206: Split|Screen

[ReverseEngineered]

I'm glad somebody finally put out an article about this.

I game online all the time, and while it's fun, there's a lot to be said for having your friends in the room with you. There's only so much you can communicate over a noisy headset, or worse yet, typing text feverishly. Teamwork requires communication and our most experienced form of communication is face to face with the person next to us.

Local multiplayer also helps with socialization. It's great to meet people online, but with all the barriers to communication, it's difficult to really get to know people. Nothing is more natural than getting together with some friends to play a game, whether it's a card game, board game, or video game. Without local multiplayer, you can't play most games together with your friends (puzzle games being a definite exception).

It's unfortunate that developers have left multiplayer by the wayside. My friends and I still play NES together regularly, but I'll be damned if I can get them to play anything on my XBOX 360 other than Rock Band. There just aren't enough games that take advantage of split screen and make playing together worth doing.

 

[driph]

While I agree with the overall theme of your article (local multiplayer is a good thing), you've got the history a bit off.

Early arcade games were very much multiplayer focused. It wasn't until the very late 1970s that single player arcade games became the dominant force, with co-op (or human vs play) ending up on the sidelines for a few years. It's the same story with early home consoles; there were a bajillion dedicated PONG (and similar game) consoles released, and those were all local co-op.

Additionally, the "short bursts of two-player action in Atari's Combat" were actually directly inspired by arcades. Atari/Kee's Tank was a huge hit, and the tank portion of Combat was pretty much a direct port of the game. Speaking of multiplayer, take a look at the Atari's 1976 Tank 8 (many of the early arcade titles had a half dozen or more difference variations released), allowing eight simultaneous players to do battle!
http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=tank-8&page=detail&id=3675


For modern co-op gaming, I'd suggest moving away from the first person genre, although many of those still offer local co-op campaign support. Dungeon crawlers almost always include local co-op, and many of the PSN/XBLA games do too. See http://www.co-optimus.com for a massive list of games you can play with friends on the same couch.

 

[mikekearn]

Excellent article. I couldn't agree more. It bugs me to no end that so many amazing games have no option for local co-op or split screen play. It's gotten to the point of any game having such a feature is a big deal, when not that long ago it was standard to any game that had multiplayer.

It's why, even though it's bashed a lot by certain people and fanboys, I still love the Halo franchise. At any time, I can have a friend or three jump on the game with me, and we can even go online all together. It's the perfect setup, and has done amazingly well for Bungie, and yet, you rarely see it anymore, at least in high profile games. It's a sad thing, and one that I continue to hope will not become the standard, but am less and less sure of.

 

[bjj hero]

I loved reading this. There have been some epic split screen games. You quick history should have mentioned bomber man, four player bedlam.

An interesting multi player experience was on micro machines. You had to share a control pad with your friend to get the most out of it. Later they had extra controller ports built into the cartridge.

Secret of mana was awesome, 3 player rpg. Ahead of its time. Powerstone 2 was absolute chaos with 4 players. finally time splitters was genius. I loved fragging that duck.

Most of the newer generation of gamers will never have these shared experiences as developers are pushing for more power and you have to hold back to run it 4 times. More's the pity.

 

[Dragoon785]

Good article. Feels like another soothsayer review but that's fine because it serves as a reminder to onlookers and developers that people, especially gamers, believe in "Fun". The Arcade gamer style has proven useful and successful in the past, especially with that "playing with literally close friends" feel.
Really what is happenening is there are more choices becoming available, but those choices divide fans of that specific area. I do wish for more multiplayer games with a 4 player option in one room, but I believe that no matter what time period we're in, we'll always find a way to group up and play. If one game comes out that is incredible enough to keep 4 people in the same room, it'll definitely keep the tradition alive....or it'll just cater to fans of the good old days.

 

[Lord_Jaroh]

Truthfully, I dislike split-screen gaming, but I love multiplayer in the same room, whether that be LAN and Diablo II or Baldur's Gate parties, Rock Band, Little Big Planet, hotseat vs. with Street Fighter IV or Soul Cal IV.

I'm disappointed that many games are moving away from this style of multiplayer rather than trying to encourage an actual social activity within gaming rather than trying to keep everyone separated. I'm disappointed, but I can understand. Money counts more than satisfying consumers, so when you can make more people buy your game/system just to be able to play with their friends...

 

[Striker1246]

The first time I played a videogame was when I was invited over to a friends house in the forth grade to play halo. As of May 1st, 2009 him, myself and two other friends have played a combined Fortyfive THOUSAND hours of Halo (1, 2, and 3), all in the same room. it does not matter that we all have copies of the game and xbox live- we play to revel in our shared triumphs and defeats (and to trash talk each other like crazy). whether or not a game has four player splitscreen is on the top of our list; though that list is steadily growing smaller.
If anyone happens to have any good splitscreen game suggestions (anything from two to four player) for the xbox, PLEASE post.

 

[Striker1246]

Id advise you to get some friends who have live- it took myself and three friends to get through L4D expert, and boy did we have a blast.

 

[Sam Machkovech]

While I agree with the overall theme of your article (local multiplayer is a good thing), you've got the history a bit off.

Thanks for your take on this. I'd have gone further/deeper with early games research if it didn't distract from the main, modern point of this article, and I still believe four-player games didn't get their mainstream push until Gauntlet. If you attend any retro gaming show these days, such as Seattle's recent NW Pinball Show (http://nwpinballshow.com/), you'll see a focus on one-player cabs from the golden era; early multi games had their bursts of success in certain regions, but none of them impacted the universal gaming zeitgeist like the hits of the late '70s/early '80s.

