Is bad single player excusable?

[johnnnny guitar]

Well if a single player game has an amazing multiplayer then I guess it's okay and I'll pick it up sooner or later.

HOWEVER!!!!

If you are reviewing a game sorry that has to be marked as part of the core experience not just something that gets a half line mention and then only takes 0.5 off the review score I.E. 95% of all the battlefield 3 reviews.

Now I liked the multiplayer in battlefield 3 (I got it for free so I could justify having to use origin on my PC) and I was playing some a few hours ago but the single player while enjoyable in some places was quicker then lighting a match and had plenty of shit segments these need to be taken into account not ignored and have an impact on reviews because unlike consumers reviews can't overlook game faults.

 

[templar1138a]

One big reason I play RPGs: Very few of them try to be multiplayer. As such, they put a lot of emphasis on their campaigns.

As Yahtzee once said, "Unfortunately, I don't give a flying shit about Multiplayer, and neither do a lot of people."

Seriously, I play TOR for the story campaigns. I gave up on trying to enjoy any multiplayer aspects a while ago. "LFG Athiss" became a tiresome thing to say.

Also, I approve of captchas that serve the function of public service announcements instead of advertisements.

 

[Iwata]

Nah, I like big dumb generic shooters, and I do like to see my games reimagined.

.

................................

what are you doing on the escapist?....

....are you an alien?

I am that rare person who still plays games to have fun. That does indeed qualify me as an alien in this day and age.

Care to explain what everyone else does with video games?

Well, from what I see lately, they buy them so they can complain about them.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

That's fair, but what game has been marketed that way? I'm all for truth in advertising, but I don't remember, say, CoD being marketed primarily on the singleplayer, and that's the one that gets brought up the most in these discussions.

Homefront is a pretty good example of that. The single player got hyped to hell and back. There also was a multiplayer that was, from what I've heard, really really good. However because they completely ignored marketin for the multiplayer when the game launched a huge group of people that they could have easily brought in went completely ignored. Then when the game didn't sell nearly as well as they'd hoped because of its SP issues, they tried to drag people into the multiplayer too little too late.

Okay, I can see that. It's remembered as a pretty terrible game, too, so I guess the marketing backfired on them. Shame if it's got good multiplayer but it was marketed wrong.

 

[David VanDusen]

My two cents: The answer is NO.... ALWAYS NO!

Then again, I'm an adult and have adult ways of looking at things. I'm also old... and bitter... and annoyed easily. According to South Park ( because obnoxious people watch the show and just had to point it out ) I suffer from a debilitating case of "Being and Ass."

Back to the point...

NOOOOOOOO!!!!! See, I'm sort of glad that people keep buying video games. It's a hallmark of knowing people I don't want to have personal interaction with. (that's a little too far) My point is, it must be insanity which infects people convincing them that it's "OK" for a company to release a shit product and charge XXX price for it. I've felt this way about the CoD games and everything from Halo 2 forward. I got tired of games which were 90% internally focused towards online play but were marketed with the idea that it was a 50%-50% split on development on some shit.

If a developer wants to produce some new ultra cool hyper sonic jizz in your pants multiplayer game they should just f-ing do it. What they shouldn't do is phone in some shitty single player with the intent of conning people into their game.

However, this is the new way of video games. While "demos" exist sometimes, the download time on most of them make people not even bother. If they do bother to try one and its shit, they seemingly chalk it up to being the demo and thus unpolished or something.

Shit damn... I miss carts.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Seeing as Starhawk is the sequel to Warhawk (a multiplayer game) one can expect the emphasis to be on the multiplayer aspect. Honestly, I didn't even know Starhawk would have a singleplayer judging by the previous game.

 

[bluesession]

OK... some posters seem really angry that sudenly there are some games they don't like, in this case multiplayer games.

Folowing the original question,
There are multiplayer games, there are single player games and in-betweens.
MMO are purely multiplayer games, for example. While Mass effect 2 is a single player one. Mass effect 3 is the In-between.

I completely understand when players that come from single player games with some online components see the game change to almost full MMO (Like the hot topic Diablo II & III).
That sucks for who liked that game as a single player experience as much as it sucks for me when X-com becomes a shooter.

