If it's an 8-10 hour game, then in my opinion they do need to have multi-player to be good, or at least allow co-op (Resident Evil 5), unless the game is god damn awesome (God of War 3).
But there are plenty of good games with 25~100 hours of gameplay that would be trashed with crappy multi player.
I believe that everyone has already made the response abundantly clear, however I still feel the need to put in my two cents (ten pence?)
Games that are popular are more often than not, games with an involving, clear-to-understand-plot, and gameplay that goes a bit beyond 'here is the Nazi/Russian/Afghanistan/Chinese/insert-cultural-group-here, and your gun. Introduce them.' That isn't to say games with multiplayer aren't good, but not to say that multiplayer instantly elevates a game to greatness. In fact, a game with multiplayer that doesn't require it feels forced and unfinished. Case and point, Resident Evil 5.
Now, resident evil 4 killed the RE franchise for me, it's no longer survival horror when you bust in a room and kill every monster/mutant by tossing a grenade then swinging about the ceiling with your machine gun like the bastard child of Rambo and Bruce Cambell, but I'm getting away from my point.
I'd actually say that many modern games go against the idea of multiplayer = win. Dragon Age Origins, The Dark Knight, Mass Effect 2, Assassin's Creed, Fallout 3. Games do not require the crutch of multiplayer to artificially enhance them.
Definitely not. A single player game is still good fun to play, just look at Fallout 3/Oblivion. Those games did really well in the eyes of most, with many reports of people playing for 100+ hours.
Multiplayer in games can almost seem like a cheap way for developers to hype up their game and hope to draw in the "Multiplayer Only" crowd of gamers.
Honestly, I'm really pissed at this. I do play MP from time to time, but I'm sick of having to pay for MP every time. Or worse, more often than not the SP is obviously compromised.
Yeah, COD MW2 had some great SP, but why the hell was it so short? AGAIN? Well because the devs/dist have the idea - 'Everyone is just going to play MP anyway, so why bother with a long campaign, right?'. Shit that.
At the very least the games could concentrate on co-op instead of deathmatching.
I always do singleplayer first, then maybe check out the multiplayer if I remeber it has it(L4d being the obvious exception)> I player world at war mutiplayer a bit, but fucking punkbuster keeps kicking me out of games
I lol-ed hard. Some games don't support multiplayer since their content isn't tailored for a team of characters. And that says nothing about how good that content is. Besides, slapping a multiplayer on all games wouldn't lead anywhere; a half-assed multiplayer mode wouldn't be able to compete with the bazillion games that were actually designed that way.
I really really REALLY hate people like this. Unfortunately one of my best friends is among them, I actually made a thread a little while back about it.
No not every game needs multiplayer, in fact there are some games that really shouldn't have multiplayer, it just wouldn't work. Imagine multiplayer in a game like Assassin's creed everyone would just kind of stand there waiting for the other one to attack so they could counter.
I'm not against multiplayer, but I hate how some people refuse to believe a game is good because it doesnt have multiplayer. The aforementioned friend said he didn't enjoy Bioshock because "he got bored of it after like ten minutes. What is even the point of playing a game that is designed to lose" Needless to say I yelled WTF at him for a while about that.
It would be nice if every game had multiplayer, but it's not essental for the game to be good.
Tell your friend to play something like Bioshock or Fallout 3.
A multiplayer game is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from any single player.
While a single player can really give the illusion and immersion that you are in a "real" world with logical rules of life and death, but in a multiplayer frag match it is inevitable that it ends up surreal or unavoidable by all that it is a game and not an "interactive experience". In other words, multiplayer by definition breaks the Fourth Wall since real humans are interacting and they won't ever stick to the script.
A game with multiplayer is essentially 2 games in one, only linked by the fact that they share many common assets (weapons, models, animations). The gameplay generally has to completely redesigned or just kept extremely basic.
In fact that is the actual case with most PC games (like COD4) as the Multiplayer and Singleplayer are often completely separate programs, you must quit and close one program and then start up the other.
