Another Uncharted 2 Beta Code Giveaway

UPDATE: Okay, that last code is gone! The correct answer was "candy." You could've either found that on Penny Arcade or right here on the blog in the very first post way back in January 2007. Thanks everybody for participating. Cracks me up seeing my PS3's inbox full of messages from random people with only "candy" or "bananas" as the message.


ORIGINAL: That's right: Another Uncharted 2 multiplayer beta code giveaway. I've already given away two codes, but it seems that I've managed to get my hands on another. So you know what? I'm giving this one away too.

The same rules apply as last time: First one to send me a message through the PS3 containing a specified message gets the code. This time, though, I'm going to make it a tiny bit harder since I've only got one code. Just answer this riddle:

what is delicious

I'm looking for a specific word. It really shouldn't take you long at all to find the answer, realistically speaking. This is the Internet, after all.

My PSN ID is "whatisdelicious" and here's another hint since everybody so far has been guessing del.icio.us:

You don't have to leave this blog to find the answer. Mind you, it still shows up on Google if you still want to go that route.

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Uncharted 2 Multiplayer Beta Impressions

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune was a great game that completely fell apart by the end. The supernatural twist made no sense whatsoever and turned the game into something nobody wanted it to be, and enemies in general could take so many bullets that I had to put it on easy difficulty before the logic center of my brain could explode. Say what you want about me playing on easy, but guys wearing t-shirts shouldn't be able to take five AK-47 rounds to the chest and keep coming like nothing happened.

So going into Uncharted 2's multiplayer beta, I was hoping that it wouldn't take an unreasonable amount of shots to take down other players. After playing the beta for the last two days, I feel like it still takes far too many bullets to kill other players. Guns just don't feel powerful, and when there's as much cover as there is in the two maps included in the beta, it's too easy for opponents to slip away after taking half a clip.

While the guns in the beta are standard fare for Uncharted, the grenade launcher is easily one of the most badass weapons to kill someone with in any multiplayer game, ever. Seeing it in action is absolutely terrifying. Grenades fire out in a spiral that leaves a smoke trail before ripping apart another player.

The levels in the beta feel pretty small and dense; they could definitely benefit from some breathing room. Their best design feature is their verticality, allowing players to scale to the second floor of some buildings. This part definitely makes the multiplayer feel like Uncharted; it's a lot of fun to climb and set up your own little spot on the map to take people down from. Hopefully this verticality is emphasized more in the final game as it's what kept the multiplayer interesting for me.

As this is a beta, there are still some technical issues being worked out. For instance, I was taking cover in the middle of a level, poking my head out to fire on some unsuspecting players when all of a sudden, from the bottom-left corner to the top-right, the lower half of the screen went completely black. It reverted to normal in a moment, but served as a definite reminder that I was playing a beta.

Luckily, that also means that the developers can iron out the other issues, like designing the levels a little better to prevent spawn camping. Three times I was killed immediately after spawning by a clever guy hiding behind cover with too many grenades. As well, hopefully there will be something along the lines of character customization, because while it's fun to play as Nathan and the rest, playing as a faceless bad guy is less interesting. It'd be nice to create my own avatar and see what other players make.

Overall, Uncharted 2's multiplayer beta shows promise (and it's absolutely gorgeous), but definitely has some significant issues to fix before it hits later this year if it wants to have any chance of competing for time against heavy hitters like Modern Warfare 2.

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Uncharted 2 Multiplayer Beta Code Giveaway

UPDATE: Wow, this went a lot quicker than anticipated. I'll try to do something like this again in the future (I hate wasting extra codes). A huge thank you to both winners and everyone else who sent me a message!


ORIGINAL: Hey everybody.

Well, I've found myself absolutely flooded by Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Multiplayer Beta codes. And by that, I mean I've got three. I bought inFAMOUS, I'm a Qore subscriber, and then Sony literally sent me another one about five minutes before this post went live. Cool.

I only need one for myself, so the first two people to send me a message through the PS3 with the word "bananas" in the message will each get one Uncharted 2 beta code. That's all there is to it.

My PSN handle is "whatisdelicious." Surprise, right? So get cracking. The multiplayer beta goes from June 3 to June 28.

