Is bad single player excusable?

[Cry Wolf]

SNIP

The market is bloated with multiplayer titles. Unless you do something insanely awesome, unique or interesting have a solid muliplayer component and a lackluster singleplayer campaign really doesn't cut it.

For what it's worth, of the reviews I've seen, Starhawks looks interesting enough - though I can't test that because it's a PS3 exlusive - for me to give up maybe $20. However, I'm more than willing to give $80 for games with great single player - like the first two Mass Effect games, the Witcher titles and (my favourite) Deus Ex.

So yeah, single player centric games are far superior and get much more of my money than multiplayer centric games.

 

[Cobbs]

It seems that single player and multi player experiences should receive different scores. E.g. Call of Duty's single player is generally the same thing through all iterations, as opposed to the multiplayer which seems to get tweaked daily. Logically two different scores should apply.

 

[Nouw]

It comes down to whether or not it was a selling point or focus of the devs. Take Bad Company for example. It has an average, although hilarious, single-player but goddamn it is the Multiplayer outstanding. D.I.C.E. obviously put a lot more effort, I hope, into the Multiplayer and that's good enough for me.

 

[Kimarous]

Lacklustre single-player is inexcusable. Why? Because no matter how well made your multiplayer is, it's only as good as the server population. If nobody is online, or if the servers get shut down, what are you stuck with?

 

[veloper]

Just as long as the person doing the review clearly states at the beginning of his piece where he's coming from, ignoring the campaign or multiplayer part is fair.

Reviewers should be more upfront about their preferences in general.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

Single player should be the large pudding, and Multiplayer should be the cinnamon sprinkled on it. If the cake is horrible, the cinnamon would not make it any better.
[sub][sub][sub]I was gonna use custard but custard does make some things better so I randomly chose cinnamon.[/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[Iwata]

I understand.

Practical example: I'm a HUGE fan of the Syndicate games, as well as most Bullfrog games. I was over-excited about the new game, and it was a day-1 purchase for me. But then people started saying how the game's really only good once you play co-op, and that the campaign is kinda iffy.

And it went from Day-1 purchase, to I-still-don't-own-it-nor-will-I-own-it-until-it's-dirt-cheap.

really? the

"being turned into a big dumb generic shooter" didnt turn you off?

Nah, I like big dumb generic shooters, and I do like to see my games reimagined.

But yeah, I've seen a couple of playthroughs, and the campaign is seriously underwhelming.

Ah well... I have Syndicate Wars bought on the Playstation Store, and that does the job just fine.

 

[Vault101]

Nah, I like big dumb generic shooters, and I do like to see my games reimagined.

.

................................

what are you doing on the escapist?....

....are you an alien?

 

[Rumpsteak]

If it is being marketed as having a single player mode then it should be judged against the same standard as every other game. Whether or not the games focus is multi-player if time was spent on a single player option the it shouldn't get a free pass just because it is not the main focus.

 

[Ando85]

I recall Shadowrun got some bad ratings for its complete lake of single player altogether. I spent 100s of hours having fun playing the multiplayer. So I think I got my money's worth.

 

[Iwata]

Nah, I like big dumb generic shooters, and I do like to see my games reimagined.

.

................................

what are you doing on the escapist?....

....are you an alien?

I am that rare person who still plays games to have fun. That does indeed qualify me as an alien in this day and age.

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

Obviously the single player is the only important thing.
That's why I hate these two pieces of crap I played called Team Fortress 2 and MAG. MAG's single player can be beaten in literally five minutes, if you go slow. TF2 doesn't even HAVE one.

God what terrible games

 

[shintakie10]

That's fair, but what game has been marketed that way? I'm all for truth in advertising, but I don't remember, say, CoD being marketed primarily on the singleplayer, and that's the one that gets brought up the most in these discussions.

Homefront is a pretty good example of that. The single player got hyped to hell and back. There also was a multiplayer that was, from what I've heard, really really good. However because they completely ignored marketin for the multiplayer when the game launched a huge group of people that they could have easily brought in went completely ignored. Then when the game didn't sell nearly as well as they'd hoped because of its SP issues, they tried to drag people into the multiplayer too little too late.

 

[userwhoquitthesite]

Nah, I like big dumb generic shooters, and I do like to see my games reimagined.

.

................................

what are you doing on the escapist?....

