Uncharted 3 Drake's Deception: Beta Impressions Preview

By Simon Parkin Published 4 July, 2011

Indiana pwns.

There's a twinge of disappointment when you first start up Uncharted 3's multiplayer mode. It's the feeling of over-familiarity: the layout of the menus, the experience bar marking the progression of your ascent through the ranks of your online career and the emblem editor. It's the perk (sorry, booster) slots in which you assign upgrade bonuses that decrease your character's sprint recovery time or allow him to run silently in order to avoid detection and so on.

It is, in short, the Modern Warfare-ness of it all, and the feeling that Naughty Dog, one of blockbuster gaming's more creative voices, has borrowed a template instead of building one.

Of course, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's structural innovations to the multiplayer shooter have come to define the way a generation plays gun games online, and few would debate that template's enduring brilliance. But familiarity breeds contempt, and Uncharted 3's construction is oh-so-familiar, right down to the ladder of ‘finding player' messages that appears on the upper right hand side of the screen while the game hurries to match eight players up.

Besides, the Nathan Drake universe is all about Saturday matinee thrills, leaping from tall buildings, quipping while treading on an enemy's fingers as he hangs precariously from a ledge. As a myth, colourful Drake seems a poor fit for the dry, competitive machinery of Modern Warfare.

Medal kickbacks are enhancements you can activate when you have collected a certain number of medals.

But as soon as you grab an AK-47 from the menu and head into the verdant jungle, it becomes clear Naughty Dog's tribute to Infinity Ward's work is limited to the meta-game and presentation. In play, Uncharted 3's multiplayer fizzes with brash creativity and humour. There are zip wires down which you slide like the Last Action Hero. There are loot drops from downed foes. There are relics that form collectible sets, unlocking new clothes and emblems. There are spawning treasure chests full of goodies that act like honey pots drawing everyone in to a focused skirmish midway through a battle.

Then there are the incidental interactions: you can hang from a ladder making headshots with a pistol. You can kick a man hanging from a ledge and watch him splat on the ground below to the ding of a medal. You can high tail it over a wall rather than waiting for an angry grenade to flush you out, and you can throw a grenade back at him while mid-roll. You can fist-bump a teammate over the prostrate body of a downed adversary for a cash bonus. Every time a bullet whistles past your head you can launch into a headfirst roll, dodging and weaving their attacks while giggling at your irritating mischievousness. There are even Street Fighter-style taunts: a laugh, a flex, a dance or an air uppercut to rile your foe.

So while Uncharted 3's multiplayer template may be borrowed, the content used to fill it is endlessly fresh and vibrant. This generous creativity is best exemplified in the Airstrip map, which features a pre-battle chase section in which two teams battle it out on high-speed trucks, chasing a cargo plane as it races down a runway. It's a scene plucked straight out of so many family action flicks, but never has the set-up been used like this before. The trucks (manned by AI) dodge and weave around the plane, players able to use their empty holds for cover, while each team struggles to dominate the lowered ramp on the back of the plane itself. After a few minutes, the plane takes off and the action shifts to a more traditional combat arena, albeit one drenched in the warm pink of sunset.

The arenas here are expertly arranged, with no dead ends to halt the churn of play around the environment. Each character in the game (in the Beta you can opt to play as a generic treasure hunter, Victor Sullivan or Drake himself when on the good guy's side, or as a pirate on the bad guy's side) is lithe and athletic. As such, height becomes a tactical consideration, with players vying for vantage points. In the second of the two maps on offer in the Beta, Chateau, moving between the brightly lit outside areas into the dingy ruins of a castle requires your eyes to adjust, one of several stylish touches that elevate the multiplayer above its sea of competition.

Almost every interesting action in the game is assigned a micro-reward, a medal that counts towards upgrading your selected booster, a competitive perk that must be purchased and equipped. In addition to ambient boosters, there are also paid boosters, purchased before a battle, which grant a temporary one game advantage. These paid-for boosters must be bought out of money from the same pot used to purchase weapon mods, so there's a question of whether to invest in the short term or long term. While the system is ideally suited to a short term Beta test, it does raise questions over the long game, as surely once a player has purchased all of the mods and upgrades they want they will be free to invest all of their funds into paid boosters? How the developer overcomes this challenge of economics while keeping the game fair and balanced over the long-term remains to be seen.

Before each match two map options are presented, with all participants voting on their favourite.

