"If a game can't stand on single player alone, it's a bad game." Really?
- Thread starter Owyn_Merrilin
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Well personally, I prefer to play a campaign on my own or with a friend, rather than play online with a bunch of mouthy kids who don't even know what the words that they shout mean. I know this is stereotyping multiplayer a little, but in my own experiences I found that about 99% of people who play multiplayer are people I don't really want to play with, either because they take it way too seriously or they are total trolls. Some people will disagree but this is what I gathered from the few months I tried multiplayer.
So that being said, I have to say that a game has to spend just as much time on the singleplayer as it does on the multiplayer, otherwise someone is going to have waisted their money. Even though its totally down to your personal preference, I honestly think that games with a good singleplayer but lack a good multiplayer are better than the opposite.
So that being said, I have to say that a game has to spend just as much time on the singleplayer as it does on the multiplayer, otherwise someone is going to have waisted their money. Even though its totally down to your personal preference, I honestly think that games with a good singleplayer but lack a good multiplayer are better than the opposite.
After 12 months? I'd be damned surprised if I went back to playing the campaign for more than a second playthrough. For that, it would have to be amazing. If it wasn't, then I'd move on.Wargamer said:
EDIT: That said, I still play RE5 a lot. But that's campaign and local multiplayer with my brother. Where does that fall on the scale? Multiplayer campaign?
Well, so long as at least one of the two parts is good I'm happy. There are just lots of Yahtzee fanboys who don't think for themselves and try to pass it off as their own opinion.
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/action/battlefield2/index.htmlScarecrow 8 said:
You definitely aren't the majority.
Also, I agree with the OP. There are some amazing multiplayer games, and tbh, there is no singleplayer game that has lasted years. The only games that ever last a long time are multiplayer
I absolutely hate when a quality single player game has multiplayer tacked on, such as: Metroid Prime 2, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, ect. It always feels a bit half arsed, and I just end up wishing they'd used the time to add a little more content to the main game, or just brought it out a bit earlier.
However I think it's okay for a game that's pretty much focused on multiplayer, eg: COD, Battlefield, to have a "tacked on" single player campaign, it gives you a chance to get familiar with the controls, and mechanics of a game, as well as trying out all the different weapons ect, so by the time you get online, you know what your doing.
What is driving me nuts about multiplayer these days (Especially in FPS's) is the lack of bots. I know it's more fun to play against people, but it means that at the start you have no idea of the way around the map. I miss the old days, when I used to play Timesplitters against bots, learn where the best spots where, and where the good weapons spawned, that way I had the upper hand when I was playing my mates.
These days, if you want to learn your way round a map, you have to do it in the middle of a game, and that's a great way to ruin your K/D ratio. If games can't have bots, then they should at least offer the option to explore the maps on your own, it would be a bit boring, but it'd be a step in the right direction.
First ever post, btw. I've been a lurker for far too long.
However I think it's okay for a game that's pretty much focused on multiplayer, eg: COD, Battlefield, to have a "tacked on" single player campaign, it gives you a chance to get familiar with the controls, and mechanics of a game, as well as trying out all the different weapons ect, so by the time you get online, you know what your doing.
What is driving me nuts about multiplayer these days (Especially in FPS's) is the lack of bots. I know it's more fun to play against people, but it means that at the start you have no idea of the way around the map. I miss the old days, when I used to play Timesplitters against bots, learn where the best spots where, and where the good weapons spawned, that way I had the upper hand when I was playing my mates.
These days, if you want to learn your way round a map, you have to do it in the middle of a game, and that's a great way to ruin your K/D ratio. If games can't have bots, then they should at least offer the option to explore the maps on your own, it would be a bit boring, but it'd be a step in the right direction.
First ever post, btw. I've been a lurker for far too long.
