The 10 Best Beta Games of 2011

The top ten betas that packed this year full of gaming prospect.

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Image via Complex Original
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10. Resistance 3

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10. Resistance 3

By the seaside or the train tracks, the Chimera are taking over. Resistance 3 hosted a closed multiplayer beta (access via SOCOM 4, PlayStation Plus, and Insomniac directly) that began on August 4th and worked its way swiftly up to the game’s release in early September.

It was an opportunity for the surprisingly low-profile shooter (relatively speaking) to let gamers know that this iteration in the series was gunning for a shot with the big dogs. Hint: They rhyme with Cattle Field Tree and Mall of Booty: Garden Sore Fairy.

Reviews for the final product were mixed, but reviews for the beta marked a definite improvement from the insanity of Resistance 2’s multiplayer. 60-player matches were no more, replaced by more focused, tactical 16-player battles with all the belts and camo that come with shooters today.

Perks, killsteaks, alien weaponry with homing bullets and deployable shields debuted alongside stand-by shotguns and assault rifles. Connectivity to public matches may have been rough in the beginning, but the Resistance 3 beta ended on a decidedly high note, propelling the game to greater commercial and critical success.

9. Call of Duty: Elite

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9. Call of Duty: Elite

If any game service has ever needed a beta to explain to confused (and some irate) fans what it’s even for, it’d be Call of Duty: Elite. Call of Duty die-hards perpetually teeter on the edge of fury, praying that Activision won’t wave its greedy wand over the beloved, free-to-play-online multiplayer.

So when the news of Elite dropped earlier this year, the developers and producers knew they’d have to assuage fears of mandatory service payments with some public hands-on time.

For anyone not part of the beta this summer, or still in the dark about Elite, it’s free and it’s mostly just statistics. Two of the four main headings, Career and Improve, walk players through their performance in excruciating detail, from death and kill locations to hours (see: days, years) needed to prestige. Connect and Compete are geared towards streamlining community interaction for tournaments, casual matches, and everything in between.

This wasn’t a beta for a game, but it was a great look into the inevitable future for online shooters and the level of depth gamers can expect in the coming sequels to record-breaking franchises.

8. Star Wars: The Old Republic

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8. Star Wars: The Old Republic

Bioware has been tight-lipped about the beta for this upcoming MMORPG. A fluctuating release schedule and some inaccessible footage aren’t surprising for a game with this much potential and that much brand equity weighing it down.

The developers want to make sure that they get it right, understandably, and the closed, invite-only beta weekends have reportedly been a valuable tool in that effort.

Although impressions from the beta have been forbidden, there’s no shortage of PR prose to keep MMO and Star Wars fans salivating until release on December 20th. Early word sounds like a MMORPG consistent with the current tradition of the genre, set in the Star Wars Universe.

Classes for stealth, melee, casting, support. Fetch quests galore. Lackluster graphical representation. And yet there’s something irresistible about it, like a Star Wars junkie to Star Wars T.V. marathons.

7. Uncharted 3

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7. Uncharted 3

Uncharted 2 rests comfortably on its laurel-throne of interactive, high-action set pieces, and sips gleefully from its goblet of persistent, competitive online multiplayer.

In the Uncharted 3 multiplayer beta, Naughty Dog poured out the goblet on the throne to douse players before release in an ambitious new kind of battle. No, Drake isn’t going Katamari. It’s Michael Bay meets Tomb Raider meets Gears of War - thrilling, challenging, and confusing.

Levels like Chateau offer the same fare as Uncharted 2, which is good. Levels like Airstrip begin to peel back the layers of what’s really possible in online multiplayer, and then revert to static levels.

Fighting off waves of enemies on a moving cargo plane, about to take off, armed gunmen leaping from pursuing trucks to the loading door in heroic, inhuman leaps - the taut intensity thrives. It’s a great step, and perhaps the right one for consistency’s sake - fans can be, let’s say, averse to change.

6. Assassin's Creed: Revelations

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6. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

Butchering 16th century AI fools took a back seat to fierce PvP multiplayer shank-fests in Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. Exploring the hunter-hunted dynamic through new, up-close lenses, players entered Roma’s most dangerous game gladly, and had every expectation to be revel in the unique multiplayer mode’s return. The open beta for Assassin’s Creed: Revelations proves that minor alterations to the successful formula spelled death for more infidels.

Stealth is still killing king. Outright kills are for clumsy assassins, and the cunning and patient are rewarded for hiding in piles of hay or chatting street groups. The stun function received a boost in Revelations, bolstering defensive options outside of outright flight. Tweaks to NPC behavior added to the confusion of hunting prey, with computer avatars darting hither and yon a la player-character assassins.

And the colorful new cast fit perfectly into the romantic Byzantine setting. Revelations may not be the revelatory package that gamer were hoping for, but online Templar hunting has only gotten better.

