Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

[dwarf]

This was meant to post last night but failed:

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Just tried it. Going to hope it plays better tomorrow, it was lagging an absolute treat. Despite this I did the classic hip fire and whack technique and followed up with a double down grenade throw, at which point the system froze.

 

I tried it once more and it froze again.

 

The fan on my ps3 goes bat-shit over running minor things now, and this beta had the thing panting like a hound-dog who'd caught its testicle on a cactus mid-sprint.

 

Of what little I got my mits on, I'm a bit concerned about the new direction this game looks to be taking. Presenting players with too many options and I think balance/gameplay issues may set in. We'll see after more rigorous testing.

 

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Looking forward to seeing what it's actually like.

 

I think they've nerfed pistols.

[Oxigen_Waste]

You know you've got a free 30 days of plus yeah?

 

Not on my US account, I don't. I just made it two weeks ago to get Xenogears for the PSP.

 

I just find it odd it isn't on my EU store.

[bryanee]

I cant even get passed the menu screen, it keeps failing.

[ReZourceman]

Movement feels more fluid and mantling objects is faster. Stealth kills also seem far less temperamental — in Uncharted 2 it's a bit of gamble as to whether it'll work for me or not. Ammo automatically being picked up helps clear the battlefield, meaning you're not left prancing around in the open mashing Triangle when trying to pick up a different weapon.

 

The netcode seems greatly improved, bearing in mind I've only gotten to play two matches; I didn't have any of those annoying instances where I dove into cover only for the enemy's bullets to follow me through a wall. Likewise I didn't have to sit through an extended period of syncing LiveData, and people can now join games mid-match.

 

The buddy system is cool. I saw most people moving about in pairs — greatly helped by the ability to spawn on your partner when they aren't in combat — and it's hard to resist high-fiving over an enemy's corpse.

 

My only real complaint is that I want to disable Uncharted TV. It's a cool feature and all, but when you're stuck with a horrible bandwidth cap and a rather meagre 2Mb connection you don't really want to waste the above on streaming videos you may or may not be interested in.

 

Mmmm, a lot of that sounds awesome. Hopefully they can and will iron out the kinks.

[Shorty]

They will, I'm sure. That's what the beta's there for. Everything from spelling mistakes to the way users treat cover and interact with the map. If they're anything like the Gears developers, there'll be a lot to learn from this phase.

 

The buddy system is very cool, looking forward to playing more tonight

[Happenstance]

Its kind of a shame that betas are a lot easier to get into these days. Now you start getting people who will just moan about everything in them, not really getting what a beta is for. My sisters boyfriend was in the Gears 3 one and kept going on about some problem but refusing to report it because he said his mate was going to, obviously just not getting that if they both complained its more likely to get noticed and fixed.

[flameboy]

Its kind of a shame that betas are a lot easier to get into these days. Now you start getting people who will just moan about everything in them, not really getting what a beta is for. My sisters boyfriend was in the Gears 3 one and kept going on about some problem but refusing to report it because he said his mate was going to, obviously just not getting that if they both complained its more likely to get noticed and fixed.

 

Thing is I don't think some of this is helped when we get betas very late into development that are basically not more than demos rather than betas yet are titled betas. This is two fold if things are rubbish then people think thats indicative of the final release but also if things are quite polished and good then it makes other actual betas bad by comparison.

[Cube]

Its kind of a shame that betas are a lot easier to get into these days. Now you start getting people who will just moan about everything in them, not really getting what a beta is for. My sisters boyfriend was in the Gears 3 one and kept going on about some problem but refusing to report it because he said his mate was going to, obviously just not getting that if they both complained its more likely to get noticed and fixed.

 

They should do what Blur did and send a survey to everyone that took part. Although in the case of Blur the changes they made as a result of the survey (they made the weapon places random) took away all the tactics from the game, thus completely destroyed it for me. So perhaps that's a bad idea.

[Aimless]

I'm glad to see there's a lot more verticality over the second game. The latter was more or less two-story environments whereas this packs in three alongside generally more varied topography; there's lots of boxes to climb and walls to leap over.

 

Personally I enjoy the more random elements that have been thrown into the mix, such as the Kickbacks. The Smoke Bomb especially is great fun to whip out, and I like that it can sometimes throw you into an even worse situation as it places you somewhere else randomly. It's a nice veneer of Mario Kart, which might annoy MLG people but I can't say I'll lose any sleep over that.

 

One thing I especially like is how I can find my own deaths funny. Games like Killzone and Gears are so grim that dying is just frustrating, whereas I've found myself laughing at quite a few of the ways I've been killed in this; the violence is satisfying without being morbid.

 

Oh, and adding loot was a stroke of genius. I'm like a moth to the flame whenever the icon appears.

[bryanee]

This beta has reset my PS3 four times, I'm not going to bother with it anymore.

[LegoMan1031]

This beta has reset my PS3 four times, I'm not going to bother with it anymore.