Not everyone has access to online play, or friends to hang out with. In fact, if you're playing enough video games to actually have full working knowledge of this situation, you probably don't have IRL friends. I know I don't. So if one buys a game, it better damn well stand on its single player. Now in games like Left 4 Dead, proud owner of the title "Only FPS Cupcaek Ninja will ever play because she still hates the controls to a point it's almost unhealthy", Multiplayer and Single player are the same thing. And that's fine in a game. If you want to make your single player completely the same as your multiplayer. But in a game like Halo, after the campaign is over, about 8 hours play time depending on the player, if you don't have access to online multiplayer, or just hate everyone on the internet(not an invalid philosiphy in itself), you've just wasted 60$ on a mediocre, 8-hour long game.
Most people seem to forget that video games are a way of NOT interacting with people in a social setting, and while multiplayer starts out as a non-interaction way of testing your skills against one another, it will inevitably lead either to a complex social situation like the ones you avoid, you know, OUTSIDE, with people you KNOW and who can SEE YOUR FACE, or it takes the opposite route and devolved into /b/, only less interesting. If you wanted that badly to socialize, you'd probably go outside.
Now do games without multiplayer work? Yes. Look at some old classics, Ocarina of Time, Sonic the Hedgehog Original, or the first Metroid. Or look at a few more modern examples, like the original Fable, or in the niche category, Harvest Moons Animal Parade and Tree of Tranquility. Or Fire Emblem.
That's not to say that all Single Player Games(SPG) are good. There's superman 64, or Sonic and the Secret Rings, or Sonic 3d Blast, or Wolfenstein(New). There are also Multiplayer games that are horrible. Who here remembers a game called Mario Party 8? Yes there are 8 of them now, possibly nine. I stopped caring a few turns into 4. Or how about those half assed Naruto fighting games there are so many of? Or those fantasy football games that there are like 20 of now per developer?
It's a simple matter of what is the most useful. If you bought Halo 3, brand new, and somehow lost access to connect with others online and couldn't get it back, for a ridiculous amount of time, you'd return the game, right? What about Bioshock? If you bought that, brand new, barely after the release, and lost multiplayer rights for whatever reason, it wouldn't matter. With multi-based games, if you lose internet, or get banned, or whatever, you've spent 60+ bucks on less than 8 hours of game time, in many cases. I don't care what the "price of entertainment" or whatnot is, that is just a bullshitty waste of money.
A good game is one you want to share with others, not one that makes you share with others to derive any entertainment at all. That's why Pokemon is still so popular. It has so many options, and it's fun to share your teams with others, but if you don't want to, you don't have to. You can sit quietly and enjoy your legitimately earned perfect IV shiny team you spent upwards of 2000 hours getting, without anyone else knowing, if that's what you want.
Think back on the "Perfect Game", Goldeneye. The multiplayer? was okay. What drew people to love the game? The actual game itself. The story, gameplay, the reason why you had to shoot the other guy. Goldeneye wasn't perfect because of mindless shooting of one another in vs mode, just to scream "screenwatcher" over and over again and argue about the weapons. It was perfect because of a story, gameplay, and characters that all bound together in the campaign to create the greatest experience known to gaming.
It mostly seems a matter of opinion, but Multiplayer games throw all story and characterization out the window, along with any immersion in a new world that isn't your own, which may I remind you, apart from preschool learning games, is the entire point of a game. If you wanted to be in your own world, you're already there. In the end you're just beating up some dude sitting in his own chair in front of the same machine that more or less looks exactly like you with the slumped posture and dull-to-IRL expression. That ruins everything right there.
Now if multiplayer is weaved into the story, like in Left 4 Dead, where Multiplayer is just Single Player, without (as many)AI teammates, you can keep the immersion factor. Yes the guy you're healing is sitting in a chair somewhere etc etc, but he's not. He isn't some nameless, faceless, gun toting drone that looks exactly like all the other ones you killed. He's Bill, or Francis, or Ellis, and he's part of your team and you need all of you to survive. These aren't blank sheets of paper, like in halo multiplayer, where everyone is faceless, known only by the screenname of those who maneuver him. These are people, with pasts, personalities, and friends. Now in a way, you could do this in halo, assigning personalities, pasts, whatnot, to the shoot-y, technicolor avatars of the people you play against, but it's kind of like assigning a personality to Cleverbot, or a Furby. It attempts to give the illusion of actually being something that thinks and feels, but really, it's just not and there's absolutely no way to think of them otherwise without becoming the guy that talks to his stuffed animal and pretends it talks back. As an adult.