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Terminator Salvation Review

Whether or not you'll want to play Terminator Salvation all comes down to one question: Do you care about trophies/achievements? If yes, you're in luck. One 5-hour playthrough on hard will net you the full suite. If no, you're not missing anything. Salvation is a mess. Your allies are complete idiots, but enemies are even worse, fluctuating between omniscience and obliviousness. Fighting the same three enemy types is extremely repetitive and the game becomes a grind to the next checkpoint since the story offers no salvation from the tiresome gameplay. To make matters worse, technical problems ranging from an unreliable framerate to complete game freezes make trudging through this already bland action game even more of a chore than it had to be. At $60, Salvation is a complete ripoff, but if you really want the trophies/achievements, give it an overnight rental.

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Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic Review

Imagine a fighting game that is one part Super Smash Bros., one part Team America: World Police, and one part cheesy 1970s Kung Fu action movie and you've got the premise for Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic. From the title screen to the characters to the animation, everything about Rag Doll radiates personality and humor. The whole game is an exercise in ridiculousness, and makes for a hell of a good time. The single-player challenges can be addicting, but the multiplayer is the star. It's insanely fun to beat up on friends and take every opportunity to unleash hilarious taunts. Lack of online multiplayer hurts, but it's more fun in person anyway. Definitely buy it; it's worth the $10.

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New Review Style

Something I've grappled with for every review is "how much should I write?" I know I'm the smallest of the small-time blogs, so why write a full-length review? Not to say that I shouldn't put effort into my reviews; that would be idiotic. I just feel that, because what is delicious is not one of the commanding videogame websites or blogs out there, I should focus on concise writing that doesn't require the reader to invest as much.

Concise writing is much, much harder because there are always things you want to say that you just have to cut, but ultimately, it's more rewarding. If I can fit everything important I need to say about a game into a 120-word paragraph as opposed to a 1200-word epic review that includes all the minutia, that's doing the reader a service.

Besides, almost every "full-length" review out there from major publications only has two important paragraphs: The first and last. The first usually introduces the basic feeling about the game and the last concludes to offer a final verdict. Everything in the middle is just explaining how to play the game and how all the individual components work with excruciating detail that you've probably already read in previews and seen in videos. And that middle section rarely deviates from review to review. Only the first and last paragraphs tend to offer a truly different opinion.

So, in keeping with my new review scale that trims things down from a three-tiered rating system to just two, I'm going to start trimming my reviews down. It's certainly a writing exercise, but I'm hoping that by limiting myself to one paragraph with a 150-word ceiling, my writing will be tighter and deliver the message quicker.

The first example of this will be in my Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic review, to be published shortly.

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Leave The Bottle, 1UP Under New Management

UPDATE: While it still sucks that 1UP lost so many great people, they've managed to retain their overall site personality and continue to be a great gaming website. I'm still going to them daily, so I guess this isn't just GameSpot all over again.

ORIGINAL: It's official now: The 1UP Network has been sold to UGO Entertainment and EGM is closing down. There have been huge layoffs and I can't even begin to imagine how those guys are feeling right now. It's good news for the future of 1UP, but it came at a very high price.

When I truly fell in love with 1UP.com, we still had Che Chou, we still had Kathleen Sanders, we still had Luke Smith, we still had John Davison, Jeff Green, Shawn Elliot, and too many other amazingly talented and charismatic people to possibly mention here. That was a long time ago. Now almost everyone I came to really connect with over the years is gone. Shane Bettenhausen and Garnett Lee were the last two I was really counting on, and then there were a couple newbies like Nick Suttner that were definitely cool people.

And now all that is gone. Garnett is still there, but without Shane, Luke, and John by his side... what's the point anymore?

It feels exactly the same as when Jeff Gerstmann, Rich Gallup, Brad Shoemaker, Alex Navarro, and the rest of them left GameSpot. Man that hurt. On The Spot and HotSpot were my 1UP Show and 1UP Yours back then. Once Jeff and Rich and Brad and Ryan and Greg and Alex and the other greats were gone... the whole damn site lost its soul. On The Spot turned into the most boring piece of shit ever as they kept throwing new hosts at it to see who could possibly replace Rich and Jeff as host/co-host and it just never worked. HotSpot went the same way. So many great moments... "Fly that flag!"

Hot damn I loved love me some Rich Gallup and Jeff Gerstmann.

And in the same way, I love me some Shane Bettenhausen. I love me some Garnett Lee. I love me some Andrew Pfister, and Simon Cox, and Nick Suttner, all of them.

Goddamn. After I couldn't take watching GameSpot die slowly anymore, I made my inevitable transition to 1UP fully complete. I was really hoping 1UP was a much more stable, lasting environment, but here we are again.

And it hurts just as much.

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