It's been common with PC games for them to be specialised, many games are multiplayer only, Team Fortress 2 did not even get bot support till 3 years after release. Other games like HL2 keep multiplayer nice and simple, simple deathmatch and little to no balancing, depend on communities to make interesting maps.
The thing is I think ANY game can work with multiplayer, hell even Zelda could work with online competitive multiplayer (also, who wants to bet the New Zelda will get that and maybe even online/system-link co-op?) with people charging around on horses with hookshots, boomerangs and bombs. It would be great fun.
One idea totally off the top of my head for zelda, assuming it uses the standard Hyrule overworld, as well as peer-2-peer user hosted multiplayer, how about you have the multiplayer WITHIN the single player. For example you fine these "magical stones" around Hyrule that once activated will "draw in mirror self of the user from parallel universes" where these 'Parallel universes' are actually other people playing the same video game while connected online.
So they (if access the same Magic stones) can be sucked into your world to fight each other... or collaborate in co-op...
So there is the clear delineation that the Multiplayer Host is also in his own universe.
There could be magical stones all over Hyrule, like one in a Colosseum for gladiatorial style combat, one in Hyrule field for horse back combat and loads of other places, limiting the multiplayer to those areas.
I think the advantage of this is how streamlined it is, it doesn't pull you out of your continued exploration of the overworld, but allows you to just play. Also added advantage is by travelling to each location you have already pre-loaded the level!
Multiplayer is a simple concept: "Take gameplay refined for single player and adapt it to be competitive in an arena for multiple players"
It is very hard to completely screw up a multiplayer, but equally rare to make it really GREAT as you really have to refine it down to a tee with perfect balance, pacing and map layout.
But something like Mass Effect would be difficult to implement multiplayer as it takes itself so seriously and the RPG style gameplay doesn't really leave much opportunity to jump out as there are endless side quest and exploration. Multiplayer is generally for very linear games that are done in a 6-10 hours and have limited re-playability.
I suppose Mass Effect COULD have multiplayer, if it was streamlined INTO the single-player. For example on the Normandy you can enter a virtual reality Combat Training simulator, where you are actually just competing. There there would be the tacit admission "it really is just a game" so it doesn't jar with the down to earth gameplay (ok, yes, in space, but no Team Fortress 2 style illogic fun) of the single-player.
Perhaps an MMO or Co-op aspect would be better than competitive multiplayer for Mass effect game, I certainly would not object so multiplayer in Mass Effect 3, especially if implemented well.
But the biggest barrier, I think, to Mass Effect for games like multiplayer is conflict in resources. I mean a Publisher has only so much time and money (to pay coders/developers) to make a game, which may be far better spent refining the long and deep single player than a multiplayer which could easily be a distraction.
Single player in the most important part of a game to me.Co-op multiplayer is nice but I find Competitive multiplayer just encourages hacks and griefing
What you do is write down this list and then bring it to your friend and ask if he seriously believes that these games suck.
Legend of Zelda (all of them)
Mario 64
Bioshock
Fallout 3
Morrowind
Oblivion
Dead Space
Breath of Fire 1 and 2
Chronotrigger
Chronocross
Jet Force Gemini
Kirby (all the 2d ones)
Lost Odyssey
God of War (I'm not sure if this had multiplayer or not as I could only afford one system this gen)
All the Pre-Enix Final Fantasy titles
Turok the Dinosaur Hunter
Paper Mario
Mario RPG
Phsyconauts
Grim Fandango
The first three Zork games
If he thinks most of these games suck due to their lack of multi-player than there are two options.
1) He's a moron
2) He's just trying to get a rise out of you
On that note, I have noticed that most games that focus on multiplayer as a main selling point suffer for it, even more so for me who refuses to go online with his games. With a newborn, I just don't have the time to put into it.
What you do is write down this list and then bring it to your friend and ask if he seriously believes that these games suck.
