The Day the Multiplayer Died
- Thread starter Game People
- Start date
I always hated split-screen. The brawlers and fighting games are best; no 'screen-watching,' no squinting at itty-bitty HUDs squished into the corner...I do miss LAN gaming though.
That Starcraft 2 doesn't support LAN is a pretty bad blow, considering my roommate and I are both RTS players. Now we have to go through the whole online Battle.net thing, just to connect to the person sitting 8 ft away.
I never had much experience with bots. I know that Valve is trying something with TF2. It's not perfect, but they're tweaking it based on gamer input, so at least that's something.
That Starcraft 2 doesn't support LAN is a pretty bad blow, considering my roommate and I are both RTS players. Now we have to go through the whole online Battle.net thing, just to connect to the person sitting 8 ft away.
I never had much experience with bots. I know that Valve is trying something with TF2. It's not perfect, but they're tweaking it based on gamer input, so at least that's something.
I very rarely play online multiplayer because I like playing with people I know, and it's hard enough knowing enough people who have the same system and the same game as me. So I enjoy it when my friends come round and we can all play together, in the same room, drinking and talking together. We hardly ever play on the Xbox 360 now. If there's two of us, fine, Left 4 Dead is fun, but there is no excuse why there's no 4 player local multiplayer for Left 4 Dead. So we play on the Wii. And now my friends want Wiis. They don't want Xbox 360s, they want Wiis.
I need to track down a copy of Timesplitters 2.
Shit, most of my friends have never even heard of it!
Shit, most of my friends have never even heard of it!
Yeah split screen needs to come back. Not everyone has Xbox Live or PSN to play against other people. Then again, not everyone has 3 friends so they need bots. Both would be great to see as a must feature for FPSes of the future.
I firmly believe this is simply marketing sneaking into your games unnoticed.
Like the games that used to be on your mobile phone. Solitaire, minesweeper or whatever.
The last phone I bought had no games, it had 30 second demos and a link to the site where I could go and purchase solitaire, with actual money.
As for the multiplayer issue;
4-player splitscreen is 1 copy sold. No splitscreen probably isn't 4 copies sold, but at least it will be more than 1. Also, everyone playing the game will have paid the full price.
Eventually, we will grow accustomed enough to online play that it becomes a necessity in gaming. Which will be the point where the price of your subscription is tripled.
Other than the income thing, it's also a piracy thing. Forcing people to play online effectively forces them to actually buy the game, or go through a lot of trouble getting the latest "untraceable" console mod that could get your account banned the second the next update hits.
The fact that it took this thread for a lot of people to realise "Hey wait, splitscreen is gone" already shows how much a lot of people really care.
I'll bet the vast majority of gamers (that aren't sharing a console) only own 1 controller per system, except for their Wii perhaps.
Any possible second controller was either given to them for free, is a collectible, or is commonly extremely busy collecting dust.
Like the games that used to be on your mobile phone. Solitaire, minesweeper or whatever.
The last phone I bought had no games, it had 30 second demos and a link to the site where I could go and purchase solitaire, with actual money.
As for the multiplayer issue;
4-player splitscreen is 1 copy sold. No splitscreen probably isn't 4 copies sold, but at least it will be more than 1. Also, everyone playing the game will have paid the full price.
Eventually, we will grow accustomed enough to online play that it becomes a necessity in gaming. Which will be the point where the price of your subscription is tripled.
Other than the income thing, it's also a piracy thing. Forcing people to play online effectively forces them to actually buy the game, or go through a lot of trouble getting the latest "untraceable" console mod that could get your account banned the second the next update hits.
The fact that it took this thread for a lot of people to realise "Hey wait, splitscreen is gone" already shows how much a lot of people really care.
I'll bet the vast majority of gamers (that aren't sharing a console) only own 1 controller per system, except for their Wii perhaps.
Any possible second controller was either given to them for free, is a collectible, or is commonly extremely busy collecting dust.
Splinter Cell Conviction has a lot of split-screen co-op stuff, and even a versus mode which is pretty awesome. The main campaign is single-player, however, the co-op campaign is quite long in and of itself, my friend and I only finished about a fourth of it in one sitting.
And besides that there's other modes that are good for replay value because they're not static, like the mode that's player-vs-player but with a bunch of enemies in it as well. All in all it's a pretty good split-screen game, though I wouldn't mind more appearing.
I've always said co-op can improve any game. Why Ininity Ward didn't do full co-op throughout their campaign, when you already have an AI partner in pretty much all missions anyway, I'll never know.
And besides that there's other modes that are good for replay value because they're not static, like the mode that's player-vs-player but with a bunch of enemies in it as well. All in all it's a pretty good split-screen game, though I wouldn't mind more appearing.
I've always said co-op can improve any game. Why Ininity Ward didn't do full co-op throughout their campaign, when you already have an AI partner in pretty much all missions anyway, I'll never know.
I love local multiplayer and local coop, but they both seem to be disappearing and that sucks. I think that's fine if you want online play as well but don't just leave out local, what I think is it's just the companys trying to make a few more sales because now your friends have to buy the game and get online if they want to play with you.
As I've noticed, almost no PS3 exclusives have any split-screen options. They all push the visuals instead, so that having more than one player playing would slow down the PS3 and wouldn't be feasible. I mean, it's fine for me because I rarely have friends over (always go to someone else's, my house sucks), but for other people it must be a pain. Killzone 2 would've been mad with split-screen.
And Uncharted 2's co-op? The perfect recipe for couch awesomeness, but they pushed the visuals so hard that running more than one instance of the game on a screen would implode the PS3. Such a pity.
And Uncharted 2's co-op? The perfect recipe for couch awesomeness, but they pushed the visuals so hard that running more than one instance of the game on a screen would implode the PS3. Such a pity.
It's good to know I'm not the only one who misses the Split Screen experience. I know the developers (and more to the point, the publishers) want everyone who plays to be forced into buying a copy of the game for themselves, but gaming has always been (and should remain) a social experience.
Online modes are great and all that, but at the end of the day I want to get a friend or two and beat up the Covenant with my friends right by my side the way I did in Halo 1 more than I want to challenge screaming children who apparently never learned how to behave when other people are around.
i.e.:
My best friend calling me a tosser when I blast him with a tank seconds after he respawns onto the battlefield= A-OK superfun goodtimes and laughter for all!
Some 13yr old stranger calling me a tosser (or worse, a cheater) because I beat him fair and square and he can't handle it= A big steaming turd of an evening that will never be very fun.
Online modes are great and all that, but at the end of the day I want to get a friend or two and beat up the Covenant with my friends right by my side the way I did in Halo 1 more than I want to challenge screaming children who apparently never learned how to behave when other people are around.
i.e.:
My best friend calling me a tosser when I blast him with a tank seconds after he respawns onto the battlefield= A-OK superfun goodtimes and laughter for all!
Some 13yr old stranger calling me a tosser (or worse, a cheater) because I beat him fair and square and he can't handle it= A big steaming turd of an evening that will never be very fun.
