Killer Teammate

I had the most confounding gamer experience of my life yesterday.

I was trying out the multiplayer for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.  There is a cooperative mode that can be played, wherein a team of three players try to complete a mini-mission.  Now, if you back out of a game, which ruins it for everyone, you lose $10,000 of in-game cash, and are put on stand-by for 90 seconds or more.  It is meant to promote the idea that when you start a game, you commit to it.  I actually like the idea.  You have to have very good reason to want to quit.

If you are shot down, a count-down timer starts.  If you are not revived by a teammate in time, you’re out for 60 seconds.  If everyone’s dead at the same time, the level restart at the last checkpoint.  Your team gets three tries before you lose.

To begin with, the third player lost network connection before the game ever started, so it was just down to myself and a gamer with the screenname a3playgamer3.  The load screen takes a long time, so I ran to the bathroom.  When I got back, the game was already up and running.  I don’t know how long a3playgamer3 got stuck waiting for me.

We cleared out the first area rather quickly, and had reached a point where we both had to press a button to enter into the next zone.  Instead, a3playgamer3 pitched three grenades at me and blew me up.  Thanks... I’m assuming that was my punishment for making him wait.  Fair, I guess.

Turns out that you respawn with a grenade.  Well, being the better person, I rejoined my 'teammate,'  found him standing on top of a crate facing the other way, and pitched the grenade at him.  It landed perfectly at his feet.  As he bled to death, I stood in front of him, shooting him in the head.  Friendly fire doesn’t do any damage, but it makes a statement none the less.

Eye for an eye.  We’re square.

Nope.  As a3playgamer3 gets closer, I hear the familiar beeping of an airborne grenade.  I manage to get clear of the explosion, and retaliate in kind. 

As grenades are flying back and forth, it occurs to me what’s going on.  Neither of us want to be there, but neither of us want to be penalized for quitting out.  So, instead, we’re attempting to kill each other to end the game.  But for some reason, its not good enough to cooperate.  Both of us have to feel like we pulled it off.

I managed to blow both of us up simultaneously.  Level restarts, saying “2 more tries.”  a3playgamer3 doesn’t move as I immediately drop my grenade.  Level restarts.  “1 more try.” Drop a grenade.  “Last try.”  I drop my grenade and a3playgamer3 dives out of the way. 

Fully exhausted of explosives, we are left with no other choice but to enter the next area.  If we actually got along, we would have been an unstoppable team.  Attempting to kill each other kept us so on edge that not only were we successfully taking on the computer with perfect headshots, but we were dodging each other’s grenades at the same time.  The few times that one of us went down, the other person revived him.  I did it because I wasn’t going to lose to the computer.  The game was going to end deliberately by my hand.  I’m sure a3playgamer3 felt the same way.

To get to the third area, one of us had to give the other a boost to some handholds on a wall.  a3playgamer3 gaves me a boost, which seemed far too cooperative for him.  I quickly learned why as he somehow managed to toss a grenade at the wall and get it lodged in one of the ledges.  Instead of letting me die after falling to the ground, or reviving me for that matter, a3playgamer3 revived me partway, let me bleed, revived me, shot at me for fun, revived me, waited, revived…

One would quit.  Nope, not me.  I’m a stubborn sort.  I decided to do some text messaging on my phone while I wait for him to get bored. 

Eventually he gave in and we entered area three.  With all disregard, I bee-lined it across the battlefield for a propane tank, picked it up, threw it backwards at a3playgamer3, and blew the thing up before it hit the ground.  It was an all-out deathmatch between three teams - him, me, and the computer.  There are missiles flying, cars exploding, grenades going off everywhere, and gunfire from all angles. 

"No, I am the batman"

Near the end, a3playgamer3 goes down.  I rush over to revive him, but its too hot, and I have to clear out the gunners before I can heal him.  I also realize that I’m taking a lot of damage, and if I mess up, the computer will win.  I shouldn’t have run into the open to save him in the first place.  It was too dangerous. 

Somehow, I manage to shoot down the last of them.  Afterwards, I look down at a3playgamer3 to see his life meter almost out.  Instead of reviving him, I throw down a grenade like Batman with a smoke bomb, and end the game.

I have no idea what was going through a3playgamer3’s mind the whole time, or why either of us stuck it out.  It absolutely confounds me. 

Somehow, I don’t know how, I think I might have made a friend.