Updated Impressions: Uncharted 2 Beta

OT: Jesus, the positive reviews (link) for U2AT keep rolling in. Looking at the variety of different sources for the ridiculous 97 aggregate review score (some coming from publications/websites I really trust), it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that this game is going to own, for many different reasons.

One of the reasons is that the multiplayer fucking kicks ASS! :-D

I've been testing the multi on and off these past couple of days, and I gotta say, it was totally worth spending the time downloading this. Just 9 more days of availability to go, if you haven't played this yet you're missing something truly great, I'm telling you.

Happily, there's next to no lag, and it plays as smooth as I could have hoped. True story: My DSL is the shittiest PLDT package (the 1MB deal), and somebody borrowed the laptop from my room so she could use Skype. I was expecting the game to bog down pretty bad, or that I would get kicked/DC'd from the server... but amazingly, even as she started yammering away in the adjacent room there were no hitches whatsoever. That's some very solid netcode, Naughty Dog, bravo.

The deathmatch is pretty damn good, and I've spent most of my time playing that. Straight DM is still the most enjoyable IMHO, but Elimination (the CounterStrike style one life per round mode) is also a blast as long as everybody knows what they're doing. I also really like what they did with the achievement-based money reward system, it really makes you feel good after having an excellent round. Co-op Arena is not as fun, but is still great, and it's a lot more enjoyable than your standard CTF.

The real revelation though, is co-op Objective. I mean, GOD DAMN. I had my first experience with it awhile ago, and it's absolutely amazing! You may need to wait a while to find a game, but it's totally worth it. I so want to give it a try on Crushing just to see how far me and the other two party members would get.

The only beefs I really have with the beta:

* It sometimes takes a really long time to get a game to join, and I've tried during both peak and off-peak hours. Kung minsan it can take ages to get in, especially for the less popular game modes like co-op objective.

* It's way too easy to score cheap kills with grenades. When you're about to die, you just throw a grenade in the general direction of your attacker, and the huge blast radius gives you a pretty good chance of still killing him even though you're pretty much dead yourself. They need to fix this, just a bit.

You know, when I think about it, what really makes me happy about U2ATB is that I'm traditionally a bigger fan of the offline component of videogames; with some notable exceptions (Street Fighter IV, COD4:MW, etc.) I'm much happier playing a solo game by myself or with a bunch of people in the same room. But I'm having so much fun with multi, it blows my mind to think that when I finally plop the U2 disc into my PS3 this October, I'm gonna be getting an expanded version of this fantastic multiplayer suite, in addition to the story mode I've lusted after for so long.

If my expectations for the single-player turn out to be true, it means IGN was right for once: they really did give us two games in one. How about that? Value!