As well as the innovative buddy system, which randomly assigns you a buddy at the start of every game, at whose side you have the option to re-spawn on death, there are a clutch of other gimmicky features. You can sign in to your Facebook profile, allowing you to play with acquaintances you aren't necessarily friends with on PSN. Likewise, the game records videos of all matches, and it seems as if there will be options to edit these. There's even the option to use the PSEye for a motion sensor grenade throw nestled in the option menu, although the usefulness of this feature is debateable (we couldn't test it ourselves). [Correction: This is, in fact, the existing Sixaxis motion throw - sorry for the confusion -Ed.]

Four months from launch and Uncharted 3's multiplayer is in good shape. The decision to borrow Modern Warfare's super structure is initially disappointing, but it's a creative decision that has allowed the developer to focus its creative energies into improving the moment-to-moment play, which is already pacey and exciting. If Naughty Dog can maintain the quality of level design across the other maps, and include some more white knuckle bursts of creativity like that of the truck chase at the start of Airfield, Uncharted 3's multiplayer may yet blaze a trail, rather than follow one.

Picture of Simon.

About Simon Parkin

Simon Parkin is an author and journalist on video games. A core contributor to Eurogamer since 2005, he is also a critic and columnist on games for The Guardian.

Read more articles from Simon by visiting the Simon Parkin archive page.

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Comments (49) Latest comment 9 months ago

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  • Sodding_Gamer #1 11 months ago

    Has this guy not played Uncharted 2? He moans about the borrowed COD features in this like as if its new. uncharted 2 had booster slots (perks) :s

  • frankfurter209 #2 11 months ago

    ^That doesn't mean it isn't a tired and stale multiplayer structure.

  • Sodding_Gamer #3 11 months ago

    I know that as they still copied it off COD when they brought out UC2. But just seems a bit odd him saying it the way he does in the article :s I mean they can't exactly take it out, they have to expand on it. Which is what they have done from what I've played on the beta.

  • Stomp224 #4 11 months ago

    I'm enjoying it, but I really hate the whole "level up" thing. If the multiplayer of your game is strong enough, people won't need a constant drip feed of tat and rewards to come back to it. :/

  • frankfurter209 #5 11 months ago

    I'd also like to add that the subtitle on this story is easily the most groan-inducing EG's had in quite a while. Indiana Pwns? Ugh.

  • apoc_reg #6 11 months ago

    I simply don't play uncharted for shooting, no idea why they are going more and more this route

  • sfp_noodle #7 11 months ago

    I agree with Sodding_Gamer, they were there in the first place, so how could they take them out? Not only that, but the boosters in UC2 were nowhere near as over-powered like they are in COD. It was mostly just for better accuracy or longer clips of ammo. None of the "stopping power" crap from COD.

    Having said that, regardless of what you think of COD, the front end is clean and accessible. No third-person shooter this gen has a similar level of customisation, so I welcome all the extra stuff they've added. Also let's face it, perks/boosters are in EVERY type of shooter this gen in some way or another. Halo has them with their abiities such as jetpacks/sprinting/holograms etc, COD has them, Killzone has them with it's class system and so on. As long as it doesn't over-power the player I've nothing against the idea.

  • bladdard #8 11 months ago

    @apoc_reg

    I agree I play uncharted because it's the best adventure game I've ever played but I do find it gets bogged down with the heavy gun play, I still can't wait for its release.

  • sfp_noodle #9 11 months ago

    "It's the feeling of over-familiarity: the layout of the menus, the experience bar marking the progression of your ascent through the ranks of your online career and the emblem editor. It's the perk (sorry, booster) slots in which you assign upgrade bonuses that decrease your character's sprint recovery time or allow him to run silently in order to avoid detection and so on.It is, in short, the Modern Warfare-ness of it all, and the feeling that Naughty Dog, one of blockbuster gaming's more creative voices, has borrowed a template instead of building one"

    This guy does realise that minus the emblem editor, everything else he mentions as being too "Modern Warfarey" was actually in Uncharted 2, a game released 2 months BEFORE MW2 right?

  • roz123 #10 11 months ago

    COD gets too much praise for innovating things it ripped from other games.

  • karlidog #11 11 months ago

    You can fist-bump a teammate over the prostate body of a downed adversary for a cash bonus.

