning, Drake goes "Boom!" Before we even shot at it! He was thinking the same thing we were, and we admire him all the more for it.

He even stumbles when he walks. The developers went so far as to pre-program a random stumble into the game. So sometimes, we are running forward, and Drake, in his excitement, slips, catches himself, keeps going. It's a little thing, but then, like our ex-girlfriends once told us, the little things add up to big things over time.

And really, that's one of the greatest accomplishments of "Uncharted 2." When we hold the controller, when we control Drake, whether it's climbing up a train car hanging precariously over a cliff, or firing blindly around a corner at an approaching enemy that has us pinned down, we really feel like we are Nathan Drake.

Not Random Space Marine or Loner RPG Hero With Angst Issues. We feel like Nathan Drake, like maybe that could be us, trudging through a snow cave, exploring ancient temples, going on adventures and maybe even getting the girl.

It's also remarkably self contained. There's none of this cliff-hanger nonsense that so permeates video game plots. We didn't even have to play the first one to understand this game, because everything we need to know is right there, on the screen, as we play.

And when it ends, it makes us want more. More adventures. More thrilling escapades. More levels, more thrills, more fun. Just like a good summer movie, it's mindless entertainment with great production values and enough witty one-liners to justify a sequel.

So get to work, developers! We've got more Dude Raiding to do.

Thieves'

The reporter can be reached at 583-2425.

Unchartered 2: Among Thieves

Four stars

Genre: Third-person action adventure

Platform: PlayStation 3

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment America

ONtap Thinks: Indiana Jones had a son, and it ain’t Shia LaBeouf

Rated: T for teen, ages 13+ (Entertainment Software Ratings Board)

(Oct. 23, 2009)