Uncharted/Headscratchers

"Nepal: "Hey, thanks for offering to fight the rebels with us, that's a big- WHY ARE YOU DESTROYING OUR CAPITAL?!"
 * Elena at the end of the second game doesn't believe the "curse" of the cintimani stone, however this is the same lady who saw what the stone does to people, but more importantly the events of the first game!!! She forgot what she lived through or what?
 * Arbitrary Skepticism at its finest - while she saw for herself what the El Dorado "statue" did, it could be that she's still dismissing that as a one-off and refuses to believe that on her next big adventure, she will once again encounter something supernatural (after all, in reality what would the chances be?). Also she had no chance to be skeptical about El Dorado - she didn't even know what it really was until after they'd encountered the mutant Spaniards - whereas she's known about the "curse" for a while and dismisses it as an urban myth.
 * Exactly. You'd have to be touched in the head to think everything supernatural is true just because of one instance of seeing something like a zombie plague.
 * Why, oh why did Flynn try to kamikaze Nathan's group? Yes, he's still pissed at Nathan... for... something... but he appeared to be trying to spare Chloe, and didn't like Lazarevic one bit. Yes, Lazarevic most likely took his only gun, but at that point, he was separated from the group, due to the guardians, and could have snapped up a pistol from one of the dead goons.
 * In fact, I still can't remember why Flynn hates Drake. Besides getting snarked at all the time.
 * I don't think it's so much Flynn hating Drake so much as it is him not caring about him. And caring about the money more. And possibly being terribly jealous of Drake's mad skills.
 * Flynn wouldn't have jihaded Nathan if he didn't care.
 * He was already bleeding to death from a gunshot wound. He just wanted to take as many people as possible with him. As for him hating Nate: remember that he was trying to spare Chloe. That means he wanted her for himself. He might have known about their relationship from the beginning and just played dumb like he did with the ships.
 * Given Chloe's "mostly professional" line and the fact that he specifically asked for her to be spared, it's possible he worked out that she and Nate used to be an item and got homicidally jealous.
 * Oh, Flynn knew, and he hated Nate's guts for it. If he didn't figure it out earlier, he almost certainly guessed when Chloe gave Nate the dagger in the monastery, which would have been a severe blow to the ego (the hot woman liked Nate enough to give him the key to Shambhala, and to top it off he swiftly worked out how to use it to open the door). Also, it was kinda because of Nate that Lazarevic shot Flynn. After thinking about it, I suspect Flynn's explodicide was aimed at both Drake and Elena - because killing Elena would take her away from Drake as Drake took Chloe from Flynn, one last great big "Screw You".
 * When Drake and Flynn are forced to work together near the end, Drake calls him a "backstabbing son-of-a-bitch", to which Flynn replies "Yeah, well you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?", so presumably Flynn feels that Drake betrayed him in some way. YMMV as to whether this refers to him screwing Chloe or some Noodle Incident in the past. If it was the latter, Drake apparently didn't think it was a major friendship-ending event, since he was happy to see Flynn at the start, and trusted him without question during the museum job.
 * The whole "Nathan is an ordinary guy, really!" bit. He uses guns easily, doesn't have a qualm about killing mooks (except when it's dramatic), can jump ten feet forward and grab onto a ledge without falling off, can jump six feet up to a ledge while hanging from another ledge, and can hold on to ledges more or less indefinitely. Hanging from a ledge like that, let alone jumping, is freaking hard! Not to mention the whole car chase mission in Among Thieves... Oh, and he starts the second game climbing up a train after being shot in the gut! Then he fights of ten or so guys without the wound slowing him down at all. An ordinary guy? Yeah, right. Sure, he might panic when being confronted with hordes of baddies, but he should be used to it by now.
 * I never got the impression that Nathan was ever supposed to be a normal guy. It's fairly well established in both games that he makes a living entirely off of traveling the world, finding, and selling priceless artifacts. Hardly a ho-hum everyday career.
 * Except Naughty Dog is always going on about how ordinary Nathan is, about how he's not an action hero. They even claim that his character design was made generic to project the "everyman" persona onto. I can understand that he's a Badass Unintentional, but then Naughty Dog is significantly overstating his normalness. Plus, he's well-versed in firearms enough to imply that he's encountered this sort of thing before and has a gun as part of his normal outfit, not to mention that Flynn mentioned in the second game that he robbed a museum. After Jeff gets killed and he and Elena escape Lazarevic's men, he shakes off Jeff's death pretty quickly in spite of risking his life to save him, like it's happened before, while Elena sits on the floor in shock, like it's never happened to her before. He's like Indiana Jones - relatable and down-to-earth, but definitely not average or normal.
 * He's a Badass Normal by the standard of video game protagonists.
 * First of all, Nate is not, and can never be, a Badass Normal because there are no superheroes in his universe. Second, I have no problem with him being a Badass; it's Naughty Dog claiming he's normal that I have a problem with. That and the Action Survivor trope on the page, which is what ND says he is.
