Uncharted Waters, A Multiplayer Blog

Ah, two words that inspire me, “co” and “op”. They work so well together, taking on half the workload, and giving each other meaning. When Nofi and I get together for a spot of co-op we share a similar dynamic: we work well together in the bits where I am not involved (our success rate is directly related to this), and the meaning of his barbed comments is not lost on me. Uncharted 2, then; another TSA co-op adventure*.

Being punctual, I arrived on time and duly booted Uncharted 2. I was so new to the game I even had the little booklet open on my knee so I knew what to press. Although, upon starting the game I found it easier to ask Nofi, whose knowledge of a game he has played extensively and reviewed expertly was never lacking. Diving straight into the online options, I invited Nofi to join my party, a decision I am sure he later regretted, and set about creating a game.

I soon came to the important option of enemy difficulty.

“What shall I set this as?” I said.

“Dunno. Whatever you’re comfortable with,” Nofi said.

“Er. Hang on…”

“…”

“Yeah, there’s no Catatonic difficulty. Easiest I can set it to is Easy, but I wouldn’t say I was comfortable with that,” I said.

I selected Nepal as the map and while the game loaded I took pride in being on top of our two-person leaderboard. Admittedly, we were tied on zero points, but I was top all the same. Game duly loaded, we were straight into the action.

This being co-op I did my utmost to be cooperative; I let Nofi have the guns and ammo while I hid behind the big crate until the scary men with guns had gone away. Occasionally, I’d help out by letting some goon strangle me from behind, and while the goon was distracted by murdering me Nofi would jump in for the kill. I honestly don’t think he’d have got so many easy kills without that assistance.

We battled on and I was rather enjoying myself. Lots of goons died, and Nofi often politely lied and said “Yes,” when I asked, “Did I shoot that one?”. However, the leaderboard didn’t lie, but by use of numbers cheerfully highlighted that a lot of my kills really weren’t mine at all. Fun though Nepal was, we decided to start a second game, this time on the Sanctuary map. All I can say is, Nofi was teetotal before we started.

Sanctuary starts off quite nicely, because you can hide behind a door not being shot while Nofi kills everyone.

“Are you ok over there?” Nofi said.

“Yes, fine thanks. Not dead or anything,” I said.

My lack of movement was proving to be a problem though, so I eventually did a Kamikaze run into enemy territory to help out Nofi. I think this scared the goons, because none were left by the time I arrived, though inexplicably I had run out of ammo.

I did my best to rectify this by plundering the dead bodies, but was rather rudely stopped from pursuing this pursuit by some horrible men with RPGs. I knew what I had to do!

“…”

“We need to get that RPG,” Nofi said.

“…”

“It’s over there, where the goons are,” Nofi said.

“…”

“I’ll get it then,” Nofi said.

“Right. I’ll stay here and cower,” I said.

“What?” Nofi said.

“I’ll stay here and cover you,” I said.

I really did cover him too. Thankfully, “friendly fire” was off, because I covered him with so many bullets and the goons with so few that it’s a wonder he didn’t join forces with them and hunt me down. He didn’t though, he got the RPG and once I’d taken care of the remaining goons by letting Nofi take care of them, we carried on.

As our objective was to get to the top of a tower we decided to search for a way to start the climb. I watched Nofi stoically try jumping and grabbing every available surface, and then I subtlely repeated his actions so as to show willing. Once I’d become bored of that, I wandered over to the wall with big handholds on it and started climbing. This was my one victory. But I ruined that too.

As everyone knows, the climbing sections of Uncharted are farcical. This is because they present no challenge whatsoever as it is impossible to actually fall off or otherwise fail to climb to the correct point. So, once I’d fallen off the wall and plummeted to my death, forcing a sixty-second wait to respawn, I was a bit scared of telling Nofi. As he hadn’t yet noticed my fall and was busy shooting, I switched the camera view to watch him so I could comment on his kills.

“Great shot!” I said.

“Thanks. Best kill these before we try the climb,” he said.

“Right. Great idea. Oh, nice shot again!” I said.

“Cheers. Where are you?” he said.

“Me? I’m over there, behind that wall. You can’t see me, I’m in cover. Fantastic shot!” I said.

“Ta. You don’t appear to be shooting though,” he said.

“Well, I am in spirit,” I said.

“But not actually shooting?” he said.

“No, I’m in spirit. I fell off the wall and died. Thirty seconds until I respawn,” I said.

“Is that all? Pity,” he said.

Once I’d respawned and kept out of Nofi’s way while he killed the goons we decided to climb the wall. Being a gentleman, I let him go first. This wasn’t in any way a mistake, right up until the point where it became a really big mistake.

“Er…” I said.

“WHAT?!!?” Nofi said.

“I’ve falled off again!” I said.

“Well I’m not waiting another sixty seconds for you to respawn just so I have to climb back down and save you when the baddies kill you,” Nofi growled.

“Nah, just pulling your leg!” I said.

At which point Nofi, swinging back and forth to gain speed, swung close enough for my Drake to reach out and, literally, pull his leg.

“Arrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I screamed, as the impact with the ground forced my legs out through my shoulder sockets.

“…” Nofi seethed, as Elena followed Drake to a bone-shattering death.

“I think, on balance, that was perhaps my fault,” I said.

“You think?” Nofi said.

Our disastrous deaths had caused the goons to start spawning again. I was up for the fight and took up my customary position hiding behind a wall.

“Come on!” I said.

“…”

“Ah,” I said.

“…”

“You’re trying to work out how to turn on friendly fire, aren’t you?” I said.

“…”

“Shall we quit and play again next year?” I said.

“…”

And with that our game ended, along with whatever tolerance and patience Nofi still had left for our friendship.

I’m not worried though, because Army of Desmond is out next year and we’ll be back for more!

* Read about our earlier adventures with Resistance 2.