What's happened to split screen Multiplayer?

[pha kin su pah]

QQ, lag, small screens, screen watching, unable to play online, why divide my screen, when i can have one big one, etc, etc, etc,, etc

yawn, clearly you guys are failing to understand the idea of splitscreen.

in any competitive enviroment, all those varibles are taken out of effect, creating a balanced competitive enviroment.

now to my next point, get off the internet, get friends, stop being loners. ... splitscreen is fun with friends, it is not competitive. it provides endless hours of sitting on the couch with your mates, screenwatching them, screaming and swearing at each other, punching each other in the arm, laughing it up . its ultimately the best gaming experience ever to be had. i'm with most people these days, in that if a game doesn't have some form of splitscreen, i probably won't be keeping it long.

i applaud the countless hours of immense timewasting joy games such as goldeneye, perfect dark, SSB/M/b, mario kart, timesplitters, Halo series and cod4 (unsure about previous installations =/) have provided over the years.

games these days shouldn't sacrifice splitscreen and leave online play as the only multiplayer experience.

 

[Shadow-Knight]

I hate when games have co-op but forget to tell you that it's not same system co-op. Why can't they add same system functionality?

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

Split-screen is my life blood when it comes to video games. I'm generally the guy who brings in the games in my area and with a library of around 45 games for my 360 (not including my XBL downloadable games) and a few other fighting games for my Wii, (Budokai 3 is just too fun with a WiiMote) I have a good selection. I'm constantly looking at the back of boxes to see what exactly it supports and I'm often disappointed with the lack of single machine multiplayer options. LAN parties are great, but when nobody else owns a next gen console (we have real life issues that suck up money, like rent/food/utilities/girlfriends/student loans/ well, you get the idea?) it comes to the point where we're begging for good single console multiplayer when we get together.

It seems you don't suffer from these real life issues though.

Did you have a point?

Or are you ridiculing him for having a higher net income than the people of his area?

Really, why did you say that?

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

I'm just curious why he said "we have real life issues that suck up money" when he clearly doesn't have such problems.

Ahh, you're right. That collective pronoun is improper in context.

Perhaps saying "we have real life issues here that suck up money" or "they have real . . ." would have been more appropriat.

 

[CTU_Agent24]

Now i hard Farcry 2 does not have multiplayer?
When will this no split screen trend end?
(I'm calling it a trend because i refuse to believe split screen will not come back)

 

[EzraPound]

I refuse to buy shooters without split-screen multiplay, as well (the exception being when they're only one-player: Half-Life 2 on Xbox, Metroid Prime, etc). An equally good question might be: why not more one-player FPS?

 

[hollowed90]

I for one hate the fact that they've pretty much terminated split screen multiplayer games.
I bought "Killzone 2" without even looking at the back to check for multiplayer. the first one was a splitscreen and i loved playing it. I specifically bought "Killzone 2" so i could have that kind of fun on my ps3. Me and my dad like to play multiplayer games like "Mortal Kombat", "Black Hawk Down", and others like these vs. eachother. In SPLITSCREEN! Honestly i barely play online. When i do i still have fun but it's not the same as playing against someone right next to you like your friends and family...
It's not that online playing is bad. It's the fact that they took away the option of splitscreen multiplayer mode altogether. Now you're limited to single player story mode and online multiplayer for most games. Which, in my opinion SUCKS!

NOTE:
If every game from now on does this they might actually end up selling LESS copies than usual because of people like me who actually like to play split screen games and don't buy other games because they don't have it. (I do like some of the games that are only single player games though. like "God of War" for instance)

 

[Aesir23]

I'm with you on this one. It's so difficult to find games with offline multiplayer or co-op. I thought that Uncharted 2 would have offline co-op just like RE5 does. Sadly it didn't. (Though it was still a damn good game.)

 

[Jory]

Which is why you need a friend with a Wii/Gamecube so you can play Brawl, MarioKart etc.