That said. Multiplayer focused games shouldn't be judged (much) by its single player.
And in particular to starhawk, the game seems to at least have some cutscenes and story a lot more than battlefront.
But I think it doesn't deserve the 9 score because the multiplayer doesn't look that good. You have hawks, and tanks, and the flying motorcycle and .... I don't know the quicklooks I saw look awfull mediocre. =/

 

[Canadamus Prime]

It should be like a meal. The single player is the main course. The multiplayer and extras are the dessert and such. If the main course tastes like ass, then you won't eat the rest of the food. If the single player sucks, then the rest of its goodies (like multiplayer) shouldn't help bring it up. Think about the people who don't play the multiplayer.

That's an excellent analogy, and I agree. No, there should be no excuse for poorly done single player.

 

[Iwata]

Singleplayer is just as important as multiplayer. If I payed full price for a game, I want the full package. If it's going to be multiplayer only, it should be cheaper.

Or free. I like what they did with Killzone 3, releasing the Multiplayer as a stand-alone afterwards.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

I suppose it is in circumstances where my real interest in the game is elsewhere. Battlefield 3 might have terrible single player for example. Having never actually placed that disc in the tray, I'd never know.

 

[nondescript]

Multiplayer is like subtitles in your favorite movie: handy for when your friend wants it, but if you don't like it, the feature isn't going to improve.

Some people think multi player is the only way to go. It isn't. Diablo and original Warcraft were excellent, challenging games for there times, as were the sequels. It's great fun to get a buddy and kill zombies together, but if your friend has work or a (gasp!) girlfriend, what can you do?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Well, from what I see lately, they buy them so they can complain about them.

That and to talk about how art games don't need to be fun, just engaging. Playing purely for fun does make you an odd duck around here.

[sub][sub][sub]It also adds another level to the explanation of the anti-multiplayer bias around here, beyond "Yahtzee doesn't like it, let's quote him!"[/sub][/sub][/sub]

That said. Multiplayer focused games shouldn't be judged (much) by its single player.
And in particular to starhawk, the game seems to at least have some cutscenes and story a lot more than battlefront.

Good point, but Battlefront is a bad example -- or at least Battlefront 2 is, I haven't played the first one so it may be different. Anyway, Battlefront 2 had a campaign with a fairly involved story about the 501st legion, from their first battle at Geonosis to their victory at Hoth. It didn't have any real characters beyond the hero units, but the idea was that you were playing through the journal of an unknown member of the legion, who narrated each cutscene. It also had "galactic conquest mode" which adds some macro level strategy to the game, and was mostly played single player. Both games had both modes, but I'm not sure how involved the campaign was in the first game. I'd imagine it was at least decent though, since they were primarily console titles in an age where very few consoles were hooked up to the internet.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Multiplayer is like subtitles in your favorite movie: handy for when your friend wants it, but if you don't like it, the feature isn't going to improve.

Some people think multi player is the only way to go. It isn't. Diablo and original Warcraft were excellent, challenging games for there times, as were the sequels. It's great fun to get a buddy and kill zombies together, but if your friend has work or a (gasp!) girlfriend, what can you do?

Hop on a random server and make some friends? This is the PC gamer in me talking, but online multiplayer exists so you don't have to rely on having friends who like and own the same games you do.

 

[Squidbulb]

In most cases, no. But Starhawk is the sequel to a multiplayer-only game, which I loved, so I'll let it slide.

 

[rob_simple]

I think it has to be clear what kind of lackluster we're talking about, because to me there's a difference between a short single player that's still functional and a single player that's just a generally broken experience.

I might be in the minority of people who actually enjoy the CoD single player campaign. I look at it like an action film: it's filled with shallow stock characters and predictable twists but there are enough explosions and cheesy drama to keep me at least entertained. That being said I understand that it's primarily a multiplayer-heavy game so I don't expect the same level of quality as a game like Half Life which is focused entirely on the campaign.

In terms of just bad gameplay though, I don't think that's excusable in any aspect of a game.

 

[MetalDooley]

Lacklustre single-player is inexcusable. Why? Because no matter how well made your multiplayer is, it's only as good as the server population. If nobody is online, or if the servers get shut down, what are you stuck with?

This comment sums up the situation perfectly

 

[Robert Ewing]

Bad single player is excusable if the developer makes out that the game revolves around it's multiplayer.

But otherwise, a game should stand up on it's own perfectly well with it's single player. Multiplayer should never be a crutch to help it's appeal.