If you'd rather play multiplayer that's your choice, your prerogative. But I can go on about this all day of why a game needs to have at very least a DECENT single player campaign, otherwise it's less of a game and more a high school hallway, except there are no teachers to stop the arguments and no lockers to push one another into to end the argument themselves.
Most people seem to forget that video games are a way of NOT interacting with people in a social setting, and while multiplayer starts out as a non-interaction way of testing your skills against one another, it will inevitably lead either to a complex social situation like the ones you avoid, you know, OUTSIDE, with people you KNOW and who can SEE YOUR FACE, or it takes the opposite route and devolved into /b/, only less interesting. If you wanted that badly to socialize, you'd probably go outside.
Now do games without multiplayer work? Yes. Look at some old classics, Ocarina of Time, Sonic the Hedgehog Original, or the first Metroid. Or look at a few more modern examples, like the original Fable, or in the niche category, Harvest Moons Animal Parade and Tree of Tranquility. Or Fire Emblem.
That's not to say that all Single Player Games(SPG) are good. There's superman 64, or Sonic and the Secret Rings, or Sonic 3d Blast, or Wolfenstein(New). There are also Multiplayer games that are horrible. Who here remembers a game called Mario Party 8? Yes there are 8 of them now, possibly nine. I stopped caring a few turns into 4. Or how about those half assed Naruto fighting games there are so many of? Or those fantasy football games that there are like 20 of now per developer?
It's a simple matter of what is the most useful. If you bought Halo 3, brand new, and somehow lost access to connect with others online and couldn't get it back, for a ridiculous amount of time, you'd return the game, right? What about Bioshock? If you bought that, brand new, barely after the release, and lost multiplayer rights for whatever reason, it wouldn't matter. With multi-based games, if you lose internet, or get banned, or whatever, you've spent 60+ bucks on less than 8 hours of game time, in many cases. I don't care what the "price of entertainment" or whatnot is, that is just a bullshitty waste of money.
A good game is one you want to share with others, not one that makes you share with others to derive any entertainment at all. That's why Pokemon is still so popular. It has so many options, and it's fun to share your teams with others, but if you don't want to, you don't have to. You can sit quietly and enjoy your legitimately earned perfect IV shiny team you spent upwards of 2000 hours getting, without anyone else knowing, if that's what you want.
Think back on the "Perfect Game", Goldeneye. The multiplayer? was okay. What drew people to love the game? The actual game itself. The story, gameplay, the reason why you had to shoot the other guy. Goldeneye wasn't perfect because of mindless shooting of one another in vs mode, just to scream "screenwatcher" over and over again and argue about the weapons. It was perfect because of a story, gameplay, and characters that all bound together in the campaign to create the greatest experience known to gaming.
It mostly seems a matter of opinion, but Multiplayer games throw all story and characterization out the window, along with any immersion in a new world that isn't your own, which may I remind you, apart from preschool learning games, is the entire point of a game. If you wanted to be in your own world, you're already there. In the end you're just beating up some dude sitting in his own chair in front of the same machine that more or less looks exactly like you with the slumped posture and dull-to-IRL expression. That ruins everything right there.