 * I don't think the attitude is anything to do with Drake's abilities, but his persona and outlook. He's not a grizzled commando or war hero, he's a pretty ordinary guy who himself seems incredulous at what is happening around him. It's not so much that he's "SO NORMAL", it's just that he is compared to most recent videogame heroes. The one flaw is that he guns down thousands of Mooks without batting an eyelid, but really, that's an acceptable side-effect of it being a third-person shooter, and Among Thieves likes to remind us that while Drake may be "normal", it doesn't necessarily make him "good" in the usual sense.
 * But ND frequently focuses on his abilities. And just because he can mow down mooks without blinking an eye doesn't mean it's necessary for a good shooter. In Iji, the titular character starts sounding a bit crazy after killing enough bad guys, and it's still a good game. Max Payne also incurs psychological damage over the days his game takes place (or so I heard). The main character in Shadow Complex even has military training, and still ponders the morality of killing mooks. They just need to remove Drake's Bond One Liners, and I'll take his persona as normal - if killing people is routine enough to joke about, well... But like I said, it's more ND's attitude towards him than the character himself - one liners aside, he's still pretty close to normal.
 * Iji isn't exactly the best example because it's making a point of not forcing you to kill mooks - it ties into the game's overall themes of violence bgetting violence and so on. Uncharted is more an adventure story; death-defying escapes, spectacular action, explosions, treasure, attractive people doing dangerous things, etcetera. I don't think it would do much for the atmosphere if Drake started having a genuine, realistically depicted psychological breakdown.
 * Nate's normal in the sense that someone like John McClane is normal. They're tough, in-shape guys that would much rather be somewhere else. They snark to take the massive pressure of combat off themselves. They're normal in overall outlook and in every day life, but exceptional when the shit hits the fan. In other words, normal is their default mode....until you start chucking hand grenades at them.
 * Nate's attitude toward Chloe in the second half of the game makes no sense. She pretends to be on Lazarevic's side to cover them, but when Lazarevic and Flynn walk in on her holding a gun on Nate's group (to cover for them, but the bad guys don't know that) and take her to the train, Nate thinks from some reason that she's being held prisoner and immediately risks everything to try to save her. Even a moron could tell that she was just playing along! Then, at the monastery, he runs into her again, still playing along. She claims that she didn't know they were there and is just trying to save herself (pretty obvious), and yet Nate still treats her like crap until she gives him the dagger. This is the dagger she needs to find the secret door with to live, so Nate's possibly sending her to her death without it. Pretty nice and observant guy, ain't he?
 * When she's taken on the train, it's implied pretty heavily that Flynn has figured out she's betrayed him and is working with Nathan. IIRC this is confirmed when you find her on the train and she is being treated significantly worse by Flynn than she was during the opening portions of the game.
 * Flynn sure didn't act like he knew Chloe had betrayed him, and if so, it didn't look like he told Lazarevic. But if he did know, then why did a) she want to stay on the train, or b), he keep her alive? If someone sold me out, I'd kill them or keep them within sight at all times. If I was being held captive by someone who I sold out and they knew about it, I'd want to leave ASAP. If Flynn knows Chloe's not loyal to Lazarevic, she's nothing but a liability. I mean, when when Flynn comes after her on the train, just before Nathan blows it up, she's just killed one of his men, and she tries to defend Nate as he's running away on the train. Think of this from Flynn's perspective: he comes upon Nate and Chloe arguing. He shoots Nate, but Nate runs away, and Chloe attempts to defend him. And he still lets her roam fairly free without telling Lazarevic about it at all. Double Idiot Ball, maybe? And Nate still has no reason to treat her like he did in the monastery.
 * I think Nate was mad at Chloe mostly because of who she is. She has made it clear from past actions that at the end of the day she will always look at for number 1 - herself. While she'll try to help those she cares about, ultimately when she is backed into a wall, she put herself above others, which is the opposite of Nate. This becomes her turning point in character when she refuses to leave behind. Chloe defiantly has the most character development in this game.
 * Well, that makes sense. I guess it was just weird to see Nate swing from well-meaning on the train to jerk in the monastery. And it's "definitely", not "defiantly".
 * Chloe has the most character development against all instructions to the contrary. She was specifically told to be a stagnating character but she just had to go ahead and grow a conscience.
 * So, Elena apparently caught up with the train by "following the tracks to the wreckage". But at the end of the first train level, the helicopter blasts a car so that it winds up blocking the tunnel, rendering the tunnel unusable. Furthermore, how could Elena know where Nate went when she got to the wreckage? The falling snow would cover up most of his tracks.
 * The road didn't follow the tracks exactly for most of the route anyway, so she probably saw roughly where the tracks were headed and took the nearest alterative route. We don't know how far Tamzin's village is from the wreck site, but it is connected to the road network - Elena likely saw that there was no trace of Drake at the wreck and headed for the nearest settlement to see if they knew anything.
 * Late in the second game, conveniently runs off to talk to Lazarevic, thus getting out of the player's way. That is to say, he stopped his work to talk to his hair-triggered psychopath of a boss, after said boss furiously stated his displeasure with  lack of progress in his work. He couldn't possibly be charming enough to survive that.
