Uncharted 3 Drake’s Deception Multiplayer beta – 2011, Naughty Dog, PS3.
Hey guys, can I grab a lift?
Historically I haven’t been a multiplayer focused sort of person, but Uncharted 2 was the first game that I got really addicted to its multiplayer and played the heck out of it. Understandably I had been looking forward to the Uncharted 3 multiplayer beta ever since I heard the announcement. Thanks to Sony getting hacked I was able to play that first week only for Playstation Plus members (and really, anyone who wanted to play this beta just had to wait before cashing in that membership, so there’s no excuse for not getting in).
Naughty Dog has said that they want this to be the definitive multiplayer experience on the Playstation 3, and that they’re in this to compete with the other major multiplayer games. They’ve made a significant number of improvements that give more variety, incentives to play and excitement to the experience. The thing that separated Uncharted from other games is its third-person perspective and also how much traversal plays a part in the game’s maps. Nathan Drake has more upper body strength than anyone in the world and this means that he can do a heck of a lot of climbing. This translates into maps with a lot of verticality, so you’re constantly having to keep your eyes above and below you for possible targets.
Pretty lighting.
Right now there are two maps: Airstrip and The Chateau. If you’re playing Team Deathmatch, The Airstrip starts on a commercial plane taking off and being chased by trucks. Depending on which team you’re on you’ll be defending or storming the plane. This is pretty amazing and has a unique Uncharted level of excitement to it. How balanced this map is remains to be seen, but it’s still really cool. The Chateau is more of a closer quarters kind of map with a lot of verticality and small rooms with big gun fights. This map and the second phase of The Airstrip both have scripted events like a floor collapsing or a plane flying overhead shooting or blowing stuff up. These sort of things existed in UC2, but they’re still fun to experience.
In the beta there are five modes: team death match, free for all, three team deathmatch, hardcore and co-op. These are actually almost all new additions except for TDM and aspects of co-op. Team Deathmatch are two teams of 5 trying to get 50 kills. This mode has all the bells and whistles of the new gameplay additions in the game. The biggest addition are Power Plays which are intended to balance out the score when one team is dominating by at least 5-6 kills. In those situations the losing team gets a bonus like “Marked Man” where a specific player on the opposing team has an icon visible from anywhere on the map and their death now counts for 3. This causes the defenders to go crazy and the attackers to drop what they’re doing and seek this guy out.
Jumping from one moving vehicle to another? Yep, this is an Uncharted game.
The other Power Plays include abilities like seeing all enemies’ arrows through walls and double damage. If you’re not ahead by the time all three have gone off then you’re on your own. These Power Plays really bring some excitement to the game and sometimes they’ll work so well that you’ll find yourself on the other side of the Power Play. In most of the games I’ve played in this mode the games end up very close in the end. If by the end of the round a team is only winning by 1 then it goes into a one minute sudden death mode. If the score is still tied after sudden death, everyone’s arrows become visible and everyone has only one life.
Power Plays and boosters also work in Free for All and Three Team Deathmatch which consists of three teams of two. For those who don’t want all the boosters, power plays and extra abilities there’s a hardcore mode for those who want everything to be purely skill based.
Co-op mode teams you up with two additional players. This is ten rounds of three game types. There’s survival which is just waves and waves of enemies until the timer goes down. There’s Siege which requires you all to be in one specific region in order for your points to count, and then there’s Gold Rush where you have to take treasure from one part of the map to another. One addition in that mode is that you can now shoot your pistol while holding the treasure. In UC2 you were at the mercy of your teammates if the bullets started flying.
The first stealth kill I got I said "OH SNAP!" The medal for stealth kills is "Oh Snap!" Naughty Dog, you understand me too well.
There are a lot of other small gameplay additions too. There’s a new buddy system where if you’re not playing with friends you’re assigned a buddy, and you can respawn near them after getting killed provided they’re not currently under direct fire. If they’re shooting at someone then you can spawn in and help out. Also, kills which you accomplish together give a D-pad down prompt which can let you high five or fist bump your buddy which is a lot of fun and gives you a medal. I hope Naughty Dog adds some more of these.
Now there’s also a sprint ability you can activate by clicking in the left thumbstick. This is great for people like me who enjoy sneaking up on guys who aren’t sprinting. In UC2 if I wanted to sneak up on someone I had to hope that eventually they paused or took a break if I wanted to overtake them. Also there are Treasures which appear randomly in designated treasure boxes or when you kill an enemy. There are quite a few of them in dozens of sets. These unlock different outfits for your characters and just add another thing to do while playing. Treasure chests either hold new treasures or special one-time paid boosters. Either way you receive a medal for collecting treasure, but you’ll never have to worry about getting the same treasure over and over again which is good for collectors.
No he's not shooting the plane, but dammit that would be amazing.
Some other tweaks are that a quick tap of the triangle button can let you throw grenades back at people if you do it in time. Also you find yourself hanging from a ledge next to someone else also on the same ledge, you can kick them down. There are a few new stealth kill animations, but some look smoother than others, another thing that is hopefully smoothed out for the full release.
Boosters have received a nice overhaul that make them more relevant and also provide more incentives. There are a number of booster abilities like: faster respawn, ability to see power weapons, quieter traversal, ammo for taunting or being able to see the arrow of the last guy who killed you. There are many more in the beta, and sure to be more in the full release. Like in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, these abilities can be leveled up for improved versions of them. To level up the boosters involves winning certain medals like medals for stealth killing, killing with power weapons, running around a lot or collecting treasure. There are also co-op specific boosters which can be even more powerful, but since they’re intended for use vs AI opponents then it’s not game breaking.
No no guys, we want to go IN the plane. IN!
There are also paid boosters which you can purchase before matches. These are powerful one-match boosters like an additional grenade slot, short range radar and stronger bullets. Early on these aren’t really much bang for your buck because it’s in your better interest to buy permanent boosters. Lastly, the big ability addition are kickbacks. These are special skills you can use once you’ve attained the required number of medals. For example 12 medals could get you an instant RPG, or 7 medals lets you move very quickly, or my personal favorite 10 medals gives you a cluster grenade that blows up into several other grenades. In higher level play these will make matches very interesting indeed.
That’s an overview of the biggest game changers, but they’ve also made some very small cosmetic tweaks that I really enjoyed. For one thing the guns all sound differently now. They were almost all different in the original, but the pistols used to sound exactly the same, but now they’re all completely distinct. They also added a sound effect for bullets hitting your target which is nice because then you know you’re hitting your mark. Previously you’d have to look closely for the blood splatter, but sometimes at a distance it was more difficult.
Drake vs three pirates. Poor pirates.
Another cosmetic addition are emblems. You can customize an emblem for yourself, and if you do well enough during the match it’ll appear on certain landmarks which doesn’t affect gameplay but it’s kind of cool to see your emblem on a huge wall or on ammo crates.
So far I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself in the UC3 Multiplayer beta, and I can’t wait to see all the other stuff that is in the full version. I think they’ve made smart decisions that make the game more exciting and dozens of medal rewards keep that positive reinforcement pleasure button running while you play. My only complaint is that my co-op teammates keep on acting like total morons during survival mode. I mean come on, why go to an open space when there’s so much cover around you???
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