Check this latest bunch of screens from the forthcoming PS3 blockbuster, Uncharted 2. The word you’re looking for to describe them is, we think, ‘Peng!’. But look a little closer. Notice anything in particular? Like maybe those little text tags above characters’ heads, such as you might find in an online multiplayer blaster...?

Yup, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves has a multiplayer mode – several, in fact. In the first place there seems to be a co-operative option where three players take on Drake’s expansive quest to locate Marco Polo’s treasure together. Then there’s a straightforward Deathmatch mode which, we believe, supports up to eight players. And finally there’s a variant on the familiar Capture the Flag theme called ‘Plunder’, in which squads of players attempt to steal various valuable artefacts from the other side before returning them intact to their home base.

It all sounds ace, doesn’t it. There’s little doubt about that, either – especially with the game’s greater emphasis on stealth, the new free-climbing mechanic and the smarter bad-guys who’ll spot your efforts to sneak by unnoticed with their enhanced peripheral vision – erk! We don’t often find ourselves wishing the summer away, but Uncharted 2’s autumn 09 release date just can’t come around soon enough.