So in the Killzone thread, I noted how the game doesn't at all include splitscreen, and it got me thinking about how sad I am that local multiplayer is dying. I remember a time when the highlight activity for my friends was to run to the N64, switch on Perfect Dark, and customize every single possible detail in the versus mode, from sims, weapons and where they spawn, location, music, and more to create the best possible multiplayer experience. We logged 400+ hours into Perfect Dark's multiplayer, and hundreds of more hours into other games, such as Super Smash, F-Zero, Battlefront, and more.
...It was then that online started to rise. My friends and I saw a depressing lack of quality in new splitscreen games. Our Perfect Dark experience turned into games such as Call of Duty, which offer nearly no customization at all for splitscreen, and matches are played in large barren fields designed for 20+ players. Honestly, I find it depressing. Where has local multiplayer gone? Is everybody else on the board as sad as I am, that, when a game even bothers to include it, it's a thrown in, kind of crappy experience? Why has online play pretty much replaced it when they're completely different? Why should the ability to play with the world be at the expense of the ability to play with your own friends?
Eh. Some, if not all of my favorite gaming moments have been from local multiplayer. It's so much different. Local multiplayer is a competitive, but fun experience in which you adapt to each other's play and most of all, aim to have fun. Online, at least in every game I've ever played, is just a blind race of competitive retard aiming to increase their stats so they get an ever higher spot on the coveted leaderboards. It's saddening to me.
Discuss.
[quote=Vampiro V. Empire;926011]Get a group of friends to play online with you then. It's essentially the same thing as local, except they're not beside you and you can have more than four people.quotin this, if you're over 12 years old and bring friends round to game.... ur gahy
y
It's...it's not the same! It's...because...well, I...
Ok, I suppose I am the only freak who misses playing with real people. :(
There's a time and a place for playing local multiplayer. And that's with games that don't involve splitscreen. Like smash bros, or a hockey game.
Personally, I find splitscreen to be super annoying. Why would I want my screen cut into halves or quarters?
I think some games should have local multi-player on live, I'm sick of playing WaW with my friends when they come over and not being able to burn them to death with the flamethrower.
Online play without a reduced screen size is a great addition to a multiplayer game, but not including a splitscreen mode also, which many games now do not, is just stupid. There's no reason not to.
[quote=The X;926081]quotin this, if you're over 12 years old and bring friends round to game.... ur gahy
y
Well that certainly sounds like the rhetoric of a 12 year old h4rdc0re g4mer.
I play Gears of War with my kung fu teacher all the time, mostly because he doesn't have an Xbox but also because it's just a lot more fun actually being around people. Online is an incredibly poor substitute.
I'd enjoy, play, and probably support local more if my friends weren't spazzes and had the attention span of a block of wood.
Do you mean, having splitscreen while also online lags out? Not allowing splitscreen online for that reason is understandable, but if you're going to go to all the trouble to format a multiplayer mode to be used online, I don't see what's difficult about making a splitscreen mode for offline that uses the exact same ****.
Also, everyone I know plays multiplayer offline as well as online. \(O_o)/
All multiplayer in general can die and go to Hell for all I care. It's the lonely life of single-player games for me.
Devil take you, local multiplayer!
As long as a few games employ splitscreen I'm perfectly happy. For example, Gears 2 splistscreen co-op satisfied me in ways that made me ashamed to play co-op in other games I already own. I can't think of any games that have only online that I've been dying to play while sitting in a room with my friends. For most of them it's enough to switch off while playing online matches, like what my friends and I do for CoD:WaW.
you're probably one of those guys who liked the mario party series at one point aren't you
I don't enjoy sharing my screen. But I do like playing with people in the same room. So I stick to rockband/gh. Actually, I don't have many irl friends who game much so doesn't apply to me.
I'd tell your ******* friends to get their own Xbox like everyone else and stop taking up screen space.
ITT whiner faggots
Ugh. I guess people don't see the value in playing WITH real people anymore. I don't play splitscreen because my friends don't own the respective consoles or games. I don't play splitscreen because my friends don't have a good online connection, and I don't play it because I suck at online or something. I play it because IT'S ACTUALLY MORE FUN TO PLAY WITH PEOPLE AT YOUR SIDE, regardless of screen space.
