Uncharted 2 Multiplayer Survival Guide – by ChronoJoe

I recently stumbled upon a very good and detailed Uncharted 2 multiplayer guide with tips for new players and in depth weapon info on the PSN forums written by ChronoJoe.  With his permission I’ve decided to publish his guide in it’s full glory here.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves™ Survival Guide

I made a thread before, about sharing multiplayer tips, and whilst my thread didn’t get many people sharing any tips – it did get a considerable amount of kudos, which to me implied it was atleast somewhat helpful. So I figured I’d attempt to write out a full guide for the games MP component, primarily in the interest of helping the community, especially the lesser experienced players, get better at the game.

The basics

Grenades

In Uncharted 2, beyond an essential firearm. Grenades are the most important tool which one really needs to master in order to be decent at multiplayer. There are several uses for grenades:

Offensive

If you’re caught unaware, grenades are a great means of getting out of a tricky situation. By that I mean. If you find yourself taking fire first, a grenade kill may be the most effective means out. Grenades can also prove to be great for indirect attacks, when you cannot see the enemy, or simply don’t have a weapon effective at that range (although you always should, what with secondary being a pistol). A good example of this tactic would be on the ice cave, if you practise, a little you can throw a nade from one end of the map, into the hole at the other end which is incidentally a chokepoint many enemies will attempt to carry the plunder through.

Defensive

This is pretty obvious, but if you find someone – well attempting to get into CQC. Or chasing after you, dropping a grenade on the floor can be an effective tactic. This is especially effective if they make an attempt to melee you as the melee swing will cause them to remain stationary for a moment, incidentally longer than the moment it takes to dodge a grenade.

Suppressive

Grenades can be used to keep enemies back. As far as I’m aware any intelligent enemy won’t run, intentionally into the blast. So if you need to buy a little time for whatever reason these can be used to hold one or multiple enemies back. A good example would be if you were being chased and new if they got another shot on you

with your current health – you’d be dead. Whilst going for a grenade kill might be a way to go, if you’re confident in you’re abilities that you could take the opponent on in a one vs one gunfight once you’ve regenerated; a supressive grenade would be another.

Above an example of a defensive grenade, you can see the red glow of the grenade I tossed just behind the two heros.

Marco died, drake stumbled.

Save your frags

Probably one of the most important aspects, grenades make up a very large number of kills in this game. If you find yourself about to get into a melee encounter, drop a frag and roll, if you’re outnumbered, run through a chokepoint (doorway or anything of that nature) and drop a frag on the other side. If you’re just being outgunned – throw a frag and make it physically hit your target. If a frag hits your target by the time it drops they don’t have time to roll away. You can use this to clear out campers across map too, if you know there still going to be there when the frag lands just line it up so it hits ’em (or the wall behind them if there is one) and there dead, near enough guaranteed so long as they don’t relocate beforehand. .

Evasion

If a grenade is at your feet, odds are it’s just too late for you. So what you need to do, is be observant. And as soon as the enemy tosses out a grenade, switch up your location with a roll. You can also use this opportunity to make a reload if you so wish/require.

Most important of all, is that you do not waste you’re grenades. I’m not suggesting you go around whoring as many grenade pickups as you can as this is debaitably – cheap. However ensuring you’re well prepared for every contingency is just smart thinking, and ensuring you’re always carrying a grenade… or three is a good way to go about doing that.

Jumping

There’s a rather basic tip to jumping, which some may not be aware of. But basically you can jump approximately 0.1s before your feet have left the any solid surface. Doing such can enable you to just make jumps you wouldn’t otherwise be able to do, leading to shortcuts or simply not leaving you hanging on a ledge whilst you get shot by tangos. Always a bonus.

Melee

Quite frankly. Melee is never an effective tactic. As a last resort, yes, maybe, but in reality in this situation you’re going to end up dead too if you’ve already been shot. Going in guns blazing then trying to melee can get you a few kills, but it only takes a smart enemy to throw a grenade at your chest and you’re done for. Not to mention others whos accuracy isn’t trash who’ll leave you never even getting into melee range.

