I'm still digging the level design and platforming in general though the caves under the Scottish cathedral kind of got monotonous at points. Great escape though at the end.
I like the puzzles you have to solve in order to advance, wish there were more. Again, like switches to activate some machinery or activate parts of the architecture to open or move. I couldn't believe they offered me an option to skip the puzzle where you line up the crosses and the water bucket to open the door.
I am not good with the guns, can't line them up and it doesn't help that you have to hit some of the Shoreline bad guys several times to kill them. I just charge ahead and take them out with hand to hand. Only gun I could be half-proficient at was the sniper rifle, which killed with one shot.
I watched a video of an IGN walkthrough for some levels. You can avoid shooting guns by sneaking up and pulling men over the cliff. You're still killing them but you don't have a big shootout.
But I found it easier to take out more men by charging and probably killing them hand to hand, though it takes me several tries to clear a section. Mainly I want to advance in the game, in the story.
However, the persona that they built up of Nate is kind of like this wise-cracking, unintense, kind of happy-go-lucky guy. Even when he kills a lot of bad guys, it's mostly "whew, that was tough" not some triumphant celebrating about dropping a lot of bodies. It's really jarring, that he's nonchalant about having to kill so many guys and still have this kind of chipper, goofy personality, especially in the scenes I've seen so far with Elena. He sucks at Crash Bandicoot when chilling with his wife but his day job is a ruthless treasure hunter who will eliminate anyone who gets in his way.
We had this discussion with the first Uncharted too, that Nate goes on a killing rampage. Sure he's killing bad guys but he is killing a lot of people.
How do you not at least have PTSD? You can rationalize that Rafe and the chick and Shoreline would do the same to him, that it's a fight for survival. But the rationale, that his brother owes the Panamanian gangster so in order to save his life, they have to chase this treasure and that means eliminating scores of Shoreline henchmen who get in their way. They're saying his brother's life is worth a lot more than the lives of those bad guys. Certainly to his family and friends, they value his life more than that of strangers. Doesn't mean they would necessarily support killing a lot of other men, who also have family and friends.
If they want to justify killing to save the brother's life, why not try to fight the Panamanian guy who's threatened his life? Even then it's problematic as it was in Breaking Bad, where Walter White had to escalate violence to eliminate threats to his business, then himself and his family but it meant raising the stakes as the show proceeded to the climax, committing more murders.
In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones, who probably served as one of the models for Nathan Drake and the Uncharted series, Indy just takes out a lot of bad guys with his wits and the bull whip. But then some guy with swords confront him and Indy pulls out his revolver and shoots him. The audience roared in approval when I watched the movie. So maybe for most people, it's good enough that it's bad guys that the hero kills, without the slightest hesitation or with conscience afterwards.
The hero can't have qualms or PTSD and no matter how lethal and ruthlessly efficient he is, he's still got to have an upbeat personality?