 * And nobody is good enough to survive getting in Nathan Drake's way. Doesn't mean they KNOW that, though. The same explanation goes for the Lazarevic one.
 * Lazarevic knows that Drake is the more adept treasure hunter than Flynn - I think he even says that he wishes he'd hired Drake. Flynn himself probably realises this on some level so his plan may have been to stay out of the way and let Drake find the path to Shambhala for him - which is exactly what ended up happening. If Flynn stuck around, Drake was not going to search and knowingly lead Lazarevic there.
 * During the train level, Nate crosses a flatbed car with a tank and comments, "What do they need a tank for?" Later, the tank is a major boss. However, the tank was on the section of train that got blown off when the helicopter first shows up during the train level... so they shouldn't've had the tank later in the game. While the bad guys could've had two tanks, what do they need two tanks for in the Himalayas?
 * For the same reason Mao's Chinese Army needed nearly 200 of them during the invasion of Tibet: because while it is POSSIBLE to make do without them, it sure is a HELL of a lot easier with them. That, and they were in the middle of an effing civil war of their own making, one which might get a lot larger depending on the intervention of the West (ESPECIALLY India) and/or China, both of whom would certainly be bringing heavy firepower. So it makes sense that Lararevic would want as much firepower as possible to carve their way through the civil war and possibly ward off any attempt by anybody to disrupt the expedition.
 * Lazarevic wasn't taking those tanks into the city. He was taking them into the mountains. You know, the exact terrain where tanks are at their least effective? How was he even able to get his other tank up to the Tibetan village when it was seated at the top of a high mountain with a sharp incline on all sides, anyway?
 * You are forgetting that "Least effective" does not mean "not effective," particularly since those in the mountains and other areas where tanks are unlikely to pop up tend to be prepared for them the least. And he might be taking them because it's better to do so than to abandon them and thus have them get picked up by one of the sides in the civil war and thus lost to his arsenal. As for how they get the tank up there, well I believe it would involve extremely complicated and low-tech pullies, amongst other things.
 * Complicated = a long time to assemble. No good. And mountains are craggy and steep enough that "least effective" could mean "not effective" for tanks.
 * Drake himself mentions this several times, including during the tank battle. But honestly? It's Tank Goodness, or perhaps Everything's Better With Tanks?
 * He's taking on Nathan Friggin' Drake. Why didn't he bring a dozen more tanks?
 * Lazarevic attempts to pull a Not So Different on Drake, despite killing goons who tore apart civilians, rebels, and some more civilians for, as far as they're concerned, a stone that's just really fucking expensive.
 * Gamesradar has already done an article that points out that Drake destroyed Way to go, Drake.
 * Link, please?
 * Enlightened? That's what you call people who shoot first, ask later, never try to be calm and rational, and drink the sap that works like a mix of Forced Evolutionary Virus and crack?
 * They were defending their home from invaders - the first invaders in hundreds of years. When colonists first arrived in the United States and tried to take resources and land from the Native Americans, the natives were seen as "primitive" and barbaric because they fought back - it's the same principle. Shambhala has only remained safe because of its isolation - when foreigners enter their city, clearly heavily armed, how would you expect them to react? Really, the best option would've been to leave well alone, possibly taking back some of the sap for medical studies.
 * Unfortunately, Lazarevic would not have left well enough alone, and if he escaped, we have a damn near invincible nutcase with a damn near invincible army on our hands. And it may be my imagination, but it didn't seem as if the Guardians were really living in Shambhala - the place was crumbling before the characters arrived. So they don't maintain it, they just drink the sap and attack whoever enters without trying to negotiate (which should be easy enough, since they're almost immune to bullets. But they don't even try). Hardly sounds peaceful or 'enlightened' (and I'd like a definition of that one, please). Don't get me wrong, I wish the city hadn't been destroyed, I wish the Tree could have been preserved, but ultimately there weren't many options.
 * In Drake's Fortune, why was it so imperative that Nate solve all the puzzles? They only led to places which had already been explored and which were already swarming with enemies.
 * Nate was following the treasure map. He was following an ancient path, discovered or established hundreds of years before. The puzzle were in the way to deter people way back when, and he's solving them because he doesn't want to lose the trail. As for his enemies, see below.
 * The enemy placement was perplexing at times. As an example, Sully said he sent his cohorts on a red herring on the other side of the monastery yet not only do we still find enemies patrolling nearby but they're in areas that were supposedly unknown to anyone but Nate's party.
 * As mentioned above, Nate is following the path set out by the map. His enemies, however, don't have the benefit of the map, and therefore are tearing the island apart trying to find El Dorado. It makes sense that while Nate is doggedly determined to following the trail of the map for fear of getting lost, his opponents would be more interested in scouring every square mile of that dinky little island. As a result, they're avoiding the obstacles; just navigating past walls and doors and such where they can. The game is actually pretty good about not having normal enemies in areas they haven't found yet.
 * In Drake's Fortune, how did Drake not see the giant Nazi radio tower? It is the tallest thing on the island and would be clearly visible. When playing the game, it is usually off screen and you'd have to move the screen up to see it so the player is unlikely to notice it on the first run through, but in game there is no excuse.
