The Gaming Experiment

Two weeks ago or so, I bought the PS3 exclusive inFamous. I still haven’t played inFamous, it’s on my pile, but I did crack it open for the Uncharted 2 multiplayer beta code. The download itself will run you about 1.3G of hard drive space. If you remember, Uncharted was the first game that I completed for this experiment, and I loved it. The beta that was bundled with inFamous has two separate approaches to multiplayer. The two modes are your standard stable of competitive multiplayer (deathmatch, capture the flag), and a co-operative objective based mode.

Right off the bat, this game looks great, the graphics are even better than the first Uncharted. This is in the same aspect as uncharted, a third person view. The options that are provided in the beta are limited, and I hope that more game types will be offered in the final product. I was able to level myself to 10, I didn't notice any perks that were granted, but there were 'Boosters' that were available. They are like boosts to accuracy, or ammo boosts, but I'm sure there will be more variations to the booster system once the game ships in the fall.

The beta comes with 2 competitor multiplayer maps and 2 gameplay variants, Team deathmatch and a capture the flag variant called Plunder. The matches were easy to get into without much waiting in lobbies. There is a party system, but I haven't used it yet. The two maps provided are medium sized that are great for the 5 vs 5 format of the competitive multiplayer. The weapons would be familiar to people who played the last Uncharted. The teams are broken up between Heroes and Villains. On the Heroes side, you can play as Nathan, Sully, Elena, and a couple other characters that are in Uncharted 2. The Villain side are more generic bad guys.

I was able to spend quite a bit of time with the beta and I really enjoyed the pace of the game, respawning is fast and keeps the action going. Also, medals were added, similar to the Halo 3 multiplayer medals like killing 5 players in a row, or committing a melee takedown. Getting these medals help increase your tally for leveling. Team deathmatch was a satisfying iteration of that all too common variant, however, it was the Plunder variance that I really enjoyed. Plunder has you bringing a treasure back to your base, the first to 5 teasure captures, wins. I liked this variant for a couple reasons, especially because it really goes with the story of the game, Nathan is a treasure hunter. But Naughty Dog does add on feature to Plunder that, if used at the right moment, might change capture the flag scenario gameplay for the better. You can actually throw the treasure to help it get to your base a bit faster. It adds an interesting dynamic.

One major problem I have with the beta so far is that the grenades are far too powerful, they are being launched too much and their blast radius is a little too wide. I ended up getting killed more with grenades than with guns. This is exactly what betas are used for, to help balance out the gameplay, and I am confident that Naughty Dog will come through. It was kind of weird because earlier on saturday there was less than 400 people playing, I hope that this isn't any indication of what the Uncharted multiplayer community will look like. Especially that inFamous sold 175,900 copies in may.

The other portion of the beta was a co-operative portion of the game that sits outside of the main story proper. Again, Naughty Dog twists the normal conventions again with three player co-op versus the two player co-op of Gears of War and the 4 player co-op of Halo 3. I only played one round, but it was fun, and if you can get two other people that are willing to work these aspects out, it could be a lot of fun.

I'm going to head back to play some more. Jump on, it's a lot of fun.