Three Brains Review: First Impressions – Uncharted 2 MP Beta

At the beginning of June, Naughty Dog and Sony decided to be super nice to their fans and released TONS of beta codes into the wild for the upcoming game Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.  The beta includes two multiplayer maps – a night-time map named “Plaza” that puts you in the heart of a small town, and a daytime map named “Village” that drops you into a run-down slum.  Two modes of MP play are available; Deathmatch (which everyone knows and loves) and a new mode called “Plunder”, which finds you searching out treasure to bring back to your team’s base.  A co-op level that takes place in war-ravaged Nepal was also included, where up to three players had to work together to make it through alive.

Spawn Kill‘s very own pseudopseudo, K-Tuck and The Herp were lucky enough to get beta codes for themselves; after playing enough to get a good solid idea of what was going on, they decided to gather their collective thoughts for a Three Brains look at the beta, which has a lot of people talking.

pseudopseudo: Anyhow – to kick things off; without going too in-depth, what did you guys think of the beta overall? Personally, being a huge fan of the first Uncharted, I’ve been kind of frothing at the mouth for UC2 to come out, so this definitely holds me over for a little while. Needless to say, I’ve been digging it a lot.

K-Tuck: I feel like the general multiplayer aspect (aside from co-op) feels kind of out of place for how I know Uncharted to be. It is fun, it just seems somewhat unnecessary, especially considering that its probably only there to serve fan’s wishes for multiplayer in all games.

The Herp: You can tell that they actually spent some time and work on creating the multiplayer – but I agree that it feels a bit out of place. I still had a little fun playing it, but it’s not going to tear me away from other MP games like Killzone 2 or Call of Duty. It would have been nice to see if the money you are getting while you level up leads to something.

K-Tuck: …or a basic radar.

pseudopseudo: I’d have to completely disagree with both you there. Initially it felt out of place, but after the first couple of minutes, it made total sense. While I don’t think it’s “necessary”, it’s definitely not just there just to be there, and I think it’ll add a lot to the replayability of the title – something I felt the first one lacked.

The Herp: At least they have a completely separate team working on it – that way it doesn’t pull anyone off from the single player part of the game. I’m looking at you Godfather 2!

pseudopseudo: The thing that the multiplayer did the most for me was make me hungry for more – got me wondering what other modes (if any) will be included in multi in the full game. If it ends up being just Plunder and Deathmatch, I’ll be more than a little disappointed.

The Herp: It is fun for what it is, but they definitely have to tweak some things to make me want to play more of it.

K-Tuck: I don’t think that Deathmatch stood up well in comparison to Plunder.

pseudopseudo: How so?

K-Tuck: Running around and shooting the other team is something, like Herp said, that has been done to such an extent that players will find much more interesting mechanics in other titles, like Call of Duty. Plunder is more akin to a capture-the-flag type deal, with the stakes a little more even since the treasure is dropped in random locations between spawn points It basically emphasizes teamwork, something that Deathmatch seemed to lack entirely.

The Herp: Very true.

pseudopseudo: I wouldn’t say it lacked it entirely. I had more than a couple matches where we’d actually work as a team in DM to get the win. Unfortunately, that happens rarely, only because the majority of PS3 owners still seem to lack headsets to communicate. I wouldn’t fault that on Uncharted alone, however, as lack of teamwork seems to be the case for deathmatch in all shooters across the board.

K-Tuck: True, though a system like the classic Counter-Strike where you could issue commands would help even players without microphones.

The Herp: Personally, I think the problem with the beta was that the maps seemed to be kind of big, and it was only… what, 5 vs 5? There would be people scattered all over the map and I think it could have used another couple of players per game to fill the map up a bit.

pseudopseudo: You thought the maps were big? I actually thought the maps seemed a bit small – almost crowded at times. Especially the Village level.

The Herp: The village was small for sure, but the other one wasn’t.

K-Tuck: I thought the maps were quite well balanced for size, considering all the options for cover. Well, actually I could see some thinking the maps were large considering that many places had upper levels that could be accessed via climbing.

The Herp: I think Plaza was too big for that reason: because you had so many places where you could hide or climb up to.

pseudopseudo: In the Plaza the hiding spots seemed more obvious, but Village had plenty of them too – they were just a little harder to find.

K-Tuck: There definitely were a ton of cover options; I often found myself trying to roll to avoid fire only to press against some random wall.

pseudopseudo: That was definitely a problem – one that carried over from the first game, which is kind of disappointing.

K-Tuck: Absolutely. How did you guys feel about the graphics side?

pseudopseudo: I thought the graphics were as good as the first… and that’s about it. There were a couple of pop-in glitches I ran into from time to time, but I wrote them off because it was a beta. If that stuff winds up in the final game – not acceptable.

K-Tuck: I though the textures and models looked great, but overall things were dark, almost too dark to make out details.

The Herp: Yeah, there were some bugs here and there but overall it looked really good for a beta.

K-Tuck: There definitely were bugs, I spent about four minutes stuck inside a pile of rubbish, and somehow was still able to damage opponents. It was pretty crazy, but I was out of ammo and out of any hope of escape. I did manage to get a few melee hits in on opponents from within there…

The Herp: LOL yes! That was awesome!

pseudopseudo: I thought it was pretty funny that we had to kill you just to get you out.