    The... prostate body. Is it detached? Because that's some fancy shooting if so. Deserving of that cash bonus.
    Edited by karlidog at 04/07/11 @ 08:57

  • jstar #12 11 months ago

    apoc-reg and bladddard. Couldn't agree more. What I love about Uncharted is the slick writing, god voice acting, Indiana Jonesyness it exudes. You know, fun and brash but clever and inventive as well. I hate it when it starts ti feel too gamey... when you are on the rails and you have to shoot the red barrells bits... when the enemies keep popping up wack a mole style. I feel this is completely at odds with the rest of the game and doesn't at all fit. The first tomb raider game showed how effective exploration and a few but dangerous enemies can be. It is a shame that naughty dog seem to feel that they need to follow COD's lead in this regard when actually that is not the bets bit of their game.

  • Sodding_Gamer #13 11 months ago

    When you have a blue ray that you can fit like 50gb of data on it. I really don't mind them adding all this multiplayer. I mean Uncharted 2 had a healthy sized single player which was amazing, then a pretty deep multiplayer. If you have that amount of size and the money that Naughty dog are rolling in, the more the better!

    @sfp_noodle

    True point you got there!

  • mcwildcard #14 11 months ago

    @Simon Parkin: You've got the wrong end of the stick about the motion sensing grenade throw, it's just using the sixaxis to adjust the throw arc. They've used it in previous Uncharted games too.

  • DrDamn #15 11 months ago

    I've enjoyed playing the Beta. Uncharted was one of those series I thought didn't need MP but it was interesting in U2 and in this it could become very good indeed. One point I think they have missed from MW - and which a lot of other similar titles miss - is balance across levelling. Levelling should give you more options, not necessary make you more powerful. In MW the M16A was one of the best guns in the game and it was available to all - this was a very important design decision. In MW2 the default classes gave you access to perks and sights you still had to unlock if you wanted to use them in a custom loadout.

    A lower level player should feel like they have a chance to compete - not constantly be beaten by people who have better perks/boosters. Balancing this is something ND have to work on.

    I did love the verticality and inventiveness of the maps though. They are using height a lot better than the majority of maps in U2. The plane section at the start of one of the maps is also very clever.

  • Sodding_Gamer #16 11 months ago

    @mcwildcard

    This also proves my point that this guy may have not even played UC2?!!!

  • leatherytaint #17 11 months ago

    i've had my fun with the mp already with the beta cant wait for the sp campaign though.

  • sfp_noodle #18 11 months ago

    @apoc_reg, bladdard and jstar

    I get what you guys are saying, there are indeed certain sections of the game that are a little too shooty, but then there are also also areas in both games where there is no shooting whatsoever for extended periods. For people who have not played the game yet I suggest you don't read the following paragraph. (Sorry, I don't know how to use spoiler tags)

    POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD!

    In the original Uncharted, there is a pretty long section of the game with Sully where you do no shooting whatsoever and just explore the remains of a Spanish fleet. Stealth wasn't an option in the original, it was either shoot or climb, never both. There was also the bit towards the end where your in the tower and have to find your way into the place where El Dorado is located, not to mention the superbly eerie descent in darkess and silence to when you eventually encounter...well...descent babies :p

    Uncharted 2 handled exploration and shooty bits a lot better. I loved the infiltration into the museum and that was at the beginning of the game. Then there's the excellent dagger puzzle in the temple in Nepal, the excellent trek up the mountain with the foreign dude and so on. These were coupled with excellent shooty bits such as the train sequence, the truck sequence and so on.

    SPOILER END!


    At it's heart, Uncharted is very scripted but the main reason it stands out is because it executes it's ideas to perfection. It's linear but you never get bored, it has the perfect blend of exploration, shooty bits and set pieces.That's my opinion at least.


  • sfp_noodle #19 11 months ago

    @mcwildcard

    Couldn't agree more. The six-axis motion throw is also completely optional, and in fast paced MP matches, I strongly doubt anyone even bothers using it.

  • reeferchief #20 11 months ago

    I don't really play much multiplayer on anything, mainly FIFA and eliminator mode on Wipeout, but since I had the opportunity to get on the beta I thought I'd give it a shot just as I did with Uncharted 2's beta. I've enjoyed it, it's been good fun, even if it has reminded me how much I suck at these things.
    I'll likely be purchasing this one on day 1 and more than likely the multiplayer will be forgotten about just as it was with Uncharted 2, the main reason I get games of this nature is for the awesome single player experience that they give and the Uncharted series is right up at the top for me.