 * People have a tendency to edit out things they don't expect. There's an experiment where people are asked to watch a video of a ball being passed from one hand to another, and count the passes to people in white shirt. After they're done, the experimenter asks them how many times the person in the gorilla suit crosses the screen. The subject often doesn't recall seeing them in the first place.
 * There's a difference between "not expecting something" and "paying close attention to something else". The argument you gave is the latter, the OP's question is the former. The mast should also stick out above trees, so just about every time Drake looks up, he should go, "Hey, what's that?" and not "edit it out", as you say.
 * Okay. Maybe he just thought it was built by the government for cell phones boat radios or something. I can't find any screenshots with the tower. Could someone post a link to a 'shot, or a video of a playthrough with a timecode? Also, for what it's worth, I watched a whole playthrough and somehow missed the tower. Then again, I occasionally miss things in real life that I've passed dozens of times, even when not distracted by folks trying to ventilate me.
 * The tower could be easily missed in a playthrough, and the camera might not even move enough for you to see it; the OP's got no problem with that. I think he's trying to get at something like "Drake sees radio tower, realizes there's buildings here more recent than the 17th century". Remember, Nate and Elena had no idea there was a Nazi base on the island before they were forced in there by the zombies.
 * I missed the tower on every playthrough of the game, and consider myself a pretty observant player - Drake probably missed the tower for the same reasons, i.e. that he was almost always being shot at or facing some other perilous danger. There wasn't any time for sightseeing and when there were moments of peace, he was in ruined cities or forests where there were plenty of other, more obvious, things to grab his attention.
 * Yes, because the camera is fixed in the third person. It points at Drake constantly. You can see the tower if you move the camera at the right time, but the fact that the player isn't going to notice it doesn't excuse why Drake doesn't. It should have been right in his line of vision.
 * So what? He has a lot more to look at. And the guy had no inkling at all that there may have been a Nazi base on the island, and we often miss what we don't expect to be there. I never saw the tower, and I made a habit of stopping to look at all the gorgeous scenery. If anything, Drake is more blind than the player because his viewpoint is closer to the ground, restricted to how far he can turn his head and can't be panned or zoomed.
 * Seriously, how did that sub get up the waterfall. Wasn't the Nazi base at sea level? The seas would've have to have risen, what, something like a hundred feet for it to make it up there?
 * I might be forgetting something, but isn't it said in-game that it was carried there by a tsunami? At the least, I think Sully theorises as such...
 * This doesn't specifically answer the question, but a slight correction: the Nazi base was on a completely different island (for that matter, it's never stated that the first part of the game takes place on an island at all - it could just be some remote part of the Amazonian rainforest). Drake heads to the island after finding the map in the U-boat.
 * I'm willing to bet that it got scuttled there, and a freak-of-nature earthquake pushed it up a hundred feet.
 * Why didn't Nate shoot the sap before Lazarevic drank it, and save himself (and the player) a truly frustrating experience?
 * As mentioned above, the sap could mean miracles for the medical industry - maybe a part of Drake hoped to take down Lazarevic without endangering the Tree of Life so that he could claim some of the sap for himself (he is a treasure hunter, after all) and take it back for study.
 * So shoot Lazarevic.
 * Because Mr. Drake is the Hero, and according to the Rules of Heroes, you're not supposed to shoot the bad guy until he's done powering himself up. After all, you need to give this Complete Monster a fair chance of battle, no?
 * Not even that completely fits - Drake's an Anti Hero, not a straight-laced hero, and several levels earlier, he had taken a man hostage, one of the Things a Hero (Generally) Does Not Do.
 * Perhaps he was just honestly curious whether it work. That's what I chalked it up to. His curiosity overcame his rational impulse for a moment. At the wrong moment.
 * That makes sense given his habit of examining whatever artifact he's just found there and then, no matter how dangerous a place he might be in, and ignoring other characters when they tell him to hurry up and keep moving. I think he's just prone to thinking irrationally whenever he's confronted with something he finds interesting.
 * There's one other thing to remember: Lazarevic wasn't alone. He had several mooks there with him. Oh, sure, Nate's gunned down hundreds of bad guys, but he did that (mostly) out of necessity, such as when he was cornered, or when there were bad guys between him and where he needed to go, and when he had the chance to sneak up on people, he had a) the benefit of backup, and b) a minute or two to think things over. In this situation, he's got the drop on the bad guys, but Lazarevic is seconds away from drinking the sap, Nate's tired, beat up, and not feeling too good, and the tactical situation is not in his favor. He stops to catch his breath, maybe not necessarily believing in the healing power of the sap (or at least not believing that it would be nearly instantaneous), or more like because he just doesn't know about the healing power of the sap. It's never been shown to do such in the game before, and the resin is just violently explosive. So, all things considered, Nate takes a moment to catch his breath in preparation of taking on bad odds, Lazarevic drinks the sap, and then he realizes he should've acted first, too late to do anything about it.