K-Tuck: Indeed, I was asking for everyone’s help.

The Herp: Hahaha!

K-Tuck: Assisted suicide. Grenade euthanasia.

pseudopseudo: Let’s talk about the co-op real quick – you guys both got to play through that level, right? I was wondering how that was going to work out, but it seems like the teamwork goals were thought out fairly well.

The Herp: Yeah – I’m glad they included the co-op. It’s something that will add to the replay value – and you can gain XP while you play that counts towards your online profile.

K-Tuck: Yeah, I played it a few times. The areas that required teamwork were pretty cool, though I saw several allies getting confused on their objectives.

pseudopseudo: I had that too… I thought the bright red teamwork markers were obvious enough, but apparently not for some. Haha.

K-Tuck: Yeah, really. Though some more variety would have been nice for team-based objectives. Instead of just, lets move this thing so we can climb it, let’s move this other thing so that we can get through somewhere.

pseudopseudo: To be fair, I’m sure the full game has a lot more than that. At least – hopefully. I’d like to give it the benefit of the doubt for now.

The Herp: I liked the “buddy moments” and hopefully there will be a ton of those. I just hate it when people don’t go to the markers ’cause they want to gather ammo.

pseudopseudo: For sure. Either way, co-op is definitely a welcome addition to the series. I found myself wishing many a time that the first game had some kind of co-op in it – I think the storyline really lends itself to more than one player.

K-Tuck: …but they shouldn’t turn their noses up at players, like myself, who really get into deep solo adventures. Not to change the topic, but the grenade mechanic seemed really… awkward, to me. Did anyone else get that?

pseudopseudo: It was the same from the first game, wasn’t it?

The Herp: It was a little better than the first game, it just doesn’t seem conducive to the MP setup.

pseudopseudo: I thought it worked just fine.

K-Tuck: It seemed to work well from cover (well enough to not get in the way), but the distance/arc trajectory seemed unreliable.

pseudopseudo: If you couldn’t blind throw grenades… then it’d be a major problem.

The Herp: It’s not that, I’m used to throwing grenades without that line in there – it’s throwing them in 3rd person on the run.

pseudopseudo: Ahh, yeah. I’m definitely not saying there’s nothing wrong at all with the throw mechanics. I don’t know how long we all waited for teammates attempting to throw the statue for Plunder up to the second level in Plaza.

K-Tuck: Yeah, it took some of them several tries to get that throw down.

The Herp: Lots of ‘em kept on throwing it straight up in the air. Here’s where the difference is: when you are playing a FPS you can tell where you are looking and where the ‘nade is going to go. However, in third person it’s way harder to tell where it will go when you are on the run.

K-Tuck: Makes sense.

pseudopseudo: That’s true.

The Herp: Sometimes I would toss one thinking I aimed it perfect, and it would hit a wall in front of me instead ’cause my character had his back turned.

K-Tuck: Everything else seemed smooth, except for maybe the climbing – but Uncharted just does it differently than other titles, so no issues really.

The Herp: See thats were I think the MP can go wrong. It’s ok to have the same controls in Single Player, but in MP you need to be able to move faster. Getting stuck while climbing sucks! It’s not like I didn’t know the controls, but sometimes I would get stuck or would jump to a different wall than I wanted to.

K-Tuck: Yeah, but at least you could fire your pistol while hanging.

pseudopseudo: I don’t think it’d make any sense to have different controls for the SP and the MP.

The Herp: The characters just need to move a bit faster or smoother.

pseudopseudo: I guess I don’t see that at all. An ability to run, similiar to Gears of War or Call of Duty would be nice, but I don’t think it’s needed.

K-Tuck: Yeah, a sprint option would have helped.

pseudopseudo: So, to wrap it up: final thoughts? You guys thinking you’ll pick up the full game?

The Herp: Oh yeah for sure – but I don’t think the beta had anything to do with that other than showing off the co-op. I think if they want the MP to do well they have to bring something else to the table that sets it apart from the other MP shooters, ’cause [Halo 3] ODST and Modern Warfare 2 will be out around the same time.

pseudopseudo: Yeah, but ODST is Xbox-only, and MW2 is multiplatform. I think Uncharted is different enough from the other PS3 exclusive shooters (Killzone, Resistance, Warhawk) to carve out its own dedicated multiplayer fanbase.

K-Tuck: I’ll definitely be picking it up, but not for the multiplayer.

pseudopseudo: So Tuck… you think the multiplayer is a complete waste, or no?

K-Tuck: Not a complete waste, but not the main draw to the title. It’s a good addition, and not much more.

The Herp: I guess it’s kind of like Gears was when it came out. It’s your 3rd person shooter fix instead of playing an FPS.

K-Tuck: Yup.

pseudopseudo: I think that’s a very fair comparison. Actually, after the first couple of sessions I had with the UC2 beta, I had been comparing it to Gears to a lot of people. I think the multi plays very much the same.

The Herp: I do like it more than Gears 2 – ’cause the MP actually *works*.

pseudopseudo: Heyoo!

And that wraps it up!  If you’d like to see more Two or Three Brains style articles, let us know in the comments!

Tags:Beta, closed beta, co-op, first impressions, multiplayer, Preview, Three Brains, uc2, uncharted 2, uncharted 2: among thieves