The Ratchet & Clank team showcased All 4 One, in particular its four-player cooperative gameplay. Newly shown were the "Terawatt Forest" level and a four-player raft ride down a river, in which all four players could push the raft in one of four directions, necessitating careful communication and co-operation to survive the river's obstacles. Also new were some of the weapons and abilities, including each character's unique ability: Captain Quark can engage a deflector shield for temporary invulnerability, Dr. Nefarious has a cloaking device, Clank can slow down time, and Ratchet can create decoy duplicates of himself.
Combat -- including the fixed "arena battles" in which players are hemmed in by a force field and made to square off against waves of opponents -- favors co-operative play, with players receiving damage bonuses for targeting the same enemy, and with weapons like the Dark Fission Rifle that allow players to chain beams together for maximum effect. At the same time, all players are in competition for bolts, the tried-and-true currency of the R&C series; the players with the most bolts between each level will be able to buy the best gear the fastest. In the words of the development team: "co-operative-competitive gameplay" is the watchword here.
Insomniac Shows New Content for Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, Resistance 3
, Insomniac's other upcoming sequel, featured new weapons and levels for the press to check out, including the "Dead Eye" sniper rifle, and a multiplayer map set in Bogota, Colombia. They also introduced the "Sniper Hybrid" and "Shield Drone" enemies, both of which are new -- one is a Chimera sniper with a cloaking device and a laser sight, and the other is a floating probe that renders a nearby enemy invulnerable until destroyed.
Insomniac also discussed some of Resistance 3's new plot points: the war with the Chimeras in earlier Resistance games has been lost, and now the scraps of humanity are just trying to survive. Joseph Cappelli, who appeared in Resistance 2, is the main protagonist -- roped into a cross-country journey to try to protect his family, and ultimately, all of mankind.
While the single-player game takes place entirely in the United States, multiplayer maps are world-ranging, and Insomniac showed the Bogota map during the event. This map emphasized brighter colors and more wide-open areas than previous Resistance multiplayer maps have, and also gave press a chance to see how the multiplayer dynamic will work. Insomniac promises "a few objective-based modes" along with the standard team deathmatches and free-for-alls, but they were tight-lipped about what those would bel ike. They did discuss the leveling system, which works similar to that of the Call of Duty games, as well as the various passive and active class abilities, and the new "Berserks" (that is, kill streak rewards) that are race specific. For example, humans get a deployable energy shield on a three-kill streak, while the Chimera get a cloaking device.
Both games look like they're making large changes to their predecessors' way of doing things, and both should be among the marquee titles on PS3 on their release in the relatively near future.