 * Between the events of Drake's Fortune and Among Theives. As we know at the end of Drakes Fortune Nate makes off with several crates worth of Spanish colonial gold and othersuch treasure; so, with all that money why did he not buy himself a bulletproof vest? Or at least a flak jacket? Instead opting to rush into a gunfight unarmored? (Side note: I will not accept the answer that it would hinder agility, the Mooks seem to do fine in that aspect.)
 * Nate really doesn't expect to get into gunfights. He's a treasure hunter; technically the places he's exploring shouldn't have any guards that aren't hundreds of years dead. Most of the time he doesn't even seem to carry a gun. He should probably know better by now, but could we have a Wet T Shirt Scene with a flak jacketed Nate? No, we could not. And what a waste that would be.
 * Except he initiates the conflict between him and Lazarevic by strolling into the latter's camp, blowing stuff up, and killing guards. Then he goes to a city that he knows Lazarevic has filled with people who want to kill him. Both times, he had plenty of time to go and buy a bulletproof vest at a store or order one online. And it's not like vests are hyper-expensive; the vast majority of them cost less than $1000, and you can easily find some for less than $500. Even if he was strapped for cash, a vest would be a valuable investment.
 * The first thing: Chloe was directing them through that, and it was on her orders they started shooting up the camp. The second thing: I don't think Nate expected Lazarevic to start a civil war just to cover him finding the right temple. But you have a point - maybe Nate was seriously strapped for cash after getting out of that jail?
 * Sully and Chloe, however, aren't poor. Right before they go into Lazarevic's camp, Nate could say to Chloe, "Oh, hey, do you think I could borrow some money to buy some protection just in case everything goes to hell? I'll pay you back ten times once we find the Cintimani Stone."
 * Actually, they are poor. Sully specifically states when he busts Nate out of the Turkish prison that he "had to blow through [Nate's] entire stash, and a good part of [his] own" to do so. And Chloe is, prior to the opening of the game, working with Lazarevic, implying that she needs money enough to work with a psychopath.
 * I would not trust Nathan Drake as far as I could throw him with a promise like that, even if I was certain he'd find the Stone (which they aren't). Would you?
 * Even if he was strapped for cash, he surely could have looted one off a guard he had killed by headshot or stealth attack at some point. He's got about the most generic body frame one could imagine. That said, he probably didn't want it because it would interfere with his parkour.
 * Sully states in the scene after the failed heist that he had to use the last of Drake's loot to bail him out of that Turkish prison, so no more treasure after that point.
 * How did Lazarevic just stroll into Kathmandu (the city) and cause a civil war in it without any form of retaliation from the Nepalese Army? Kathmandu is politically unstable in real life, but what's basically happening is a mercenary group waltzing into Nepal's capital city and largest metropolitan center and not only destroying it but ransacking its temples, some of which are over five hundred years old, and thereby destroying a large part of its cultural heritage. And it's not like Nathan and Lazarevic got there at the same time, and Nepal simply hasn't responded yet; it's heavily implied that Lazarevic has been there for at least days by the time Nathan arrives. Additionally, the Nepalese Army is headquartered in Kathmandu, and so should have lots of troops there already. Did Naughty Dog simply forget that Nepal has an army?
 * I think they did. I mean, I'm pretty sure Nepal would not just stand there while some mercenary punk ran around hurting its people and culture. I think they forgot either by accident or because they didn't want to bother including another sub-plot where the Nepalese Army comes in.
 * Perhaps Lazarevic hired his private army out to one side or another as a cover. Possibly to the Nepalese government to put down the rebels.
 * Imagine the government's reaction in that situation; it's not like he can brush off everything as collateral damage:
 * Perhaps Lazarevic hired his private army out to one side or another as a cover. Possibly to the Nepalese government to put down the rebels.
 * Imagine the government's reaction in that situation; it's not like he can brush off everything as collateral damage:

Lazarevic: "Um... I want shiny?""


 * The Nepalese military *REEEAAAALLLY* is not the world's finest, to put it generously. They were stalemated and arguably *lost* a ten year war against Maoist guerrillas who were largely operating off of table scraps and what they could seize (and the occasional aid from Red China and India's Naxalites that nobody wants to acknowledge) when they themselves were equipped with aid from the better chunk of the Western world for starters. In addition, as far as armed forces go, they're rather small even for the country's size, at less than 100,00, of which 40,000 aren't regulars, all of whom are of uneven quality from battle-hardened veterans of said 10-year civil war to "very green" to "worse than very green". Lazarevic's army doesn't have to be *large*, all it has to be is comparatively high quality in personnel and equipment and with the proper preparation. If Lazarevic restarts the old civil war and forces the government to commit most of its' troops out to the outlying countryside *like they did during the war with the Maoists*, he can probably waltz in fairly easily and occupy a large section of the capital and resist any attempts to dislodge him by either side unless they were willing to take punishing if not crippling losses to do it (and thus open themselves up to exploitation by their native enemy). If he guards his territory fairly well and acts relatively unambitiously (basically, what he is: a looter looking for goodies rather than some filibuster trying to take the country over), it's quite possible the government and their enemies (be they Maoist or otherwise) would judge that they have bigger fish to fry and assume they can deal with him once the situation's stabilized enough that they can free up enough men to evict an elite mercenary army from their capital. TL;DR: Lazarevic doesn't have to destroy the Nepalese military or government. All he has to do is beat them up enough until they are forced to fully commit themselves to the civil war and leave him alone, something he can *probably* do. Add *that* to potential covers like signing on officially with one sides (and remember: they only can't prove it's collateral damage if somebody witnesses it, which given Lazarevic is... unlikely.