Stealth kills, are another type of melee, but frankly not that effective. Unless you really needed the silence of a stealth kill I’d recomend avoiding them as you may find your self just getting up to the enemy. Finding out his camera was facing you all along and getting meleed/shotgunned in the face. Which will often lead to both parties dying. Most enemies aren’t that deceptive though, so it’s really up to you – just don’t complain when one of ’em gets you.

Pull downs, these are the most effective form of melee. The best application of these, I find is to deceive enemies into believing you’re fleeing, let them pursue then execute a pulldown. This is a great means of saving your skin especially if they’ve taken off a few shots on you. There are two means of countering someone in this situation

• Execute a kickdown: Not recomended as they can still pull you down at the same time – I’ve seen both parties die on several occasions, and if you don’t time it right, the guy attempting a pulldown can get you regardless. But if your confident you can time it right, this’ll be a good idea. It really depends how the games host is as you may see them pull you down earlier than you expected if you’re lagging.
• A grenade on the ledge there grasping onto will often cause them to drop off, if there on the edge of a cliff – this’ll get you a kill.

Remember that grenade? This is what happened to the other guy.

Cover

Cover has two essential purposes, and I’ll be giving practical examples of both.

Cover

Exactly that, so as to cover yourself from bullet fire. I personally don’t ever find myself using cover unless I need it. I don’t sit in cover for the sake of it, only if I want to avoid gunfire, or view. Dropping into cover in a long ranged firefight, or even close range can be incredibly effective. Within the very close ranges blindfire can be very efficient, and if you are truly outgunned cover can give you opportunity to quickly think your way out of the situation. Personally I like to pan the camera around to check if the nearest power weapon is available, especially if the enemy firing upon me has one of there own.

Stealth

Severely situational, but cover can indeed by used for stealth purposes. An example of this would be: I was in a situation where I had no grenades and no means of fleeing, 3 tangos at my front – one of which with a grenade launcher. So I just sat there in cover – the first two walked by, I was to let the guy with the grenade launcher walk by too, until he aimed upon one of my teammates. So I burst out with AK fire on him, and took him out. Switched the side of the cover I was on and dispatched the other two enemies which I let walk past with there teammates grenade launcher.

It’s very situational, but it can prove useful. If I had popped out of cover any sooner I’d have surely been dispatched by the hammer. Another more basic stealth technique is to use cover to avoid enemies seeing you at longer ranges, if they see you even across map as your moving in a specific direction, don’t be surprised if they head you off later down the road. It may often be better to travel within cover or just wait untill they have passed before you make your move.

In this scenario Marco Polo there had me outplayed, so I dropped onto the ledge. Because of the walling next to it, he couldn’t see my hands and believed I dropped down. As soon as he rolled off to pursue I climbed back up and used the opportunity to return fire.

Rolling

Rolling makes you pro. No seriously, it’s pretty hard to do well without using this very basic but vital technique. Rolling is the fastest means of traveling quickly, over a very short distance. In the long time it’s not an effective means of travel (don’t go around pressing O constantly, it just slows you down) but in the short term it’ll give you that edge which enables you to dodge a grenade, or grab a pickup just in time. There are a couple of other interesting techniques which require rolling to be effective.

Pickups

Every time you go to make a pickup, weapon, grenade – whatever. You have to do the pickup animation, right? Not anymore! Just roll over the item you wish to pick up and hit triangle, you’ll instantly have the item in your hands/inventory. This also works picking up multiple items at a time, within a single roll.

Shotgun dodging

One thing I’ve observed – is when you roll – auto aim pretty much cuts off. This includes CQC encounters. I haven’t been able to test this extensively but: generally I’ve found if I find myself rolling while an enemy tries to auto-aim shotgun me, it just flatout misses. This can prove to be highly effective when making attempt to dodge a shotgun aggressor, sometimes there’s little else you can do within these quarters so making a roll beats getting shotgunned to the floor – right?

Reloads

Reloads within this game are fast, but at the same time it’s enough time to get you killed. With pretty much any weapon for that matter. That’s why it’s really important you properly time your reload, and even watch out for the enemies. I’ve had situations, where I was low on health, hanging on a ledge, with a pistol, and frankly quite screwed. Only to see the enemy burst a clip on my hands and attempt a reload… taking this opportunity – he was dead before he was able to let off another round.

