Uncharted 2 Multiplayer Hands-on Preview

Naughty Dog's gorgeous action franchise hunts for fresh plunder online, with Kikizo laying down cover fire.

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While Deathmatch needs no explanation, Plunder packs a few surprises. Teams compete to return a heavy golden idol to the treasure chest back at base. When carrying the idol, movement is ponderous and you're restricted to a pistol, but you can also throw the thing as you would a grenade, whether to pass it (American footie style) to a team mate or move it to a higher level - all-important in the Plaza map, where each base sits on the first floor. It's a singular dynamic, and one we hope to see integrated compellingly into later maps.

While the odd fuel tank explodes under fire and bodies do their very best mid-air cartwheels at the behest of your RPGs, there's not much else in the way of physics or destructable cover points. It's hard to see what the former could bring to the mix (save lag, anyway) but daring the fleeting safety of a crumbling wall was one of Uncharted's finer thrills. Here's hoping such features get a substantial encore in the finished game.

If the Booster system recalls CoD 4, Uncharted 2's auxillary pick-ups tip a nod to Halo 3's bubble shields and grav lifts, though the results aren't nearly as stellar. Propane tanks can be grabbed, lugged around and thrown with L2, but as the maps are swimming with grenades it's seldom worth the reduced manoeuvrability and greater conspicuousness this entails. You'll also stumble on chainguns which devastate any and all in sight (once the barrel's hit full spin at least) but again, grabbing one of these is tantamount to handcuffing your feet and painting a target on your forehead. Riot shields are probably the most user-friendly tool, letting you press forward against heavy fire, chipping away at your adversary's health with a pistol before back-handing him to death.

After the nigh unquenchable tide of undead-tenderising awesomeness meted out by Left 4 Dead, Uncharted 2's sole currently playable co-op treasure hunt feels a bit dated, its four stages clamped rigidly together by single-button environmental interactions and pressured from all sides by scripted enemy spawns. The format is simple: cap any fools who invade your vicinity, deal likewise with the super-tough boss dude who appears in the final wave, and group up at the exit to move on. The game gives you three tries at this, with individual player deaths not counting against the total. As in Valve's extravaganza, downed team mates can be resuscitated if you get to them quickly.

It's challenging stuff, the excellent AI muscling in on your position despite withering blindfire, or sneaking up to get you in a chokehold, but it isn't until the final section, as you tackle soldiers with riot shields in the belly of a wrecked house, that things start to feel fresh. Most disappointingly, little to no play is made of climbing and platforming - perhaps the key areas where Uncharted 2 could distinguish itself from rival third-person fragfests. You're permitted to scale but one structure in the course of the mission, dislodging a set of wooden shelves to serve as a makeshift ladder.

Uncharted 2 is an unquestionable technical triumph, at least, its layered character animations honed to sinuous perfection. Naughty Dog has evened out the frame rate to a solid 25-30 FPS, darkened the pulp cinema colour palette a tad and eradicated the v-sync tearing which was the original's only significant technical hiccup. Between this, Heavy Rain and God of War III, the PS3's 2009-2010 release schedule isn't short on lookers.

Uncharted online was always going to be fun, and if the rest of the competitive and cooperative maps match up to beta standard we're anticipating a good dozen additional hours on the sofa after the credits roll. But however intuitive the nuts and bolts of combat, clean the infrastructure and superlative the production values, the experience isn't quite unforgettable. Not yet, at least. At times it feel like the very naturalness with which Uncharted's running and gunning transits to multiplayer has been counter-productive, discouraging the developer from taking creative risks. Expect more detailed thoughts (and maybe the odd hint or tip) on the beta over the next few weeks.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is slated to hit North America in November. European dates are to be confirmed.

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