Now if multiplayer is weaved into the story, like in Left 4 Dead, where Multiplayer is just Single Player, without (as many)AI teammates, you can keep the immersion factor. Yes the guy you're healing is sitting in a chair somewhere etc etc, but he's not. He isn't some nameless, faceless, gun toting drone that looks exactly like all the other ones you killed. He's Bill, or Francis, or Ellis, and he's part of your team and you need all of you to survive. These aren't blank sheets of paper, like in halo multiplayer, where everyone is faceless, known only by the screenname of those who maneuver him. These are people, with pasts, personalities, and friends. Now in a way, you could do this in halo, assigning personalities, pasts, whatnot, to the shoot-y, technicolor avatars of the people you play against, but it's kind of like assigning a personality to Cleverbot, or a Furby. It attempts to give the illusion of actually being something that thinks and feels, but really, it's just not and there's absolutely no way to think of them otherwise without becoming the guy that talks to his stuffed animal and pretends it talks back. As an adult.
If you'd rather play multiplayer that's your choice, your prerogative. But I can go on about this all day of why a game needs to have at very least a DECENT single player campaign, otherwise it's less of a game and more a high school hallway, except there are no teachers to stop the arguments and no lockers to push one another into to end the argument themselves.
I agree with Anti Nudist Cupcake.Anti Nudist Cupcake said:
If your going to add a single player campaign onto the game thne it has to be bloody well done. Same way if your going to add a multiplay aspect. It has to be bloody good if your gonna add it.
As it happens i was playing jedi academy last week with a bunch of friends onlineNeverhoodian said:
Ahh good times hehe.
Welcome! Always good to have new faces around, especially if the attached hands write eloquently, as you have.Charles_njc said:
I agree fully with you there. My first bash at AC:B the other day was me getting rageful at being killed about every 25 seconds since the 'training' taught me nothing about how to avoid it. That, and BlOps for the first 15 levels- trying desperately to figure out where the hell everyone was firing from, let alone figuring out the weapons and tactics. Cutting your teeth on an uncomfortable scale.
Well I disagree. If a game is MADE as a multiplayer then it should be ADVERTISED as a multiplayer, not just a game. I want a big warning saying "DO NOT PURCHASE IF YOU DO NOT HAVE INTERNET THIS GAME IS INTENDED FOR MULTIPLAYER ONLY AND DOES NOT HAVE A CAMPAIGN". Because I do hate tacked-on campaign modes that have more plot holes than enemies and leaves you playing multiplayer just to get your money's worth from the game.
That said I actually agree with Yahtzee's statement that it's stupid to play multiplayer with people who aren't in the room with you and therefore aren't bound by laws of etiquette..... or can be slapped in the face when they do something asinine.
All in all I'm not a fan of multiplayer in general, if I REALLY wanted to have the kind of multiplayer experience everyone else gets I'd play Call of Duty against my little brother with my hands tied behind my back and the controller at my feet.
That said I actually agree with Yahtzee's statement that it's stupid to play multiplayer with people who aren't in the room with you and therefore aren't bound by laws of etiquette..... or can be slapped in the face when they do something asinine.
All in all I'm not a fan of multiplayer in general, if I REALLY wanted to have the kind of multiplayer experience everyone else gets I'd play Call of Duty against my little brother with my hands tied behind my back and the controller at my feet.
Cheap games I buy for the singleplayer e.g. Singularity.
Expensive games I buy for the multiplayer e.g. COD:Black Ops.
I would not buy a game based purely on singleplayer with no multiplayer for £40 simply because it does not hold my attention long enough. Multiplayer makes a game have an infinite amount of play time, meaning I basically get more Bang for my Buck. I can't afford to be out buying £40 games for only 6-8 hours of entertainment.
That's why to me a game with multiplayer will also be worth more in my eyes than a game with singleplayer.
Of course there is the odd exception e.g. Fallout New Vegas.
Expensive games I buy for the multiplayer e.g. COD:Black Ops.
I would not buy a game based purely on singleplayer with no multiplayer for £40 simply because it does not hold my attention long enough. Multiplayer makes a game have an infinite amount of play time, meaning I basically get more Bang for my Buck. I can't afford to be out buying £40 games for only 6-8 hours of entertainment.
That's why to me a game with multiplayer will also be worth more in my eyes than a game with singleplayer.
