(Thanks to Clayton for requesting a post on multiplayer, I'd love to know what else you guys want to talk about!)
Multiplayer can drag a game down, and worse can take valuable resources off of what makes a game great in the first place. Every element of a game should be there for a valid reason, and each element should give the other elements of the game their proper respect.
When you think about the truly great multiplayer experiences, it's clear the game was built around the idea of having multiplayer, and the multiplayer is designed around the rest of the game elements. It's a hand-in-hand relationship. That's when it works. That's when it's fun.
Great uses of multiplayer:
Rock Band
The Adventures of Cookie & Cream
Left 4 Dead
Bad uses of multiplayer:
Metroid Prime 2 (you should play it just to see how bad it actually is)
Brute Force
Gran Turismo
Here are the questions:
-What's the best and worst use of multiplayer you've seen in a game?
-Do you find multiplayer more often enriches your experience or more often detracts from your experience with a game.
In Part II we'll discuss some different forms of multiplayer: competitive, co-operative and co-habitive. Stay tuned!
Posts
Easily the best multiplayer in a game I have experienced is the Gamecube 4 Swords Adventures OR Gamecube Crystal Chronicles. They all require you to work together... to a degree. At that point, you are still free to pursue your own selfish goals.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, best investment of 4 GBA SP's EVER.
Oh man. I don't think anybody would disagree with you on that! http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/8/25/
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mark. Although there are some other games where Multiplayer is amazing. Games like Rock Band (as you mentioned) and fighting games (Smash Bros), it always makes the experinace more fun than the solo play. There are other games where its on par with the solo gameplay, I find in FPS (Call of Duty, Halo) games often times. There are games where it seems tacked on and isn't fun at all, like with recently played Chronicles of Riddick.
ReplyDeleteI suppose it all depends on how the multiplayer aspect is approached. Games that are built upon a multiplayer experiance are always fantastic when played with multiple people(even Army of Two was a lot of fun with another person). Its obvious to tell when a game was desigend for more than one person to play in its core mode, and this usually hurts the single player (Cookie and Cream, Army of Two). But on the other side of the coin, its easy to tell when a generic multiplayer component was tacked onto a game, trying to be the game that has everything.
Overall, I guess the developer just needs to decide what their game is going to be, and stick with it. You can't please everyone, but this is something many developers forget.
Personally, I find nothing satisfying about simple free-for-all multiplayer modes. They simply boil down to proving who is the better player. Don't get me wrong, it's nice when a game like Gears of War allows you to brutalize your opponent in an excessive show of humiliating force, but I much prefer objective-oriented styles of play that require teamwork from all players. It should come as no surprise that some of my most fondly remembered games are ones with a cooperative multiplayer aspect, like Secret of Mana, Kirby Super Star, and any arcade-style beat 'em up. I feel that games that encourage real cooperative play (Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil 5) also have the greatest potential for fun because two or more players have the chance to accomplish something they would not be able to do alone, which is very satisfying and can also become a bonding experience, strengthening existing friendships and encouraging new ones (even with total strangers online!).
ReplyDeleteTeam oriented game modes, then, become their own little narrative generators, allowing players to tell their own stories and create those "moments" you just have to tell your friends about later. This is why I think that Team Fortress 2 is so successful as a competitive/cooperative game. Each of the player classes is a whole character that exudes personality, but does not hinder an individual's play style.
I hadn't heard of Cookie & Cream before this post, but given everything I've just said and what I could find about it, I think I'd love it. Also @PanocideX, games like Army of Two and Resident Evil 5 that are built around a co-op experience are ALWAYS more fun with a second player. Depending on the friendly AI, games like that can range from mildly annoying to hair-pullingly frustrating when trying to play with a computer controller "helper," which is why I hope Bioshock 2 doesn't force you to play with a second player even when by yourself.
You bring up a lot of good points. I'll be touching on a lot of that in Part II. I agree, free-for-all kill all your buddies type multiplayer games have grown pretty stale to me. It's something I indulge in every once in a while but I often go months in between sittings. We are seeing a more creative uses of multiplayer but I think game designers have only scratched the surface.
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