  • sfp_noodle #21 11 months ago

    I just read this whole article for a second time and it really gives me the impression that Simon Parkin didn't go near the U2 MP mode. I'm not attacking the writer, I actually enjoy Parkin's writing, but a lot of the things he seems to have an issue with such as Naughty Dog "borrowing" COD's template were present 2 years ago, so it hardly seems a fair criticism. But since he is criticising U3 for this, I fully expect whoever reviews MW3 to criticise the recycled perks from COD4. The COD series has fast become a parody of itself with each iteration.

  • fafaf #22 11 months ago

    I'm not too bothered if they spend less time on MP if it means more time spent on SP, which is all I care about.

  • jaguarwong #23 11 months ago

    @apoc_reg

    But shooting is the only gameplay element that the Uncharted games do well.

    The 'puzzles' solve themselves and the platforming is just a bunch of sideways corridors.

    Take out the shooting and you may as well be watching a low-budget movie - Probably starring Lou Diamond Phillips and Virginia Madsen.

  • mcmothercruncher #24 11 months ago

    Reads like the guy started gaming a year ago.

  • mrvinny000 #25 11 months ago

    I never enjoyed the competitive side of Unc2 and this beta just continues the pattern , boosters and perks have and will always make the good great and the great un-killable .Its the reason why i don't enjoy Moh or any CoD of which ND seem to want to follow in terms of gameplay which is such a shame .I love the new way co-op plays but with how limited Unc2 was i see that being the case in this 3rd installment .
    I will be buying when the special edition gets cheap or when its around £15-20 as the story will be awesome but mp will be just a laggy as the previous one and the trophies will just as tedious to collect.
    I think some games are spoilt by mp and this along with AC are games that don't need mp to survive as a decent well respected franchises .If i were doing reviews for a living game s like this would lose a point or two for putting it in .
    Also as with many games because Sony are morons the Facebook , Twitter & Youtube connections don't work on accounts that aren't master ones which is all well and good putting it on the box but in reality players like me who have a master account but use an unchangable user account are without this functionality and will be for as long as Sony don't allow you to change the account status or the use of these functions for said accounts .So along with mp this social network crap is utterly useless to me .
    Edited by mrvinny000 at 04/07/11 @ 10:25

  • jumpdeveraux #26 11 months ago

    Beta reasonably fun but the impressions article is somewhat light - it's more about features than impressions of gameplay - co-op/competitive etc.

    While the runway "pre-level" is innovative it's currently a real mess moving between those trucks (with jumps you should make sometimes bouncing you off the truck to your death). Spawns are also problematic with people appearing on the plane in front of an enemy making them easy fodder.

    ND also need to nerf the machine pistol, it's got insane sticky targeting when hip firing made worse by people using weapon expert to equip both rapid fire and larger clip to it (just had a game of Chateau where entire opposing team used only that weapon).

    Looking forward to ND rotating in some new content (and hopefully fixing the PS3 lockup on exit issue).

  • S.J.Rogers #27 11 months ago

    Call of Drake.

  • StolenGlory #28 11 months ago

    "Indiana Pwns".

    Really?! That's the best pun you could think of?

  • Mkwone #29 11 months ago

    Personally loving the beta and finding my own preferred tactics, like which mounted machine guns to use when. I like that there's some clever touches too the game like on the airstrip you can open and shut the roller doors to the building

  • tobsen #30 11 months ago

    So frustrating to see that camera movement is still every bit as robotic and stilted as in the first game. Why can't they get this right for ****s sake?

  • alcides #31 11 months ago

    I don't play Modern Warfare.

  • alcides #32 11 months ago

    Also the first Uncharted can't be topped.

    Everyday guy on an adventure, very little background or NPCs. Weird tomb raider, turned shoot them up, turned survival-horror...

    Yes. Uncharted 1 was scary and spooky at some points. That also had to do with the total lack of background. It's always more alarming that people want you harm for no apparent reason.

  • king26 #33 11 months ago

    U2 was the best action/adventure game and the mp was the best online 3rd person shooter I've played, I trust ND (ND ND ND ND) will provide a worthy sequel!!
    Edited by king26 at 04/07/11 @ 15:18

  • Sodding_Gamer #34 11 months ago

    @king26

    DG? Dirty god? Daughty Nog?


    Lol I hope that was a typo!

  • stegabba #35 11 months ago

    two differences between cod and uncharted


    1. cod is a fps and uncharted 3 third person

    2 cod sucks, uncharted doesnt

  • Sodding_Gamer #36 11 months ago

    @king26

    Dude you edited it and still got it wrong haha! You legend.