An alternative to reloading would be to switch to your pistol. Frankly I don’t find this particularly effective with a reload and a switch taking approximately the same amount of time. But I suppose it depends on how much ammunition for your primary you have left, and the range your intending on firing at. At long range I’d most likely favour the pistol to finish up a kill.

Pick your battles

It’s also important, basically that you don’t enter an encounter outgunned. If your not confident that you’re going to come through, chances are you won’t. So quite often it may be best to avoid the encounter, atleast temporarily untill you can put yourself in a better position. Examples of reasons why you should avoid an encounter would be: The enemy has a power weapon/you’re outnumbered, although even something as small as he started shooting you first may warrant fleeing away.

3 tangos at long distance. No way I could take any one of them out at that range, with my equipment. So it was wise to simply back down. I actually went and headed off for the maps Grenade Launcher at this point.

Power Weapons

Power weapons are vital aspects of competitive multiplayer. And within decent levels of play become absolutely essential to win. Remember what power weapons your team doesn’t have, the enemy most likely does. They rarely stay around long so make sure you learn the maps and make your routes coincide with these locations. I’m not saying to make rushing these the objective, I’m just saying keep an eye out.

Evasion

It’s always preferable to use indirect tactics on enemies with power weapons. Whether this be open up shooting them in the back, or executing a stealth kill. You do not want them to be on the same grounds as you are within an encounter, because even if they’ve got one of the weaker ‘power’ weapons, they have you outgunned. Saying that however it’s very easy to get someone to waste there RPG ammunition, at longer ranges anyway. Which in the end will benefit your team.

If you don’t remember anything from this, remember to always have a contingency plan for every typical scenario. To do so keep yourself prepared with grenades.

Specifics

Sound

Maybe you haven’t noticed but – every sound within this game means something. From the roar of the engine as the tank comes in on Village, to Elana’s footsteps. If you’ve got a decent sound setup, make use of it. You can even use sound to good effect with just a stero setup, if you have a good idea of what your hearing out for. Frankly I don’t have a setup where I can hear out for footsteps, however you may have noticed when players are climbing they generally make vocal noises, you use these to pinpoint enemy/ally locations. You can further use these to your advantage by memorising the vocal noises of the heros, Drake, Elana, Sully and Chloes sounds are very distinct. If you are the heros you can use these to tell that these are your allies, and if you are the villians you can use these sounds to assign general location to approaching tangos.

Either way, a decent sound setup will ensure you don’t find yourself making threads on this forum about how shotguns are so overpowered/cheap. Or should theoretically anyway. You should also bear in mind that Skeletal skins DO NOT appear to make any sound, as far as I have seen. I do not possess any of these skins myself but this is what I have heard and observed, so if you are wishing to keep yourself silent – that’s one means of giving yourself an unfair advantage. Not that I advocate giving oneself an unfair advantage though. 

Game Modes

I’m going to be giving tips for each of the game modes, relative to if your playing with a co-operative team, or on your own. I’ve laid each out so that the tips for solo play are within the last paragraph for each section.

Plunderrrr!

I find, within a game of plunder if you are available to communicate – it’s best to assign ‘primary carriers’ and have about two members of your team with the ‘treasure bearer’ boost on. Then have the others as supportive. As a basic formation have two of the free players clear the treasure area and one stay behind at spawn. But Chrono, why one stay behind? Because without one guy staying behind, you will find the guys that you have just killed to claim the treasure – will often spawn at the back of your spawn. Now this, usually won’t happen if there’s a guy sat back there, so this essentially ensures capture after treasures been claimed.

Resetting the treasure can be another vital tactic. You should know that you simply can no longer throw the treasure off a cliff to reset it back to it’s spawn. So the only means of resetting would be to let the treasure idol for 30 seconds. If you’re in a position where you need to prevent capture, this can be a very viable tactic. The best means of doing this now are to place the treasure into a extremely obscure position. For example on one instance – I knew my team were down, and the other team were right behind me, so I threw the treasure into the RPG spawn on temple. Simply to slow the enemy team down to capture, The time gained was enough to enable my downed teammates to respawn and get into the fight, who were able to battle out for the treasure long enough for it to reset. Where I aware of this eventuality was able to quickly claim and capture.