 * The thing is, Nepal's army isn't even mentioned. The developers could've just handwaved it with, "Now that the guerrillas have been pushed out of this section of the city, the army isn't interested in it anymore, so Lazarevic can search unimpeded. It's just you and him now." Additionally (I could be wrong here, correct me if so), restarting a civil war takes time. I'm assuming Nathan headed for Kathmandu as soon as possible, which I'm guessing is about a week. However, Lazarevic gets there first and tears enough of the city apart to make it seem like he got the war started up in a few days, which doesn't sound like enough time to me. Furthermore, the party behind the guerrillas was the ruling party of Nepal when the game was made (and still is). Finally, leaving absolutely no survivors is incredibly difficult, especially in urban warfare. A few soldiers and armed policemen are likely to be left behind to hold down the fort, so to speak, and if even one of them sees Lazarevic's brutality and escapes to warn Nepal, the army is likely to focus on fighting a defensive war against the guerrillas and try to oust Lazarevic instead; what's the point of winning a war if the thing you won is ravaged? And Lazarevic can't have too many of his men in the city, or he'll draw attention to himself and the destruction he's causing.
 * The army is fighting against the rebels. The civil war isn't one in which Lazarevic is directly involved, he just formented it so he could sweep in and take advantage of the chaos to turn the city upside-down without raising too many eyebrows (since the city was already a warzone).
 * Who was building the traps made out of the plane parts on the island? It wasn't Raja's men because he wanted to know, it wasn't Roman's men because he didn't know either, and the Descendants were too far gone to make anything that sophisticated.
 * Judging from the footprints around the traps (at least the one made of airplane scraps) it probably was the Descendants. Maybe they're smarter than they show us in the game.
 * Notice that the Descendants do actually wear loincloths and necklaces. Plus they appear to have stalked Drake for a while; after they encounter the trap Drake says "we're being watched", and you can hear them moving in a temple long before you actually see them. I think it's possible that the Descendants are actually sentient, but have an overpowering urge to protect El Dorado (or just really bad tempers) which makes them appear to be just animals.
 * Why would Lazarevic have a helicopter following the train? It makes little to no sense to deploy a helicopter to scour a train just in case some guy jumps on, and the pilot, quite frankly, is a moron, firing missiles at his own train just to kill one guy. When he starts blowing cars off the train, you'd think someone would radio Lazarevic and go, "Uh, sir, Dominic is being a douche; he's destroying the train." And what's up with that turret in the middle of a passenger car? If it was on a flatcar, I could understand, but sticking it in a passenger car restricts its effective firing area to a relatively tiny margin and provides a very easy way to get around it.
 * So, is Talbot ever going to be explained at all? His but what about
 * The way I saw it, by the end of the game I guessed Talbot As for the
 * Does any of his supposed happen outside of ? If not, that would explain that. As for him   in Syria, I assumed he  The above theory that  would explain why he has access to the  when seemingly nobody else does. But I'm sure some alternate theory could be cooked up if needs be. To the Wild Mass Guessing page!
 * Word of God confirms
 * Why is it that all of these ancient structures just collapse into the depths of the Earth immediately after Drake and his friends defeat the antagonist? I mean I understand that no structures last forever but it seems very convenient timing that they always collapse after the villain has died and the structure would be ripe for exploration. I mean Drake's fortune (pardon the pun) would go up immensely if he could get a television crew to come explore these locations with him, the scientific community gets valuable data on ancient civilizations and Nathan gets a reward of some sort. Hell would it hurt him to bring a camera so he at least has proof that the ancient city/palace/fortress/whatever that just disappeared forever ever existed?
 * I don't know why Nate himself doesn't bring a camera, but the one time he had a cameraman with him, the guy died. One of two good guys to die in the whole series.
 * Well the ruins on the island in the first game are still there presumably. However so are the Descendants. And top that off with the fact that El Dorado is unbelievably dangerous and people would naturally want to exploit/study it, which is likely dangerous, they don't really want anyone to find the island. It would be bad. The fact that they gathered enough treasure to make sure they're set for quite some time doesn't hurt: they don't really have a reason or a need for money after that haul.
 * As for It wasn't convenient. It was cause and effect.
 * It was also wildly accidental. Nate was trying to do something else in both instances. The fact that he set off a chain reaction of destruction wasn't his intention, but given the massive consequences of the discovery of , he probably doesn't feel too bad about it.
