IGN has published interviews with some of the people behind Uncharted 2, conducted during a recent press event. Here is an interview with Evan Wells, the co-founder of Uncharted developer Naughty Dog before it was acquired by Sony. And here is the interview with creative director Amy Hennig.

There aren't a lot of specifics, of course, since this is the first round of press and Sony will want to draw out the coverage on the way to the holiday release. So we get marketspeak blurbs like this one from Wells:

...the way we do our cinematics and the way we capture performance and the way we convey emotions through our actors -- that doesn't just stop at the end of a cutscene; that continues throughout the gameplay in Drake's body animation and his facial animation, and the NPC's animations, and the comments that Drake makes, and the story that unfolds while you're playing the game. It's really that intersection of the cinematic presentation with the really, really tight, fun, exciting action that we provide. I think that makes Uncharted unique from any other action-adventure game out there.

And then there's this one from Hennig:

...what differentiates our game from a lot of other games is that it is character driven. People may be initially attracted by spectacle, but they stick around for the substance of the story...joining the spectacle of creating a summer blockbuster experience with the substance of creating a great movie-like experience for the player where they're in control. By thinking always about how the story's character driven -- not just sort of external obstacles or visceral obstacles but also emotional ones -- I think it makes you want to constantly keep the controller in your hands and not put it down.

You could apply these comments to pretty much any action game before it's released, because this is exactly the sort of vague unverifiable stuff a developer is supposed to say in between the bullet points about how many levels, the multiplayer features, and whatever gimmick du jour the game leans on.

But the funny thing about this sort of marketspeak is that sometimes, when it comes to a really well done game like Uncharted, it's right on the money. Wells and Hennig have very effectively articulated what made the first Uncharted as good as it was. And that's the first step to Uncharted 2 being a worthy follow-up.