I'm saddened by you people. ;___;
when you play online you're still playing with real people
anyone who enjoys the presence of another male at their side while they game is probably a queero and should be burned at the stake for these feelings
what if i say i play with super hot girls all the time
[IMG]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3150/3090383474_685f0df8e1.jpg?v=0[/IMG]
my theory speaks for itself
bol
actually, the third one does play games with me. And the first and third are actually fairly hot in real life. Second one...not so much. :cookie:
[quote=maian;928133]Ugh. I guess people don't see the value in playing WITH real people anymore. I don't play splitscreen because my friends don't own the respective consoles or games. I don't play splitscreen because my friends don't have a good online connection, and I don't play it because I suck at online or something. I play it because IT'S ACTUALLY MORE FUN TO PLAY WITH PEOPLE AT YOUR SIDE, regardless of screen space.
I'm saddened by you people. ;___;
Seconded. ITT friendless losers.
The notion that games don't have splitscreen because no one uses it because games don't have splitscreen because no one uses it is laughably retarded and circular. People do play on the same system, and do want to. IT'S WHY THEY SUPPORT MORE THAN ONE CONTROLLER. YOU MORONS. For christ's sake games have been "local multiplayer" since they were f[COLOR=lightgreen]u[/COLOR]cking invented. To most non-basement-dwelling humans it's the entire point.
It makes perfect sense because if there was a huge base of consumers that wanted the feature it would be in every game. The fact that it isn't means that there isn't. It's just a vocal minority that gives a ****.
And why does it matter that they've had local multiplayer since the beginning? Things change.
Bull-f[COLOR=lightgreen]u[/COLOR]cking-shit. Do you have any idea how utterly niche online gaming still is? It's the reason Microsoft have never talked about how many Xbox Live Gold subscribers there are, only Silver and Gold together. They want to disguise the fact that most people don't care. There's no way in hell that it's more worthwhile a feature than local multiplayer, you're talking utter nonsense.
And local multiplayer is even more niche since it requires you to have at least one friend over. Whereas a decently populated game gets 100,000-150,000 people a day (FIFA getting around a million) local would be used far, far less.
Anyways, it obviously is more worthwhile because mutliplayer is practically essential whereas local multiplayer isn't. Seriously, for every one person that complains about local there's ten that don't give a ****.
I don't care whether it's popular or not - my objection is only that local multiplayer would be easy with online multiplayer already mapped out and they don't do it anyway.
There's a lot of things they could add or do that should be relatively easy but don't add in anyways. They could make local or they could add and balance a new gun. I'd take the latter.
Try playing Left 4 Dead on local and you'll be reminded on why local sucks. Kind of takes you out of the breadth of the game, you know.
Play any new shooter that has it and you instantly remember why local sucks. It just makes me want to go play a 9-on-9 match with a full screen.
Local Multiplayer is good for casual play so it doesn't have to be perfect. I'm aware of what's sacrificed by putting more than one person on a single system, but if the the game is good, then it'll still be fun to pick up and play with friends.
[quote=Fate;928508][COLOR=skyblue]Try playing Left 4 Dead on local and you'll be reminded on why local sucks. Kind of takes you out of the breadth of the game, you know.[/COLOR]
Left4Dead? Are you f[COLOR=lightgreen]u[/COLOR]cking serious? Do you actually think that game plays WELL online? It's a laggy, buggy peice of s[COLOR=lightgreen]h[/COLOR]it on the PC version after numerous patches, I don't even want to think about what it's like on Xbox Live. The only way to play Left4Dead with total satisfaction is via LAN.
Shooters are a genre born mostly from PCs anyway, which is like the home of the friendless loser. It's not very surprising that all the other traditionally PC-only genres don't work on local either.
Let's take shooters actually made for consoles: Halo and Gears of War. Hey, waddya know, both of those support split-screen, manage it decently and a lot of players use it.
I can't believe no one's mentioned fighting games yet. Name a single fighting game that wasn't a total embarrassment online.