5. Diablo 3

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5. Diablo 3

Torchlight temporarily sated the rabid Diablo II fan. Diablo III will fill the dungeon-crawling, loot-snatching, character-building hunger. The closed beta for Diablo III has been active on and off since August, and the impressions are in. Delving deeper into castles and caves is just as addicting now as it was then.

Expected classes return with a few new warriors in tow: Barbarian, Wizard, Monk, Demon Hunter, and Witch Doctor. Skills are no longer governed by trees but by limited inventory slots (active and passive). Some essential processes have been streamlined, like selling items anywhere through the Cauldron of Jordan, and breaking down items into usable components with the Nephalim Cube.

Henchmen return as Followers, players can battle each other in the PvP Battle Arena, and cooperative online play allows players to form guild-like groups in the fashion of MMORPGs. And thankfully, Blizzard has kept Diablo III out of the diabolical reach of microtrans… oh wait.

4. Battlefield 3

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4. Battlefield 3

DICE has always been ambitious about multiplayer. From the downloadable Battlefield 1943 to the enormous scale and occupation of battles in Bad Company 2, the developer has strived to push the Frostbite (now Frostbite 2) engine to its limits and test players’ mettle on more realistic simulations of warfare.

Tossing aside the arcade-style of its direct competitor, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Battlefield 3 opts to stay contemporary with load-outs and customization while continuing to pioneer large-scale, objective-based battles in the genre.

The open beta this fall, just prior to release, gave players a taste of Operation Metro, a vehicle-free Defend-and-Destroy map spanning from a wide open public park (sniper’s delight) to close-quarters crumbling subway tunnels.

Additions like the prone stance and blinding flashlights were overshadowed by the crippling bugs (since fixed), while the heart of the multiplayer remained intact. Distant, sudden flashes, ear-splitting explosions, and a focus on team work have turned this CoD contender into a real player in the military shooter space, and the post-beta cleanup is largely to thank for that.

3. Gears of War 3

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3. Gears of War 3

In the COG’s final stand against the lambent and locust hordes, the balance and excitement of the original Gears of War multiplayer returns. The spring multiplayer beta for this fall release (Epic had a lot of “polish time”) showed off how much refinement the series has seen, from issues as simple as connectivity to camping nests to pacing.

The beta rolled out game modes (King of the Hill, Deathmatch, etc.) and maps (Checkout, Thrashball, Trenches, and Old Town) over the course of six weeks, giving dedicated fans plenty of time to hone their skills with new weapons like the sawed-off shotgun, the one shot, the digger launcher, and the retro lancer. Unlike Gears of War 2, matchmaking for Gears of War 3’s multiplayer beta was effortless and quick.

In the midst of the firefight, players quickly found how to play aggressively to the intended vantage points and coordinate their efforts. By the end of the beta, the competition was almost as stiff as it is today, two months after release.

2. Journey

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2. Journey

From thatgamecompany, the developer behind PSN’s Flower, a private beta glimpse at an upcoming downloadable title was a tease. Journey follows an unnamed, crimson-hooded protagonist on a… let’s say “quest” through a lonely desert towards a pillar of mountain light. It’s as experiential and mysterious as thatgamecompany’s previous offering, but incorporates player-to-player voluntary online interactions in a way no game has attempted before.

Presumably, the beta was to test the online cooperative functionality, where players wandering between monolithic rock bridges are joined by another unknown protagonist. They look identical and share the same powers: to sing at cloth and jump.

Aside from boosting a partner’s jump, there’s little probative benefit to accompanying another lonely wanderer. Instead, players naturally gravitate towards each other out of an innate desire to share the experience. At least, that’s the hope of Jenova Chen and his team at thatgamecompany, and if the beta is any indication, then this serene title will be bringing gamers peacefully together in spring 2012.

1. Minecraft

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1. Minecraft

Less than one month from the beginning of the beta, Minecraft had sold one million units. By the end of the beta, Minecraft sold more than four million units.

Running from December 10, 2010, to November 18, 2011, the Minecraft beta is comfortably the longest running and most profitable beta of 2011. With the recent full release at MineCon 2011, Markus “Notch” Persson and Mojang have finally transitioned the product into a state they are willing to call “finished” in some sense. Between patches and expansions, as well as the fathoms of user-generated content, the completed version of Minecraft will always be under construction.

Minecraft allows players to use cubes with varying properties to sculpt worlds of their own design, whether in an effort to survive (Survival Mode) or just to create (Creative Mode). YouTube is brimming with scores of tributes players have made to various game worlds or real-life locations using Minecraft’s boxed-in level design tools, and Mojang aims to expand that pool.

iOS and Android versions of Minecraft have just debuted, and a Kinect-enabled version is in development for a targeted 2012 release. To call Notch a prodigy of the game development community would be an understatement. To call Minecraft one of the most successful betas of all time is right on.

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