206: Split|Screen

[Sam Machkovech]

Split|Screen

In the days of Steam, Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, it's easy to lose sight of what multiplayer used to be: you and a few of your buddies laughing and trading insults from across the room. Sam Machkovech catalogs the rise and fall of local multiplayer gaming.

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[messy]

This article came as a breath of fresh air, I thought I was the only who seemed to sense the negative effects of online dominated multiplayer. Even if you know the person on the other end of the cable you loose the intimacy of sitting in the same room, you miss the joy of seeing your opponents face drop as you head shot them, the moments that just make you laugh due to the improbable way one of you just died and more importantly you miss the conversation.

Online the only voices I hear are the occasionally "boom head shot" followed by stream of abuses, and you are forced to turn off everyone else's voice to hold a conversation with friends whereas with friends the conversations can go a little deeper. When you know the people and you have the privacy of a living room you the discussions can go slightly deeper and you can discuss current events, all interwoven with explosions.

 

[Erana]

Some of the best memories of my childhood are playing Halo co-op with my sister...
I hate vs. multiplayer, online vs. even more. The latter was too competitive for me, the former seems just heartless. I know that's a bit of a biased view, but it just... seems that way to me.
That's why I've been looking foreward to L4D; of course, I can't get XBL, and my computer can't handle the game...
I want to play split-screen co-op now.

 

[cononking]

Brilliant article. I completely agree with everything said here. I really loved those Goldeneye/Perfect Dark days. I like online multiplayer (particularly cooperative) as you can play anytime you wish, but it is a shadow of what splitscreen multiplayer is like. I would totally sacrifice screen space to play a decent game with my friends. (I am also sick to death of hearing online somebody's bad music or their argument with their wife, kid or dog.)

 

[CrystalShadow]

Yes. It's a pity, because it's such an obvious thing sometimes. - It actually took me by surprise.

I visited an acquaintance with a 360 not to long ago... There were 4 of us there, and yet we couldn't do anything other than have 1 person play a game, and the other 3 watch.
Why? Because the only multiplayer modes were online...

And somehow, sitting around watching someone else play just doesn't feel right.
It takes away all reason to visit a person and play games.

 

[LoopyDood]

Some of my most memorable gaming experiences happened while playing split screen with my friends. Actally, almost ALL of them are!

 

[darthuvius]

i made a dice game for 360 called Ye Olde Dice Game, you can get it on community games channel. it supports 4 way local multiplayer!! if you like yahtzee you should try it at least.

its somewhat irritating when genres that in the past supported local coop play do not do so now. there's a time for every game though. local play is going to come back im sure.

 

[Anachronism]

Great article, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a cranky old man who wants games the old way. I enjoy my single-player games just as much as multiplayer ones, but when I play multiplayer it's almost invariably at a friend's house. I like to be isolated when playing a single-player game, but when I'm gaming with other people, I like to be able to actually talk to them; to mock them when they screw up; to make jokes at the game's expense when something odd happens.

I still fondly remember marathon sessions of Halo (see what I did there?) back when the first Xbox was the new next-generation console. I'm relatively certain that it wouldn't have been nearly as fun had we been playing online. We wouldn't have found it nearly as funny when one of us accidentally killed the other; if one of us screwed up online, chances are the other person would get annoyed about it, rather than laugh along. Even though gaming is moving more and more towards having only online multiplayer, I'm still proud to consider myself one of the cranky old gamers who want things the way they were.

 

[lewpuls]

The first four-player-on-one-screen game I played was Atari 2600 Warlords (1980-81): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlords_(arcade_game). Dandy was much later.

PCs allow in-the-room multi-player gaming across a LAN. 8 player Warcraft III, anyone? The key is that everyone has his own equipment, so that the screen need not be shared. Quite common at our college game club meetings...

 

[Clashero]

There's nothing like being able to actually hit your friend (or scream at him, whatever) whenever you're playing. I remember hotseat Soul Calibur III sessions with 3 other friends. Those were the days.

But nothing, NOTHING can beat 8 friends in a room taking turns playing Worms 2. Anyone who agrees earns a 1UP mushroom.

 

[Xelanath]

Great article.

An addendum: it's somewhat ironic that, with the increasing power of our systems and the size and quality of our TVs, split-screen gaming is decreasing. Now really should be the time for it to shine, not risk disappearing altogether.

 

[nmaster64]

+1 FUCK YEAH

 

[JRCB]

I totally agree with this. I enjoy taking my XBOX over to my friends house (he doesn't have one) and we usually play Halo together. And because a fair amount of developers are taking away split-screen, I won't have any new games to bring over.

 

[Ois]

Great article.

Lets hope co-op goes back to when it was great.

 

[Jsnoopy]

haha yeah now that I think about it, virtually all of my best memories of gaming have come from local, 4 player multiplayer. There was the boasting over super smash bros on N64, rounds of Rockets on Prisoner in Halo (try that shit out, it is INSANE), and most recently when two kids brought in their xboxes to school and we set up a LAN and had a GoW tournament that was crazy fun.

 

[not a zaar]

Phsst, us PC gamers have been playing alone in darkened rooms for decades now, it's about time console gamers caught up.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I also prefer gaming with my friends on the couch.

This is why Warhawk is one of my all time favorite games: besides the ton of people you can play on-line with, I can also get 4 of my friends in on the game at the same time with split screen.
Why can't we have both on line and split screen with the rest of those kinds of games?

Online multiplayer isn't quite overrated but it is depended on too much sometimes. I sometimes think that GTA4 would've had at least as much content as GTA3 if they didn't depend on multiplayer to stretch play time.

 

[Nokterne]

My friends and I still play 4 player splitscreen Halo almost every weekend, and have been doing so since the release of the first game. For us, the game IS its splitscreen functionality. I have not purchased games simply because they don't offer splitscreen gameplay.

Its still a vital element in multiplayer gaming for some of us.