Of course there is the odd exception e.g. Fallout New Vegas.
The thing is multiplayer being good or bad is dependant quite heavily on who you are playing with, or also whether or not you can use a jetpack (I like Reach :3).
I do get pissed off with online games though as I have a bit of a rubbish connection because all my nearest TF2 servers seem to be with just French and German people, which is strange as I live in England (admittedly the south but wtf I mean, no servers? seriously?!). And honestly, trying to get any connection for MW2 with less than 100 ping was impossible and when a games is that laggy it's just unbearable. So if it doesn't have a fun campaign and then I can't get into a decent online game, then yeah, I'd be seriously pissed off. So in that respect I have to side with Yahtzee.
I do get pissed off with online games though as I have a bit of a rubbish connection because all my nearest TF2 servers seem to be with just French and German people, which is strange as I live in England (admittedly the south but wtf I mean, no servers? seriously?!). And honestly, trying to get any connection for MW2 with less than 100 ping was impossible and when a games is that laggy it's just unbearable. So if it doesn't have a fun campaign and then I can't get into a decent online game, then yeah, I'd be seriously pissed off. So in that respect I have to side with Yahtzee.
you have a point there, I think people would be alot less annoyed if games were simply "ether one or the other" like Team fortress compared to half life, rather than having inferior single player and good multi and vice versaTerranReaper said:
also my veiw on this isn't influenced by yahtzee I just simply agree with him on this, If I agreed with everyhting that guy said then I would hate every game I played and thats just no fun (I know he dose this for enertainment...but you never know with him)
To use an example already touched upon in this thread, Unreal Tournament still has an active multiplayer userbase more than a decade after its release [in 1999]. There are plenty of regular players and servers about in addition to clans competing in tournaments and cups; consider that this is true even after three sequels to the game have been released. It's slowing down, yes, but it's touching on twelve years of life now.Vault101 said:
And it's not the only one. Age of Empires II, for example, is still played online a lot, mostly through a program called Hamachi. Perhaps many of the multiplayer games of today are swiftly moved on and abandoned, but this is not the rule for all of them. How about Counter-Strike: Source? Team Fortress 2? Hell, an MMORPG like World of Warcraft qualifies as a multiplayer game, and that is definitely not going to die out in a few years.
Well then there was really no point in commenting on this thread, was there?Thibaut said:
OP: I believe that no game should stand on singleplayer only UNLESS if it is singleplayer only. I play games to have fun, and oftentimes that fun is had with friends. Halo, Call of Duty, Rock Band (ROCK BAND IN PARTICULAR), and Bad Company 2 would not be so dear to so many people if opinions rested on the singleplayer alone.
This isnt a discussion, this is some trolls power fantasy blown out of proportion by an overwhelming response from legitimate fans.
There are some games, such as Team Fortress 2, Quake III Arena, Red Orchestra, etc. that has a single player that is pretty much just multiplayer with AI (yet I had hours of fun with Quake III Arena against AI), which work. For most games, however, I do believe that if they can't stand on single player alone they aren't worth it. Why? Anyone can play single player. If the servers go down, you can play single player. If your internet goes out, you can play single player. If you have no friends or not extra controllers to play split screen with, single player. If something else random happens that won't let you get online, single player.
Oh, and to disagree again, I thought F.E.A.R.'s multiplayer was a hell of a lot more fun then TF2 ever was.
Oh, and to disagree again, I thought F.E.A.R.'s multiplayer was a hell of a lot more fun then TF2 ever was.
It's pretty true for me. I've put large amount of time into Team Fortress 2, but I bought the game when it was on a ridiculous sale ($5, maybe less). Though I wouldn't phrase it like that.
Instead, I say: "If a game can't stand on it's single player alone, then it isn't a game I'll like"
It's personal preference rather than a universal truth.
Instead, I say: "If a game can't stand on it's single player alone, then it isn't a game I'll like"
It's personal preference rather than a universal truth.