....are you an alien?

I am that rare person who still plays games to have fun. That does indeed qualify me as an alien in this day and age.

an alien that's overcharging us for oil, based on your avatar.
See, this is basically my whole deal: Play what is fun.
So, games like Darkwatch, which is so awful it can make me rage-puke, but the multiplayer is accidental genius, I still play.
games like Soul Calibur 5 which isn't fun to play by yourself or with anyone else, I ignore
I do come up biased for single player, because that's how i prefer to play, but still

That said, having EITHER game mode tacked on with no regard for quality DOES irk me, but then I probably won't purchase that game anyway

 

[Nazulu]

Nah, I like big dumb generic shooters, and I do like to see my games reimagined.

.

................................

what are you doing on the escapist?....

....are you an alien?

I am that rare person who still plays games to have fun. That does indeed qualify me as an alien in this day and age.

Care to explain what everyone else does with video games?

 

[johnnnny guitar]

Well if a single player game has an amazing multiplayer then I guess it's okay and I'll pick it up sooner or later.

HOWEVER!!!!

If you are reviewing a game sorry that has to be marked as part of the core experience not just something that gets a half line mention and then only takes 0.5 off the review score I.E. 95% of all the battlefield 3 reviews.

Now I liked the multiplayer in battlefield 3 (I got it for free so I could justify having to use origin on my PC) and I was playing some a few hours ago but the single player while enjoyable in some places was quicker then lighting a match and had plenty of shit segments these need to be taken into account not ignored and have an impact on reviews because unlike consumers reviews can't overlook game faults.

 

[templar1138a]

One big reason I play RPGs: Very few of them try to be multiplayer. As such, they put a lot of emphasis on their campaigns.

As Yahtzee once said, "Unfortunately, I don't give a flying shit about Multiplayer, and neither do a lot of people."

Seriously, I play TOR for the story campaigns. I gave up on trying to enjoy any multiplayer aspects a while ago. "LFG Athiss" became a tiresome thing to say.

Also, I approve of captchas that serve the function of public service announcements instead of advertisements.

 

[Iwata]

Nah, I like big dumb generic shooters, and I do like to see my games reimagined.

.

................................

what are you doing on the escapist?....

....are you an alien?

I am that rare person who still plays games to have fun. That does indeed qualify me as an alien in this day and age.

Care to explain what everyone else does with video games?

Well, from what I see lately, they buy them so they can complain about them.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

That's fair, but what game has been marketed that way? I'm all for truth in advertising, but I don't remember, say, CoD being marketed primarily on the singleplayer, and that's the one that gets brought up the most in these discussions.

Homefront is a pretty good example of that. The single player got hyped to hell and back. There also was a multiplayer that was, from what I've heard, really really good. However because they completely ignored marketin for the multiplayer when the game launched a huge group of people that they could have easily brought in went completely ignored. Then when the game didn't sell nearly as well as they'd hoped because of its SP issues, they tried to drag people into the multiplayer too little too late.

Okay, I can see that. It's remembered as a pretty terrible game, too, so I guess the marketing backfired on them. Shame if it's got good multiplayer but it was marketed wrong.

 

[David VanDusen]

My two cents: The answer is NO.... ALWAYS NO!

Then again, I'm an adult and have adult ways of looking at things. I'm also old... and bitter... and annoyed easily. According to South Park ( because obnoxious people watch the show and just had to point it out ) I suffer from a debilitating case of "Being and Ass."

Back to the point...

NOOOOOOOO!!!!! See, I'm sort of glad that people keep buying video games. It's a hallmark of knowing people I don't want to have personal interaction with. (that's a little too far) My point is, it must be insanity which infects people convincing them that it's "OK" for a company to release a shit product and charge XXX price for it. I've felt this way about the CoD games and everything from Halo 2 forward. I got tired of games which were 90% internally focused towards online play but were marketed with the idea that it was a 50%-50% split on development on some shit.

If a developer wants to produce some new ultra cool hyper sonic jizz in your pants multiplayer game they should just f-ing do it. What they shouldn't do is phone in some shitty single player with the intent of conning people into their game.

However, this is the new way of video games. While "demos" exist sometimes, the download time on most of them make people not even bother. If they do bother to try one and its shit, they seemingly chalk it up to being the demo and thus unpolished or something.

Shit damn... I miss carts.