[quote=Speedfreak;928575]I can't believe no one's mentioned fighting games yet. Name a single fighting game that wasn't a total embarrassment online.Virtua Fighter 5, Street Fighter 2 HDRemix and Street Fighter IV all do well online. I've played Ant at HDRemix and despite being like a billion miles away we still have pretty lagless matches.
I've heard complaints about all of those, there's no such thing as a lagless match. Any fighting game enthusiast would still tell you that nothing can match the responsiveness and atmosphere of a local match. Some hate useing wireless controllers for Christ's sake.
Besides, the point is that local multiplayer should be included in games as well as online, because people still desire it and use it. Can you imagine a fighting game that was online-only?
Another example: Burnout Paradise. Split-screen was a heavily requested feature, it still feels bizarre that you can't play with a friend on the same console when every other version of Burnout has supported it. The vast majority of racing games support split-screen.
I don't recall splitscreen ever affecting my gameplay, ever. Anyone who's not a retard should be able to get used to it within 30 seconds. I played Resistance 2 splitscreen online for a good couple hours with my friend yesterday, and it was loads funner than regular online, where there's little to no communication, and where there is, it's "that team sux" "you're a gay faggot" etc.
You see less of the screen, therefore you see less of what's going on.
if you honestly believe that's the extent of online communication you obviously aint partied with vamp or ant on XBL
splitscreen sux for one simple reason
SCREEN. WATCHING.
Screen-watching. ****. Might as well not even play.
maian, you play on the ps3 where mics aren't included in every box.
technically they aint with xboxes any more either
only arcades don't have them and they never did
Whiny kids aren't the majority of Live folks. Does anyone on this board besides Vamp and X actually play with mics? Seriously? Doesn't seem like it.
I don't need someone next to me to enjoy a game with people, but if the game supports non-splitscreen multiplayer I'm all for it (fighting games, Guitar Hero, etc.). I play with people I see at work every day so being next to them in real life while playing doesn't mean much-- if anything, I'd prefer my own TV.
Seriously. If I wanted to play local multiplayer so bad I'll just set up a lan at my work or something. Most good FPSes are on the PC anyways. Or if that's not good enough just play on one account over Xbox and switch up the controller every death. If you have a buddy that's really into video games anyways they can usually get into a match if they're just watching.
i play with my mic on because i play online with my friends, who i actually want to freakin talk to. jeez
why does everyone immediately equate online play with playing with total strangers
Screen watching isn't a problem for most games, and is only a problem for FPSs when you're not on the same team.
I play with mics, still not as fun as having someone next to you.
Since when is Guitar Hero not split screen?
Regardless of whether you three like online more than local, I can't believe you genuinely believe that the same goes for the majority. You have any idea how many people actually play on their consoles online? And it's not like the 360 is the biggest seller, either. Wii would drag that percentage of the total population way the f[COLOR=lightgreen]u[/COLOR]ck down. I'll be hyper generous and say that a quarter of next-gen console owners play their consoles online (despite the last report of Gold Live subscriptions being around 10-15% and Wii dragging that percentage down (dunno about PS3, it's free but it also sucks). In order for the number of local multiplayer users to be even or less than online 50% or greater of all gamers would have to never play any kind of multiplayer. Do any of you seriously believe that?
I mean for f[COLOR=lightgreen]u[/COLOR]ck's sake:
[quote=Vampiro V. Empire;929830]Seriously. If I wanted to play local multiplayer so bad I'll just set up a lan at my work or something.
YES, THIS IS THE OPINION HELD BY THE MAJORITY. THIS IS HOW MOST PEOPLE PLAY GAMES WITH EACHOTHER IF THEY DON'T HAVE ONLINE, THEY SET UP A FUCKING LAN.
but... nobody's saying it's the opinion held by the majority. they're our opinions. :confused:
Umm, just to clarify, I meant games like GH don't require a full screen since you're not really doing anything that warrants it. Could easily be on one screen without splitting since the split acts as more of an obvious separation to avoid disorientation.
And yeah, it's pretty much my opinion. Most of the console gamers I play with, however, agree with it. Most of the console gamers I know do the switch-controller-after-each-death shtick. Doesn't make it majority, but seeing as how I've been playing games for a long time... Well, my opinion isn't misinformed.