If your playing on your own, what role you should assume really depends on what your team are doing. Usually I find there all keen to pick up the treasure, but not so great at defending it, I usually find within pubs it’s most efficient to assume a supportive role. However if available to you, pack the treasure bearer boost just encase as it can be incredibly effective,  even if it’s just to finish up a capture where your team-mate died trying.

Remember, if you are defending the guy with the plunder. You DO NOT need to stand on top of him. This is only going to get both of you fragged. Place yourself in a tactile location where you can quickly dispatch any incoming aggressors. The FAL has a faster TTK over the AK and is generally a better weapon especially in it’s ability to suppress enemies quickly.

Chain Reaction

I’ll go through the two basic strategy’s I’m aware of: (written based on the assumption your teams base is 1)

Rush

Rushing can be incredibly effective, but usually only against weaker teams. The idea is to simply rush 2 players forward to 2, and then have your other 3 teammates claim 1-3. The offensive team which rush two should grab a power weapon (RPG/Hammer) en route as they may find they have to face the entire enemy team at 2. They dispatch these enemies and claim 2 in part of the chain reaction which the 3 defensive players have already setup from 1-3. Now your entire team simply rush the enemys last objective, perhaps even before they’ve respawned.

Long game

The idea here is to assign defensive and offensive players. If you wanted to you could alternate these mid-game but for the sake of this walkthrough I’m not going to switch anyones role around. Usually the most efficient tactic in this case would be to rush 3 with your offensive team (offensive team is typically 2 or 3 players) and capture 1 and 2 with your defensive team. Now from there assign your defensive team to protect your last current objective (which in this case would be 3) whilst your defensive team attack the next objective. In the event they claim this objective the defensive team move up to defend that objective.

Using this method, worst case scenario is generally that you get pushed back by a singular objective. But this can usually be very easily avoided by ensuring that the defensive team are guarding, but not ON the objective there defending. Obviously ONE of them needs to get on it in the event it needs to be re-captured, but they do not need to stay on there. The defensive team if finding themselves defending a singular position should ensure they switch positions between encounters so as not to have enemies dispatch them before attemting capture. This method is slow, but very stable and should ensure a win.

Solo

If your alone, your best bet is to ensure that your team gets a nice headstart. You can do this by making it your role to capture 3. If they cannot muster the strength to capture 1 and 2 on there own, you were never going to win the game with those guys anyway. Once 3 is captured you should assume either an offensive or defensive role, depending on the apparant orientation of your teammates. If there constantly attacking the next capturable objective, and failing – you should probably ensure that you’re protecting and re-capturing the last objective your team captured.

Deathmatch

This doesn’t really need explanation. But essentially the best means of performing well are focusing around ground control and power weapons, both of which essentially come hand in hand. Let’s take the map Plaza for example. Focus your team on dominating the central area and you have complete control of all the maps power weapons. Kit your team up with these and dispatch enemies as they spawn on the edges, as well as ensuring each teammate is making calls as they see the enemies spawn.

If you read up on MLG tactics within other games (I have) one of the most important tactics, especially within game types like DM is to ensure you have crossfires set up. By this I mean to ensure that for every enemy out there, you have the potential to have 2 guns on him. 2 people shooting at each enemy, keeps them spawning individually, running into combat individually, dying individually. This makes for very, very easy wins within objective based playlists if you can muster up a little co-operation between teamates.

For the solo player, all one can really suggest is to stick to the edges of the map. By going around the edges of the map you’ll only normally have two potential areas of enemies can approach from, one of which is behind you and the other is infront of you. This severely decreases the probability you’ll find yourself getting jumped by tangos, and increases the probability that you’ll find yourself seeing enemies before they see you. Making kills reasonably easy.

It’s best to play the very opening of a DM game as you would an Elimination round. See Elimination below for tips.

If you find yourself facing a co-operative team it may be beneficial to stick with your teammates and try to work as best you can with them – but the chances are with an unco-operative team, you’re going to lose anyway. But staying with teammates will prevent you running through crossfires, and suffering so much from the type of tactics I described above. Plus whilst your unco-operative team won’t be making calls – they will let you know of the general area enemies are situated, with the sound of gunfire.