 * What the heck was with the spider-swarms from hell present in locations as far-flung as France, Syria, and Yemen? Marlowe's group had clearly been studying them, but since the ending of Drake's Deception suggests there never was any sort of supernatural or even preternatural horrors involved (the various horrors being, so far as we know, all hallucinations), they're kind of baffling. And they can't be hallucinatory - multiple characters all see them at the same time.
 * I had a theory that the spiders followed the hallucinogenic water. Because Marlowe and co clearly had a batch of it on them in order to control Cutter, and later Nate, I wonder if some was bought back? Therefore it could have been present in the above three places, and the spiders followed? Or the spiders are caused by the water? This is really something I wish they'd addressed.
 * I'm confused about
 * The point is to show the difference between Talbot and Nate. They're fairly similar in their own ways, around the same age, physical fitness, etc. The only difference is their morals, and clearly their loyalty. Nate would go to hell and back to save Sully . While Talbot is loyal to Marlowe, he has his limits when it  . Hence him yelling at the infinitely braver/more noble Nate to risk his skin. Also with Sully saying 'Like hell he can't'. He's basically saying 'Talbot can get off his ass and do it'.
 * In the UC 2 train level, was the level moving around the train, or the train moving through the level? From a rendering standpoint, I mean.
 * I believe Naughty Dog stated that the level is the train moving through the scenery, instead of the other way around. I don't believe it actually makes a difference in terms of rendering, though.
 * How did Nate know for a fact that the piece of the Golden Hind they were looking for was in the exact same room they found out about it? What was their in the decoder, the ring, Drake's diary, Lawrence's diary, and literally everything else that has led up to that point that gave even the slightest inkling to the mere possibility that the exact thing they were looking for was in that one particular room?
 * I think that the room was filled with items that were originally in the Francis Drake museum. My theory was that Nate spotted something he recognised from the museum, and concluded that Marlowe probably had the Golden Hind in there somewhere as well. I keep meaning to take a closer look each time I play through.
 * Is Talbot a Djinn, an ex-black ops or what? I'm seriously confused on just what the guy's deal is.
 * I think he was once the UK equivalent of the black ops. (Don't know what it's called, though...)
 * The SAS, famously portrayed in Modern Warfare.
 * Thank you, friend. =D
 * Okay, so according to the flashback of, the feud between him and Marlowe was at a stalemate because he had the ring and she had the decoder. So...for twenty years they decided to ignore each other until a day arose where they'd both resume that old quest? Just what was the point of the Kid Drake session? I mean, it's cool that we got to see how the two first met and all, but are they seriously suggesting that the both of them decided to let the stalemate go 20 years?
 * For starters, the session existed because the game is very much about Nate and Sully's relationship, it only makes sense to show where it started out. And as for the idea of a feud last for around twenty odd years, it could be that the two did clash now and again, we've just not see it in game. Or that Marlowe decided to try and find what she was looking for without the ring, and Nate was distracted by other adventures.
 * Don't forget, also, that the whole point of the first chapter is to draw Marlowe out of her hole. Wherever she's been for the last twenty-odd years, she's been unreachable by Nate and Sully for the entire time. It's not a matter of Marlowe avoiding Drake or vice-versa. It's that Marlowe is the head of a secret society, and until Nate actively goes looking for her, she simply doesn't have the time to invest in discovering Ubar, especially without the ring.
 * Sully and Drake probably wanted to keep away from Marlowe for a while. Considering she obviously has a huge amount of henchmen and weapons, and you have the exact object she wants and one of you is an ex-employee, the odds aren't in Sully and Drake's favor.
 * Plus, at the time, Drake's a child, and as we clearly saw, can't quite handle himself in a fight just yet. Sully just managed to get there seconds before Henchman #331 shot Nate. If they started up trouble right then and there...well...they may not be so lucky next time.
 * Why is the hallucinogen in Ubar worth fighting over? I mean, Talbot uses more effective stuff on you throughout the game and it's never made clear what Marlowe is planning to do with it. Maybe 3000 years ago, a hallucinogen would be useful, but more advanced stuff exists now and it all seems kind of pointless.
 * Talbot's injections mostly just made you stumble around and act paranoid. That's not quite on the same level as hallucinating armies of flaming demons.
 * I always assumed it was the same stuff, just in smaller quantities. Maybe Marlowe and Talbot found a small supply of the hallucinogenic water, but wanted to find the source of it?
 * The whole acting paranoid thing may be what brought down Ubar. Everyone thought the other person was out to get them, so they had to act first. As for the 'army of flaming demons', maybe that was just exaggeration by an outside witness to help explain why a city's population inexplicably started killing each other.
 * Why do Nate and all his friends get so obsessed about finding the treasure in order to achieve wealth? Don't they realize that the ruins they keep discovering again and again would in and of themselves be worth top dollar to the international science community? If it really is about the history of it all for Nate then he would contact someone and have them study these ruins so they learn more about these ancient cultures and how they lived, I think those ruins and all their various mechanical devices and traps would tell them a hell of a lot more about that culture than some treasure ever would. Having every reporter from East to West coming at you for interviews ought to produce some degree of revenue for Nate and his friends.