 

I have just tried playing it then and it has reset my ps3 twice... once when it was downloading the patch and the other time when i was trying to quit!

[Aimless]

Such things are par for the course with Betas. That's kind of the point.

 

Anyway, don't okay the patch straight away. When the prompt appears wait about 30 seconds and then accept, it should then update without issue.

[LegoMan1031]

Such things are par for the course with Betas. That's kind of the point.

 

Anyway, don't okay the patch straight away. When the prompt appears wait about 30 seconds and then accept, it should then update without issue.

 

Thanks for the advice but it worked the second time i tried it anyway.

 

Ah ok, i don't remember any other betas turning my machine off and back on? suppose i have just been lucky! Where can i report the issue to them?

[Aimless]

NaughtyDog.com, I imagine, although they're probably already aware of that particular freeze.

 

'Real' Betas often have stability issues, often exacerbated by being out in the wild for the first time with untold amounts of people trying to log in, etcetera. It's certainly nothing to worry about: it's the game, not your machine, and hopefully the developer will be able to combat the most prominent causes as the Beta goes on.

[Chuck]

This was meant to post last night but failed:

---

 

Just tried it. Going to hope it plays better tomorrow, it was lagging an absolute treat. Despite this I did the classic hip fire and whack technique and followed up with a double down grenade throw, at which point the system froze.

 

I tried it once more and it froze again.

 

The fan on my ps3 goes bat-shit over running minor things now, and this beta had the thing panting like a hound-dog who'd caught its testicle on a cactus mid-sprint.

 

 

It's the same for me. An upgraded 7200 rpm hard-drive doesn't help: for all it improves performance, it cooks the system even more.

[Cube]

Oh dear - I've just played one match but I had my rather bad emblem plastered all over the map (which would be awesome if it didn't look awful) - I'll need to make it look a bit better for next time.

 

I had the airfield level, the bit at the start seems a bit strange (and felt rather biased towards my team - I'll have to try it from the other side to see how true that is). I really like how the kickbacks are done - the rocket launcher just comes out of nowhere if you have that one (rather than finding a safe spot, throwing a flare, waiting for the crate to be dropped then opening the crate slowly to get your rocket launcher). The level itself is pretty good - I like how you constantly have to look above/below you. It's also good how you can select the FAL-like rifle (burst fire with scope) to start with - in Unc2 I spent my first few moments finding one.

 

Anyway, that's the first match so I'll have more thoughts later.

[dwarf]

The sniper in this is crap, the magnification is ridiculously high and thus renders it pointless.

 

I will make a non-moany comment soon, still only played it for 10 minutes.

[Emerald Emblem]

Team death matched a few times, the amount of times I've died got truly frustrating all because I'm always isolated and come across pairs or groups.

[dwarf]

Yeah I disagree with Aimless on this - spawning on a buddy sounds fine, and it worked to some extent in Killzone, but it doesn't in this. My opinion on other aspects may change but I'm quite adamant on this point. Maybe in 2v2v2 it's passable...

[Cube]

[ReZourceman]

OMG. Cool. What is "Lucky". Avenger?

 

Strike Three? A three streak medal? Interesting.

 

Great camera work, Cube. Akin to my own style.

 

"Pull"

 

Map looks great.

 

Looks insanely fun.

 

Can't find a list of the medals though.

 

Oooh, they've changed assistant to three. Interesting. That was a good match Cube.

Edited June 30, 2011 by ReZourceman

[Cube]

Lucky is surviving two grenades. Strike Three is three kill streak. I also got rage and fury (5 and 10 streak). I noticed that some medals don't show up in the replay (but the noise is there).

[ReZourceman]

Looks like they have increased the time between kills to be eligible for double kill/tripled etc.

[dwarf]

As mentioned, the movement is super-fluid. It's faster paced, generally a bit more exciting, and sprinting is a welcome addition.

 

I just can't be fucked with all this unlock/loadout crap. Yawn.

Some of the changes to the weapons they've made (i.e. 90% of them) are completely atrocious too. I don't know for instance why you'd want to use the AK over the G-Unit (forget the name) burst fire gun. Edit: G-MAL

 

Then again I seemed to be doing crap with the AK at anything other than close-range, whilst others were pwning - is there some accuracy booster I've missed somewhere? I saw a page of 'paid boosters' which are different to standard boosters as far as I can tell, which includes stuff like multiple grenade slots and improved accuracy (I think). I might be bullshitting though.

 

It almost feels as if the maps have become too complex - with the player movement speed, ability to sprint, the ape-shit climbing and the vaster amount of nooks and crannies, targets can be frustratingly elusive.

 

Token 'yeah I guess it's a beta' comment.

 

@Rez - I'm not sure how taken you'll be by it in all honesty. Your shitty donkey might give it some smack talk.

Edited June 30, 2011 by dwarf

[ReZourceman]

Hmmm, he does tend to be super critical of things.