Elimination

Okay, now I’m not really a fan of this game mode. I feel it’s too scripted, essentially everyone, does the same thing every round, and invariably round one will play out very similar to the last. The basic thing to remember for Elim is that power weapons are ever important. It’s what your team, and the other team will likely be going for. Generally it’s control over the maps grenade launcher which is going to win games. So typically this is what games of elimination are centralised around.

What I find the best tactic to be, is to use these power weapons as bait. Wait until there exposed, and about to pick the grenade launcher up, then take them out. (probably most efficient with a frag, else they may get opportunity to return fire) once you’ve killed the enemies trying to pick up the central power weapon – your team can control it for themselves.

One thing to remember is it’s not a great idea to go for even encounters in elimination. Invariably the opposition will have atleast some form of power weapon, so if you go up against them with your AK, don’t be shocked if they take you by surprise with a Desert 5 or something of that nature. So within elim I make a point to avoid using the AK. If you want to assume a more supportive, defensive roll I’d recommend using the FAL to suppress enemies at longer ranges, giving your own team more opportunity to claim the maps power weapons, and dominate with them.

The most important thing to remember is that elimination games are essentially centralised around the maps power weapons. Control of these becomes the objective. Aid your team in controlling these, or capture them yourself and then turn them upon your enemies. It’s really pretty simple.

Weapons

I’m going to do a brief weapons analysis for each weapon, statistics provided are estimates and should be used as references only. Statistics provided written assuming:

Health = 100

Headshot Multiplier = 1.25

Torso = 1.0

AK-47

Class: Assault

Damage: 15

Recoil: Moderate

Accuracy: Low

Fire Mode: Automatic

The AK is the standard loadout weapon. It’s effective at close-medium to medium ranges. Not recommended to use within close, or long ranges. It’s also not particularly effective against targets behind cover. Although not recomended in CQC, it can still be formidable within those quarters so long as the opposition doesn’t have anything superior.

M4

Class: Assault

Damage: 12.5

Recoil: Moderate

Accuracy: Moderate

Fire Mode: Automatic

The M4 serves as a superior to the AK. It serves the same combat role, most efficient at the same ranges however it provides a faster time to kill (TTK) and thus is considered more powerful. It’s recommended you swap your AK for an M4 whenever possible.

92FS – 9MM

Class: Pistol

Damage: 20

Recoil: Low

Accuracy: High

Fire Mode: Semi

In fact quite a powerful weapon, but despite decent accuracy, with it requiring 4 shots to the head to kill, and only 5 to the torso – it’s rarely worth while aiming for the head, as much as I like to. This weapon is rarely more suitable than your primary weapon, but at longer ranges I feel it’s slightly more efficient than the AK, it’s also very effective to switch to rather than reloading, as well as if you’ve swapped your primary for a CQC weapon such as the shotgun.

Micro 9MM

Class: Machine Pistol

Damage: 12.5

Recoil: High

Accuracy: Low

Fire Mode: Semi

Effective only at close-medium ranges. The Micro has a pretty fast TTK if you use it right, but also burns through a clip very quickly, so if you don’t use it within optimum range you’ll find yourself having to reload before the enemy is down. If need be it can be used semi-effectively when burst fired at longer ranges, but this isn’t recommended unless it’s all you have at that time.

The Micro is one of the best run and gun weapons in the game, due to it’s large clip capacity and rate of fire.  Combined with pistol auto aim while run and gunning, makes it extremely deadly in close quarters

Desert 5

Class: Pistol

Damage: 80

Recoil: High

Accuracy: High

Fire Mode: Semi

The deagle is one of two secondary power weapons. Unlike the pistole the deagle fairs better at longer ranges. Semi-automatic and only requiring two shots to kill, the Desert 5 is very formidable. In very CQC ranges the Desert 5 can also prove deadly when blindfired, as you may have noticed the pistols have strong-auto aim at very close ranges, and this is no different for the Desert 5.