 

[Lemon Of Life]

Yeah, the lack of this ruins racing games, I want to play them with my mates when they're round, not organize a schedule.

 

[Beatrix]

There's no money in it.

People need one copy of the game and the number of controllers they feel like using.
Whereas online or system link multiplayer needs an extra copy and console for every additional player.

I fear it's just that easy.

 

[SnipErlite]

Who knows. I wish more games did, gaming with mates in the actual same room as you is far better than online.

Ahh good old Red Alert 2 days. Easy LAN games and zero lag..... * reminisces*

 

[cheese_wizington]

Broadband internet went mainstream and voice chat was invented?

My favorite would be Halo's play online w/ splitscreen feature.

That's so so awesome opossum.

 

[Siuki]

Borderlands has an "okay" splitscreen, and its just 2 people. Personally, I think Halo's a great splitscreen game. It's easy to play(mostly) and you can show off your newly created forge maps in person, explaining how it works. Also, you actually get to physically hang out with your friends when you play splitscreen. Another thing, does SSBB count? It's a special game, but it's hard to see your character when there are three others jumping around.

 

[Sovvolf]

Alright, I hate all the Halo games for their storyline, characters, etc... but rooster makes a good point, at least the splitscreen multiplayer is there. The other thing that pissed me off is that Sony likes doing the 2-controller thing, I have a lot of friends that come over and want to play games, using a splitter can get irritating.

Also one of the reasons I like the Timesplitters series.

Halo 3 is brilliant for it. Probably all the hours I've jacked on Halo 3 come from 4 player couch matches with the lads. A shit load of beer and snacks along with your best mates make for the fun times when playing it. CoD also has this and also makes for the fun times but what gives Halo 3 a up for me is the Save movie feature. You can re-watch last nights match and laugh you arse off at the sniping mistakes you made because of the booze.

One of the biggest video game disappoints I had was with Far Cry 2 not having it. I mean that's like the perfect game for it, the map creation would have gave every weekend get together some thing original to play. AVP is also a bit of a bummer for this too.

I enjoy Split-screen gaming, I want it back. There is a market for it, us lads/lasses who like to have weekend get-together's with gaming. I can remember staying up till 5 in the morning playing COD WAW with 12 friends swapping joypads every time we had died 5 times.

 

[Ranorak]

With Perfect Dark going live any moment now, it's glory days restored!

There is nothing better then seeing the face of the person next to you when you kill them.
Or that disappointed sob when they walk into my mines.

Instead, you get shrill squeaky voices in your headset shouting profanity at you on-line.

 

[rt052192]

i feel the same, but at least halo has split screen multiplayer, even online which is nice. i feel that all games should have 4-player splitscreen both online and off b/c whats cooler than sitting with 3 friends playing videogames on one tv?

well, everything is cooler than playing halo with 3 other friends but who are we to judge?

 

[Fappy]

This is one of the big reasons I have little respect for FPS developers these days. Not everyone wants to play with strangers online and not everyone has the same console to play with their friends online. TV's are too big these days to argue that it would be "inconvenient". Call of Duty's splitscreen is laughable.

 

[Outright Villainy]

I could never play F-Zero GX on multiplayer until we decided to get a Wii as a family's thing. Now it's under the big T.V and theres nothing better than pounding round mute city only to slip off the endge and have my brother speed past me at 2000km/h. no matter how crushing a defeatit may be, I'd rather share it with someone next to me, than someone who's alone and I've had to ring just to have someone other than the CPU to play against.

You... you have someone to race against? *sobs*
Anytime i'd play my friends I'd lap them, and usually more than once. I never had the glory of multiplayer...

 

[irishstormtrooper]

I read an article about this: Quite a few developers want to put split-screen in their games, but they can't from a technical standpoint. In online multiplayer, everyone is running their own little version of the game world on their own console. However, if split-screen were used, it would be the same console with two game worlds running. Ever notice how framerate dips in intense sections of games, now imagine the framerate going twice as slow as that. It just doesn't work.