Do All Mordern Games Need Multi-Player to be good?

[Offworlder_v1legacy]

So today I was in ancient history and some friends and I were haveing a little chat about the games we had been playing recently. Somewhere in this coversation I made the statement "Mass Effect 2 is heaps good!", to which one of my friends responded "No, it's crap, it does't even have multi-player.'

It was only a minor thing but it realy bugged me. Do you think all morden games need multi-player or is my friend an idiot?

 

[MrNickster]

You're friend is very silly-A game does not multiplayer to be good.

Red Steel 2, Shenmue, Mass Effect 2, Banjo Kazooie, Legend of Zelda etc

 

[ChaoticLegion]

Personaly I think not all games require multi-player to be good, and secondly yes I also think your friend to be a moron, however the two are also probably wholy unrelated.

 

[Omikron009]

Your friend is an idiot. A game can have multiplayer as a bonus, but I prefer games that focus more on a deep singleplayer experience. Mainly because I don't have xbox live, and can't play multiplayer.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

No.

long answer so I don't get modded - your friend might not be an idiot, but he needs to play more games. There's tons of great single player games, and many of them probably wouldn't be improved by adding a second player.

Get the game right first, then you can add stuff like multiplayer, imo.

 

[HT_Black]

At risk of sounding cynical (boy, have I been saying that a lot lately), I think your friend is what we in the industrcy call an "IRL troll".

Or he's the sort of moron who you find in Alabamian elementary schools who laughs in the face of anything that isn't the latest MLB/RAW whatever.

Yeah, it's probably that. Not to be overly hostile or anything, but feel free to hit him with a stick.

 

[Lullabye]

No, You're friend is a retard. Games don't need it but it is an added bonus, Especially if there is co-op.

Games also don't need single player, but it's good to have, you know?
Whether a game is good or not has nothing to do with whether or not it has certain modes of play. It's how it presents the modes of play it has.

 

[Estocavio]

I believe all games should be single player oriented, with multiplayer as an added bonus and not a primary factor. Red Dead Redemption seems to do this pretty well.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I would however say I don't think that's really what he was saying, that all games without MP are bad, just that no MP was the first negative he could come up with for ME2, when people are clutching at straws, lazy arguments spring up

 

[KeyMaster45]

Your friend sounds like someone I would greatly disagree with.

Multiplayer is great, but not every game needs it. Many games have been worse off because developers have forced multiplayer into it. My opinion may be a bit skewed, but I'm the kind of person that prefers a single player experience to multiplayer(not that I don't enjoy it). No offense to your friend (well maybe a little) but he sounds like the type of gamer that plays nothing but FPS's and when given a game that's not MWF or CoD gets a bit of a "Wtf?" look on his face when confronted with actual story. In short, your friend experiences games on a very shallow level and I weep for him.

For me games are an intimate experience, I treat them much like I treat movies, books, and television shows. To me a good game has sound cinematic, gameplay, story, and art direction. Multiplayer comes as a bonus for when I have friends over and I want to show off the game but not bore them by playing it alone.

Does a modern game need multiplayer to be good? Of course not, we need look no further than the God of War series, Psychonauts, Prototype/Infamous, or Assassin's Creed to be shown that the truely great games have made their claim not in multiplayer but in the intimate single-player experience that allows for the conveyance of an amazing visual and interactive experience.

-EDIT-
This is not to say that games such as the Left 4 Dead series do not also hold a spot amongst the great games(I'm a bit sleep deprived but what I mean is multiplayer games can be legendary as well) Indeed I have found it to just as enjoyable as my single-player games because of it presentation of the multiplayer.

 

[Satin6T]

psh
Gotta love a good single player game
but that doesn't mean a co-op mode or multiplayer mode couldn't make it better

 

[LooK iTz Jinjo]

Games like The Darkness and Bioshock 2 are fine examples of why not every game needs multiplayer, if they are not done well they can feel like they were just tacked on at the end for an extra selling point. Of course I try and buy multiplayer games like Halo, Gears of War and COD, because if I spend all my time on single player games (no matter how good) I can often feel like I'm putting my $80 a year on Xbox Live gold to waste.
Not saying I don't play single player at all - I love FFXIII, Mass Effect, Oblivion etc. but I do spend more time on multiplayer. It is possible this is where your friend is partly coming from.

 

[Srdjan]

No, it is redundant in some games.

 

[Petromir]

No, and has been said they don't nesserally need a SP mode either.

There are pleanty of games that could be improved by some form of co-op or other MP mode. However in many of them it wouldn't be worth it, and pleanty of games that overall quality has been lowered by a hastly tacked on and/or badly done MP mode. That said there have been a few games that have cried out for a MP mode that have been lesser for not having one.

It's foolish to say either way.

 

[VanBasten]

No, in fact most games don't need multiplayer to good.

But I wouldn't call your friend an idiot either, some gamers only play multiplayer games, and there's nothing wrong with that. On the other hand saying games without multiplayer are crap is troll like behavior. So, yeah...

 

[iLikeHippos]

Your friends response in the argument is invalid as he told outright without any GOOD facts that "Mass effect is stupid".
Now who's the stupid one?! HAH!... Sorry.

Some games just aren't made for multiplayer. Some games might even reach a whole new level of dip-shittery if they had multiplayer.
FOR INSTANCE!
Imagine multiplayer in Super Mario 64. (And that's over the internet where you fight others, not as team play with your nearby friends.