 * There are a couple reasons: First, Most of the really interesting ruins he finds wind up getting destroyed either by Nate's actions or by the people following him, and several of the others they'd rather leave sealed because they contain some horrible monster. Without anything to show a scientist, he doesn't sound any different from any other nutcase who has been raving about Shambala over the last few centuries. Second, Nate and Sully aren't exactly the most credible interviews. Neither really has a ton of education, and both are career criminals who have been in and out of jail most of their lives. Nate is living under a fake name. Third, considering the chaos they go through in the games, I wouldn't be surprised if there are open warrants for them in several countries. Two of the games feature high profile museum robberies. Considering all the corpses he leaves behind and the fact that he winds up killing the villains, someone's gotta answer for all that carnage. And fourth, as the third game showed, Nate and Sully have spent most of their lives laying low from a powerful and wealthy secret society that wants to find Ubar. Becoming an international celebrity paints a target on them.
 * Does Nate really kill as many people in canon as he does in the actual game play? In Uncharted 1 Eddy made a couple of comments about his men dying left and right but didn't seem to have much of a grudge over it with Nate as his behavior towards Drake seemed like more of a rivalry (Nate's journal says R.I.P about Eddy). Lazarevic in Uncharted 2 makes a big deal out of how many of his men Nate had killed just in that one day alone in order to illustrate how they weren't really all that different from each other. If it really is true that Nate gets shot at for hours (the Uncharted games normally take me about 10 or so hours to finish on average) and kills that many men in such a short span of time (even the best soldiers take a while to rack up kills in a war) then I find it amazing that he hasn't mentally broken down by now. Furthermore you would think these guys would stop being so persistent in killing Nate after he killed hundreds of their buddies, even going so far as to bring a freaking helicopter to try and kill him on a moving train as another guy pointed out already.
 * Gameplay abstraction. I would wager that Nate has to sleep, eat, drink, go to the loo, wash, bandage his cuts and grazes, change clothes, shoot up various antivenins, get immunised, get stuck in customs, fill out forms, get paroled, buy equipment, smuggle equipment and so on and so on and so forth throughout the dozen or so hours each that games take up in reality, but we don't see it because it would be boring. Similarly, he probably hasn't killed as many dudes as the gameplay would have us believe - it's just exaggerated for us, the players, to make it a challenge. Lazaravic is a bit of an anomaly in that the guy had his own goddamn army swarming after him as well being megalomaniacally obsessed with finding the Cintamani Stone (and a bit of a drama whore; why let Nate and Elena see Shambhala otherwise?), so I do believe he would really send helicopters and tanks after Nate just to kill him, but he's unusual. Gameplay rarely has a one-to-one relationship with what actually happens to the characters.
 * If Nathan Drake has any doubt about not being a biological heir of Sir Francis Drake then why doesn't he go back to that cursed island and take Drake's dead body back to civilization? They can run a DNA test on the body and see if it matches with his; or would finding DNA in a corpse hundreds of years old be too difficult?
 * If there's water where Drake's corpse is, it might make it exceedingly difficult. The theory of ancient DNA testing is split in half, one side saying it's possible, the other saying that it's impossible. There's been general infighting among the Egyptian Archaeological scene over the ability to test mummified remains, and Drake's corpse looks like it isn't a traditional, manufactured mummy.
 * Plus, Drake would have to convince so many people to do a DNA test on him and Francis to see if they matched. Plus, there's a good chance Nate isn't descended from Francis, so why ruin the fun and mystery of it?
 * Where do all these villains find such dedicated mooks? They continue trying to kill Drake long after any normal man would have stopped out of the sheer absurdity of everything else going on around. Uncharted 1 has the bad guys shooting at you with the presence of those descendants/zombies. Uncharted 2 has the bad guys continue to shoot at you as various buildings collapse, once again when monsters are present (7 feet tall superman with incredible muscle mass and strength), and with the presence of a damn helicopter shooting directly at you. Uncharted 3 has the bad guys shoot at you in the middle of a burning mansion, various damaged buildings, and for once the main bad guy himself sticks around even when Ubar is collapsing into the desert. Why are these guys so determined to kill one man?
 * Promises of riches, power, or threats from the Big Bad would be one explanation. Another would be that Nate has probably killed one more more of their buddies by that point.
 * In 3, why does Talbot run from Nate in the parkour chase level? Nate is unarmed, Talbot is easily Nate's equal in hand-to-hand, and Marlowe's men are all close at hand. If he hadn't run, they could have easily overpowered Nate.
 * He was probably trying to draw Nate away from wherever Sully was at that point.
 * So, twenty years ago, Victor took Nate in and essentially became the boy's surrogate father. Except...that's not Victor's legal decision to make. Legally, Victor should've given Nate to a local orphanage or foster home in Spain, as that's where they were. What Victor did was essentially kidnap an orphaned kid from the street. How the hell did he manage to raise Nate for 20 years without getting into some kind of trouble with the law?
 * Victor and Nate are both professional criminals and con men. They live off the grid. How would they ever be found, let alone get in trouble with social services? Also, it was Colombia, not Spain.