“Uncharted 2: Among Thieves”
Genre: Action-adventure / shooter
Developer: Naughty Dog
Publisher: Sony
Platform: PlayStation 3
Number of players: 1-10
ESRB rating: “T” for Teen
Price: $59.99
Grade: A

Hollywood has struggled for years to make even adequate movies based on video games.

Then again, maybe Tinseltown hasn’t struggled at all, hoping instead that a flurry of fanboys rushing through the turnstiles was essential to glean a profit. Witness 2001’s “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” a cinematic excuse to see Angelina Jolie in tight togs if there ever was one. Or 2005’s “Doom,” which disappointed mainly by ignoring key elements of the game’s plot.

(Memo to movie execs: Don’t insult gamers by assuming they won’t notice something like that.)

Perhaps then the solution to satisfy everyone should be a game already so much like a movie — and a good one, at that — Hollywood need not continue to embarrass itself. A game like “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.”

Game Guy didn’t receive much lead time to review the game in advance of its release this week, so when he saw dozens of early reviews awarding “Uncharted 2″ a perfect score, he was skeptical: When pundits pile on that way, in the affirmative or the negative, you wonder a little if some of them are saving time by copying other people’s work.

If that’s what they did this time, they borrowed from the correct notes. “Uncharted 2″ is a visually arresting experience with better weapons deployment than the previous “Uncharted” and — thank the pagan gods of screenwriting — sensible, engaging character conversations, as if the dialog this time wasn’t an afterthought.

Heavily armed treasure hunter Nathan Drake bounds back into the spotlight, a few months after his harrowing experience in “Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune,” to solve a mystery more than 700 years old: why Marco Polo returned from China with his pockets empty and his fleet of ships destroyed. The investigation sends Drake in search of the mythical Shambhala that Polo mentioned in his journals, and clues to the voyage’s fate.

Of course, he runs afoul of shady sorts who would rather Drake just let the mystery be — the kind of people who don’t appreciate treasure hunters stumbling onto their motives.

But Drake has improved weaponry at his disposal, compared to “Drake’s Fortune.” He’s got guns and grenades that don’t require button-mashing to use, an automatic red-dot targeting sight to help save from wasteful spraying of ammo, and an aiming reticule to assist him when he fires blind. Plus now, Drake can play fancy-feet behind his foes and sneak up to dispatch them, or squeeze off a few well-placed rounds while platforming.

These advancements do more than make Drake more agile; they serve as important functions in a title that places agility and puzzle-solving on par with plugging baddies. Shoot away, if that’s all you really want to do, but leaded gas won’t get Drake closer to his destination.

However, some of the shooting scenes just beg for a blast-fest — the ones atop moving vehicles and Drake’s desperate dodging of a tank are examples. In multiplayer action, an exchange with rushing waves of enemies affords little time to think between trigger pulls, but fast thinking turns out to be more important than firepower.

Having said all these good things, Game Guy acknowledges that “Uncharted 2″ also has flaws — enough in fact to make him wonder why so many in Pundit Land ascribed perfect scores to this game. Without getting too persnickety, let’s just say the platforming fails spectacularly at times without reason, the bad guys occasionally suffer mobility challenges that transform them into veiled threats, and the puzzles can leave players scratching their heads longer than necessary. The supernatural element that figures later in the game felt somewhat forced as well, becoming what seemed like an oil to lubricate where the plot turned sticky.

But developer Naughty Dog avoided all the really big holes that could have swallowed “Uncharted 2″ and produced a beautiful and thrilling piece of work other developers are bound to borrow from for their action-adventure shooters — and Hollywood should study before trying to bring another video game to the big screen.