 

[dragonburner]

MY POLL THAT IS SO OLD NOT EVEN FUNNY:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.109442?view_results=1

 

[Entropy_kC]

Even the most cooperative of all co-op games in recent history, Left 4 Dead, requires you to play online to max out your four-player squad.

If you played it on the PC then you could LAN and do it four player side-by-side.

Nintendo recently promoted its latest Super Mario Bros. title with a four-player mode that runs solely on a single console. Unhappy journalists hoping for an online option were told the Wii didn't have the power for it. But maybe there was another answer: The industry's first four-player champions didn't have the stomach for it.

It's a real shame the internet connected games don't work very well (well, I experience huge lag and since it's so fast paced any lag is unacceptable), but I agree that it is much better to play something like SSBB as four people sitting on a couch, rather than fighting someone in another house, another town or another country even.

 

[Conqueror Kenny]

Split screen is dying out because LAN is all the rage now. Where appropriate 2 people to a tv with 3 or 4 moved into the same room makes for much bigger games than a single screen split into four tiny quarters.
I don't have fond memories of four player split screen, the times playing Halo 2 with four of us looking at a quarter of the screen each and complaining about not being able to see anything on the tiny part we were given.
The problem with nostalgia is that you only tend to remember the good parts of it, people say that the original Fallout is still a great game comparable to any RPG's now. But if you replay it you will realise that it's not as great as you have made it to be in your mind and is very bad compared to today's games.

 

[Irandrura]

Personally... I still can't stand online multiplayer, but I have very fond memories of local multiplayer. It was the original Super Smash Bros., GoldenEye, and F-Zero X for me, but actually having other people around makes a huge difference.

I'm not sure online multiplayer is real multiplayer, if you take my meaning. What, exactly, is social about it? The anonymity of online gaming is a turn-off. Anyone familiar with GIFT? I think you find that online, under assumed names, people are far more likely to consider courtesy optional. In the flesh, you have to play with people you like; no one sits on the couch next to a massive jackass, do they? It requires some degree of friendship. Online, that's out the window.

It's speculated that the first games humans created and played were done for the purposes of social bonding. Other animals, from primates to dolphins, also play with each other. Why? It helps build stronger communities. For video gaming, this holds much more true for local multiplayer than online. Social bonding does take place when it's you and a bunch of friends and the one television. While there are a few exceptions (and no offense is intended to those who've made lifelong friends in guilds and the like), the majority of online gaming is anonymous, and one rarely encounters the same players again. It has ceased to be a social experience, communal bonds are no longer being created, and I cease to find it entertaining.

 

[orangebandguy]

I still play split screen multiplayer on Cod:WaW and UT3 and your right it is a rewarding experience.

 

[The Random One]

Well, if liking split-screen multiplayer makes me a cranky old man, you'd better get out of my lawn, whippersnappers. It's always been difficult for me to get a lot of friends to play with me, and right now it's essentially impossible as I don't have any gaming friends any more, but I still think it's the only thing that's really multiplayer. Online multiplayer for me is just solo play with very smart opponents/allies.

 

[Ghul]

I'm a local co-op lover myself, nobody wants to sit around the living room and watch me play Call of Duty, so the Wii has been dominating the gaming timeslot I have in the evening.

Bit.trip.beat is driving me and my little sister completely insane.

 

[civver]

Split-screen is awkward. Also, if online play starts to sap your social skills, that's your fault, not the game's.

 

[Ashbax]

Most of my best gaming experiences were playing Games like goldeneye and perfect dark with my friends, and then later, nightfire (We had high hopes after goldeneye...)

But meh, I enjoy TF2 nonetheless, but I wish games would stop cutting out Local play.

 

[MNRA]

Split screen is dying out because LAN is all the rage now...etc.

LANing has been dying out slowly with the onset of greater connectivity to the internet. Back in the day (yes I'll use those words) some ten years ago, when everyone was sitting at (at most) a 56.6kbps modem the only way to properly play games against each other on a PC-rig was to drag said rig over to your friends house or do what my group did, rent a locale over a weekend and have 20 people show up, each paying a small part. LAN parties were also the best way to get new pirated games or music, making the meeting pretty darn vital for exchange of "warez and fluff".

Now as the speed, and availability of broadband, connections increased the need to participate in medium sized LANs decreased, since you could stay at home and play online instead and use (at the time) Napster or other software to DL what you needed. Medium LANs grew "out of fashion" and today a lot of the larger (100+) LANs are non existent.

The big LANs still persist here in Sweden though but nowadays they are more for the spectacle of it. People come to LANs not for what the article states, social gaming, but just for the socialization. Personally I think it was a deathblow to LANing when internet was introduced to them. People simply stopped "wasting" energy co ordinating large games of SC or Q1-TF when everyone could just go online instead, in modern days you'd be surprised how many people come to a large LAN like birdie, dreamhack etc. and play nothing but WoW.

Bad thing or not? I dunno, I just miss the days when everyone played the same games at LANs, together, without thoughts of skill levels (you made teams to accommodate) and then after a good long two hour game, had a equally long discussion/rant/laugh about the game just played.

 

[Chaossebba]

Im in fact going to do some Xbox LAN/Splitscreening on the 30th! its always more fun with good friends instead of the random 13 year olds on Xbox Live.