FAL

Class: Assault Rifle

Damage: 12.5

Recoil: Low

Accuracy: High

Fire Mode: Burst

With 4 rounds per burst and 50 damage per burst, the FAL is theoretically capable of killing someone within just two bursts. I’ve only seen this happen on very, very rare occasion, I suppose because typically one bullet has a tendancy to go astray, and it requires all 10 hits in order to kill. So generally you’ll find yourself killing targets within 3 bursts, and the same can be said for the head. Aiming for the head with the FAL is generally, not worth while as the TTK will still approximately be the same as burst to the torso.

The FAL is a great supressive weapon. With the FAL you can quickly pin targets down from across the map, it also has a very fast TTK and the ability to pick out enemies who didn’t quite get into cover properly. With a decent aim you will be able to gun down AK users in a pinch even in closer quarters. You really want to be learning to use this weapon to the best of your abilities, it’s just the most efficient standard firearm, in the right hands. It’s also great for setting up crossfires with other teammates. What would be 2 bursts to kill becomes 1 burst from each player, dramatically shorterning TTK.

The only issue I have with the FAL, is that it’s remarkably inefficient when blind fired. Which is understandable I suppose considering it’s efficiency within other quarters.

Dragon Sniper

Class: Sniper Rifle

Damage: 80

Recoil: High

Accuracy: High

Fire Mode: Semi

The Dragon is the most efficient long ranged weapon in the game, it’s high damage means it requires two shots to the body to kill, and just one shot to the head. Situation dependant you may feel it appropriate to either scope in, or just aim over the shoulder. The problem with aiming over the shoulder with this weapon is that when you make your first hit (I believe it’s when you make a hit) the crosshair will disappear. Which means if you were going for a 2-shot kill, it’s made all the more harder. But frankly it’s not too difficult to line up a shot with centre of screen. Unless the target is fully exposed you’re generally better off going for a headshot as the slow rate of fire gives tangos opportunity to take cover after the first shot is fired.

Moss 32

Class: Shotgun

Damage: 0-100+

Recoil: Moderate

Accuracy: Moderate

Fire Mode: Pump Action

The shotgun is deadly at close range, but useless everywhere else. And when I say close range – I mean real close, like within 5 feet of the target, after that the time to kill is ridiculous and you will be outgunned by nearly every other weapon. It’s recommended that this weapon is blindfired within very CQC so as to let the auto-aim kick in, you can manually aim it, it’s just more difficult, and less efficient.

Spas 12

Class: Shotgun

Damage: 0-100+

Recoil: Moderate

Accuracy: Moderate

Fire Mode: Semi

This is essentially the same weapon as the Moss 32 in a different skin, yet with a faster rate of fire and more shells.

The SPAS12 also can 1-hit kill at a slightly longer distance than the Moss 32

Pistole

Class: Shotgun (Pistol)

Damage: 0-100+

Recoil: Moderate

Accuracy: Moderate

Fire Mode: Semi

Once again, another shotgun. It’s just about as efficient as the others, difference being you can fire it twice in quick succession. The drawback there is it quickly needs a reload, you can compensate for this by ensuring you only fire it when you know you’ll kill the target. Otherwise you’ll usually find yourself running around, rolling; whilst you reload.

At point blank the Pistole will kill in 1 hit.  A bit too far out and you’ll find you’ll need a 2nd shot in order to finish your opponent off.  Being 1-handed weapon, the Pistole has much better tracking when running and gunning compared to the shotguns

M32 – Hammer

Class: Grenade Launcher

Damage: 50-80

Recoil: Low

Accuracy: High

Fire Mode: Semi

The Hammer is one of the games primary power weapons, and probably the most formidable in the game. It comes with 6 shells as standard, and if you use it right – that’s going to be enough to kill at least 4 people. So long as someone doesn’t get you first. A good means of conserving ammunition with this weapon is to fire a single shell to take a target down, then press L1 + Triangle to quickly switch to pistol and finish up with what is usually around 2 pistol shots. At this point they should be staggering from the blast of the grenade launcher so you don’t really have to worry about them returning fire.

Here is also a fantastic video by psnlonewolf1994 showing exactly how many bullets are required to kill for each weapon.

Please note that the video below is for patch 1.04 and below.  For 1.05 weapon damages, please see the 1.05 patch notes.