Legend of Zelda (all of them)
Mario 64
Bioshock
Fallout 3
Morrowind
Oblivion
Dead Space
Breath of Fire 1 and 2
Chronotrigger
Chronocross
Jet Force Gemini
Kirby (all the 2d ones)
Lost Odyssey
God of War (I'm not sure if this had multiplayer or not as I could only afford one system this gen)
All the Pre-Enix Final Fantasy titles
Turok the Dinosaur Hunter
Paper Mario
Mario RPG
Psyconauts
Grim Fandango
The first three Zork games
If he thinks most of these games suck due to their lack of multi-player than there are two options.
1) He's a moron
2) He's just trying to get a rise out of you
On that note, I have noticed that most games that focus on multiplayer as a main selling point suffer for it, even more so for me who refuses to go online with his games. With a newborn, I just don't have the time to put into it.
Well allow me to play devil's advocate with a third option. Consider that just because Great games (and all the games on your list are arguably Great game) are great without multiplayer... that doesn't somehow mean you can't use "lack of multiplayer" as a valid criticism.
For example the guy who said "it sucks, it doesn't even have multiplayer" could just be struggling to articulate a rather more reasonable opinion:
It may be that (1) he just doesn't like Mass Effect for the single player alone, and (2) he considers a good multiplayer as something that can redeem a game, only he exposit that "it doesn't even have that" to emphasise why he should dismiss the game.
Now it could be that he just doesn't like Space RPGs like Mass Effect, in which case his stance can reasonably be ignored, but it is reading too much into him to actually think he would be like:
"wow, I love this game, so much fun, love the dialogue, action, yay! Oh wait, no multiplayer? I hate it now!"
I don't think that could possibly be the case.
I think he just didn't like the single player (for whatever reason), as was of the opinion that a multiplayer could have redeemed the game.
So in conclusion, lack of a multiplayer is a fair criticism (example of an unfair one being simple prejudice, e.g. "I won't guy a Japanese game coz I don't like Japanese people" or some bullshit like that) where DEPENDING on the context will affect just how relevant that criticism it is.
A very short game with no replay value, especially a game which has high potential for multiplayer, it is certainly a point relevant to criticism or at least mention. $60 is a lot to play for a game you're done with in 6 hours.
This is why I hate metacritic scores the way the are currently calculated. For example the PS2/Xbox classic 'Black' was one of the greatest games of the last console generation but got 5-10% knocked off for no multiplayer, even though the singleplayer had the best Console FPS-ing since Goldeneye (N64). And the reviews said as much.
Single player in the most important part of a game to me.Co-op multiplayer is nice but I find Competitive multiplayer just encourages hacks and griefing
I'd say saying a game is shit because it's single/multi only in general is pretty foolish. There are games that are multiplayer only, there are some that are single player only. Nothing wrong with that, so long as the game is specifically designed for that. I'd rather have an excellent multiplayer game without single player than one with a decent multiplayer and horrible single player (Bad Company, I'm looking at you). It also works by switching single and multi.
I'd say saying a game is shit because it's single/multi only in general is pretty foolish. There are games that are multiplayer only, there are some that are single player only. Nothing wrong with that, so long as the game is specifically designed for that. I'd rather have an excellent multiplayer game without single player than one with a decent multiplayer and horrible single player (Bad Company, I'm looking at you). It also works by switching single and multi.
I didn't say that multiplayer only games are bad - in fact, I love Team Fortress 2, and I severely doubt a singleplayer mode for it would improve it at all. But complaining about a single-player only game because it doesn't have multiplayer is what I'd class as foolishness.
Unless a game is designed to be multiplayer first (like TF2, L4D 1/2, and the Battlefield series), multiplayer should be a pleasant cherry on top of a delightful singleplayer experience, not the main attraction... or at least, thats my view on the matter.
Though discounting ME2 because it lacks multiplayer is foolish - discounting it because he doesn't like RPGs, or because he prefers to play in a group with friends, or because he doesn't like the Mass Effect series would all be valid, non-foolish reasons, even if I love ME 2 myself.
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