    NAUGHTY DOG!!!! ND for short. Not Naughty god :p

  • kirankara #37 11 months ago

    This beta getting fucking annoying now. The balancing of Game us horribly wrong IMO . It's basically impossible to win a firefight with anyone who's significantly more levelled up than you Are, even if you start shooting before they do. Unless there's some horrible lag , which I've seen no evidence for really apart from the aforementioned shoot at ppl and they don't die syndrome , if this isnt case, thisis in need of balancing . Even om hardcore they have enhanced aim, more powerful bullets etc and you get gunned down in half the time. The grenades and rpg's seem wonky too, I've shot an rpg at someone on a ladder twice and they still didn't die, and then been shot by an rpg where it's landed near me and died.

    Close to walking away from the mp forever right now.

    Out of interest , how do you know who is host etc,?

  • makeamazing #38 11 months ago

    This beta

    @kirankara ....That tells you all you want to know... it's a beta, they are using it to balance the game most likely.

  • RESIDENT_nEVILe #39 11 months ago

    I am really enjoying the beta - but it isn't satisfying having an AI game director dishing out handicaps every 3 minutes. It's fun, but it sure isn't rewarding.

    It removes some of the skill and replaces it with luck and artificial endings. Deus ex machina is never satisfying in the long run. A lot of people probably won't notice this and U3 will take its place between Modern Warfare and Black Ops.

    However, for those few who loved the simplicity and level playing field of U2 - this is a bit of a disappointment. It is still a good game, but it doesn't have that epic feeling of a battle well fought like U2 had because of all the fluff and interference.

  • varsas #40 11 months ago

    @kirikana: Play the co-op mode; it's good fun.

  • PixelPirate #41 11 months ago

    Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's structural innovations

    Sorry what? Innovations?

    They copied just about all the good bits of all of it from other games, and refined it. The only innovation is in being the first person to package everyone else good ideas in to one game and sell it as their own.

  • minimong #42 11 months ago

    Im loving it just like uncharted 2 but I have to admit that I stink when it comes to multilayer.I always panic when someone is shooting at me, launch a grenade then watch it bounce off a wall right back at me........oh shit(BOOM)
    Edited by minimong at 04/07/11 @ 16:50

  • RedSparrows #43 11 months ago

    CoD4 married XP to online FPS. I don't know another shooter that did it in such a slick way beforehand - sure, there was progression of sorts, but not the obscenely obvious carrot carrot carrot style.

  • Rens11 #44 11 months ago

    Loving the beta so far hating the sprint though!

  • kirankara #45 11 months ago

    Seems I owe nd and uc3 a bit of an apology.


    it appears it was just horrible lag, well maybe anyway. I was playing this morning when i wrote original post, and was online with tonnes of europeans, and the only other english people online were crying about people not dying etc too. i couldnt really see physical evidence of bad lag ie slowdown, players moving all over place etc, but when i played a few mins ago, people were dying and everything seemed a lot fairer, although, most people i was playing against were only mid level, not 30+ like the europeans were. So im guessing its mainly lag thats issue.

    So instead of them needing to seriously sort out balancing, it's lag issues they need to sort out lol

    Oh and the sprint , which as someone else pointed out is functional , if I'm polite, but not very good , if I'm more honest

  • VichusSmith #46 11 months ago

    The booster have been done since Uncharted 2. Maybe I'm not getting the writer's angle, but this is not new to uncharted, even though Modern Warfare has widely popularized perks for shooters.
    Edited by VichusSmith at 05/07/11 @ 01:27

  • Kaonazhie #47 11 months ago

    Am I the only one who never really liked the shooting gameplay in Uncharted? It feels like a bad third party game to me - floaty and loose, with guns that feel like pea-shooters. Or maybe I'm just spoiled by Gears of War and Vanquish.

  • kirankara #48 11 months ago

    @kaonazhie

    Always felt uc2 Controls were pretty much perfect, although there was the occasional sticking to wall in cover accidentally etc, but this is similar to gears, which actually bored me to tears in second game, and I gave up half way through. Only thing getting me through first was the co op campaign , but that wasn't even enough in second game.
    Third games controls feel fine apart from sprint, and I believe they have worked on reducing control latency for third too.

  • Nevflinn #49 9 months ago

    09:55 was very unfortunate.