Last night I played a few more hours of Uncharted 2.

First off, I played a game of Plunder, which is fast becoming one of my favourite modes. Having to lug and throw that thing around is a lot of fun, though I think it resets its position too quickly when nobody’s manhandling it.

Then I played the co-op 3 player “campaign” mode with two friends, and this is by far the best time I had all evening. This is such a good mode, I can’t wait to get the final game and play through all the levels.

Before I go any further I have to mention the melee attacks. One word: awesome! They’re just awesome. There are so many different kinds, it’s great. And they’re context-sensitive too. At one point I pushed an enemy off a roof! It was great! It was an actual push, not just a punch or kick that ended up making the enemy fall off. My friends and I were constantly saying “I just did X!”. Great stuff.

Then my two friends and I played some 3 player co-op wave mode (I forget what it’s called). That was a lot of fun until one friend left, which aborted the game for the other two of us. I don’t think any of our progress was saved, though I’m not sure. This happened again with my buddy and I playing with a stranger.

But one thing that gave me a bad taste in the mouth was the matchmaking. My friend and I entered a game of Plunder, five against five. The the players’ levels ranged between one and 17. All the players over level 10 were put on one team, and all the players under 10 were put on the other. The result was as inevitable as death: we died a lot and the final score was 5 to 0. Not fun.

Why is matchmaking such a big problem? Can’t the servers look at the players’ ranks and kill/death ratios and try to make the teams more or less even? Playing such lopsided games isn’t fun. I know some people out there have such a high exuberance level about life that they’ll take anything and just keep smiling. But that’s not me, and I don’t think it’s most people. I don’t mind losing a game 5 to 3 or even 5 to 1 if it was hard fought. But teams with all the aces on one side and all the jokers on the other produces a score of “I got creamed” with a side topping of “I had no fun”.

Meh. It’s still a good game, and I’m going to buy it for the 3 player co-op modes alone. The single player campaign looks to be a huge winner (Adam Sessler called it the best single player game he ever played). And the competitive multiplayer is just a huge helping of gravy on top of the other two modes.