Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was nothing but exquisite and its next version surely has some heart crunching thrills up its sleeves if the beta is anything to go by. The game has to fit into huge shoes, given that its predecessor won a legion of GotY awards. Uncharted 3 Multiplayer beta was first made available only for PlayStation Plus members and Infamous 2 code holders and then to everyone. Now that it’s been taken off the PSN, you’ve certainly missed a golden chance if you haven’t experienced it. Here’s a review for you.
First up, we speak about the character customization options in the game which allow you to tailor almost every aspect of the characters that are classified either as ‘heroes’ or ‘villains’. The humorous taunts can be changed to anything from Laugh, Flex, Kiss, Flurry and our personal favourite – Dance. Like modifying your weapons? Uncharted 3 gives users a range of loadouts. But that’s not all. Leveling up the character lets you earn money useful for unlocking weapon mods like weapon accuracies, larger ammo clips, faster reload times etc. First time players may find it difficult to earn money, but once they do, it’s worth all they’ve played for. Treasures appear when certain players die and can be picked up to complete sets and unlock additional character customizations.
A unique Uncharted TV at the bottom right of the screen can be enlarged and watched while other players join in. Its content subsumes behind the scenes interviews, plays of the week and much more. And this we think is a nice addition to game considering the long time it takes to find players amongst so much traffic. Remember the Twitter integration in the previous game? Naughty Dog has done away with that. Instead there’s Facebook for sharing achievements directly from the game. You can even message and play with friends who aren’t connected on the PlayStation Network. Now that’s something sweet. If you’re one of those who are obsessed with themselves, you can make use of the Cinema feature which enables saving videos of entire matches you participate in. As mentioned above, traffic is beleaguering as sometimes we had to wait for as long as 30 minutes to join a game. But we guess no one is to blame for this but gamers themselves.
Two brilliantly engineered maps – Chateau and Airstrip are integrated into the beta complete with their own climb-ups and hide-outs. Somewhere in the middle of a jungle lies an abandoned estate with nothing but debris around it. That is Chateau which begins and ends with short cut scenes giving it a dramatic angle. A mounted machine gun, a zip-line and a treacherous waterfall beckon you in this map. Airstrip begins with a moving plane sequence where heroes have to shield cargos inside the plane from villains who try to spoil the party by arriving in trucks. Feats like jumping from truck to truck or truck to plane, reminiscent of action movies, can be performed in the map. Once the plane departs, the action is relocated to a hangar providing machine guns, roof tops and even light aircrafts for players to use as hideouts. Graphics in both the maps are up to par with our expectations. But shadows in Airstrip do prove gnawing sometimes.
Five multiplayer modes which include the usual Team Deathmatch await you in this beta. This mode offers a simple but decent gameplay where the team with maximum kills wins. However, our fingers were mostly kept busy by The Team Objective that requires you to complete certain objectives like capturing hills, holding treasures etc. to add points to your overall counter. The first team with 3 points wins. Plunder mode sees villains protecting their loot while heroes try to salvage it back to their base. The true skills of gamers are tested by the Hardcore mode which contains no boosters and medal kickbacks. The Co-op Hunter Arena which debuted in Uncharted 2 pits two companions against waves of CPU-controlled enemies, each wave bringing different objectives like Gold Rush and Survival. All these modes offer their fair share of peaks and valleys for us to stay captivated into the game.
Throughout the matches, we get to earn medals and cash for feats like killing 2 enemies with a grenade or killing 3 with one grenade. We can then utilize this cash to buy weapon upgrades. A new feature in this game is the concept of kickbacks which can be activated by trading medals. Temporary bonuses like RPGs, vanishes etc. are up for grabs with the kickbacks. A new Respawn feature enables us to spawn ourselves alongside our counterparts. However if the others are engaged in combat the feature is deactivated. Controls are almost the same as its precursor except for an added Sprint feature which can be assigned to either L3 or R3 of your DualShock 3s. Improved melee attacks are a splendid inclusion into game.
Final Word: As expected Uncharted 3 Multiplayer beta delivers great graphics. A worthy successor to the multiplayer mode of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. The beta surely gave us a taste of things to come, but the Uncharted series is all about the story mode and we guess we’ll have to wait and watch how much bewilderment the next one has in store for us. The game comes out on November 1, 2011, so you might as well start saving your pennies from now.
Graphics: 9/10
Sounds: 8/10
Environments: 9.5/10
Gameplay: 9/10
Overall (not an average): 9/10