You kids and your doodads. Bluetooth. Steam. Gametap. Xbox Live. Back in our day, if you wanted to play with three other people, you had to facilitate a disgusting orgy of cords and multi-tap peripherals all over the living room, which usually led to the dog sniffing around curiously and getting tangled up in the whole monstrosity like a bad guy in a Spider-Man cartoon. Either that, or you'd have to look for the "big" cabinet at your local arcade, where you had no control over who your opponents were, but could damn sure bet they were either unwashed or light years beyond your skill level.
Remember putting a quarter on the cabinet to claim "I got next?" Remember when your buddies would come over and bogart the cheetos? What were you playing? Tonight we take a look back at all the fun we had when we had to go at it in the same room, where the modern-day trash talk and cheap glitch abuse might have gotten you teabagged for real. Hit the comments and tell us about your favorite multiplayer memories.
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Contest:
4:28 PM on 09.22.2007
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In just the last few years I learned of the old Atari arcade classic Warlords. I long to obtain the four player cocktail cabinet of that game some day. It's like Breakout, except the walls you're smashing are the other players' castles.
The port of the first Marvel vs. Capcom for the Dreamcast lets four players square off as two tag teams, something the arcade version couldn't do. Also recommended is the three player Dramatic Battle mode in Street Fighter Alpha 3.
Chu Chu Rocket is pure insanity in the 4 player mode. Usually I'd be unable to focus on winning and just tried to sabotage everyone else by randomly placing arrows.
also tekken... virtua fighter... and tmnt...
But for multi-player. Contra. I distinctly remember yelling at my partner to shoot at soldiers at the top of the screen while I took care of the lower ones.
On the SNES, there were many nights of 4-player Saturday Night SlamMasters and NBA Jam, our controllers orange with Doritos' dust. I remember seeking out the SNES Multi-Tap just for that very reason. You have to understand that this was a weekly event.
At the arcades, there were the Ninja Turtles, the X-Men cabinet, and who can forget The Simpsons? And of course the grand-daddy of them all with Gauntlet. To this day, my lunchtime away message on instant messenger is "Bluw Wizard is about to die. Needs food badly." This is not even going into House of the Dead or the Jurassic Park arcade game, or the many hours of Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat.
When the N64 came out I was in college. I know that my GPA might have been much improved were it not for Goldeneye and Mario Kart. Later on, there was Smash Bros. This time the sodas were replaced by beer, the Doritos with pizza. But the fun always remained.
The Dreamcast brought Marvel vs. Capcom, Power Stone, Dead or Alive, and Gauntlet Legends. At this point, the arcade scene was dying and LAN parties starting to come to rise. So we started getting together in garages and people's houses for Unreal Tournament and Quake III Arena.
I suppose this is why I'm not a huge fan of Xbox Live or really any internet gaming. It kills my favorite face-to-face interaction of games. Little cams and a headset are not adequate replacements for being able to punch your buddy next to you or jump up and do a victory dance right in front of their faces.
Streets of rage II also kicked ass, and I would often play te side-kick role of Tails in Sonic 2.
TMNT/Tutles in Time
X-MEN (6 player ftw)
The Simpsons
Alien vs. Predator was good times too. (although, I think it was a Capcom title)
( o Y o )'s
Another game that I suddenly just remembered and had to Google: Return Fire. Don't know if you'll have even heard of it, but it was great. I didn't even own the game, it was just on a demo disk I had, but me and a friend played the crap out of it. You played it split-screen, sharing a keyboard, and the idea was to select one of four vehicles from your base (jeep, tank, helicopter or minelayer I believe) and go attack the enemy base and capture the flag. Hours of fun.
Gauntlet, TMNT and Capcom's D&D games at the arcades with 3 other friends.
Also, Super Street Fighter II - Chun v. Cammy.
Around that time (ninth or tenth grade), there were also a few others: WWF SmackDown! and its sequel, WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role (PlayStation...that was back when we were all still very much into wrestling); NFL Blitz (one of the PS ones — either 2000 or 2001); Worms World Party (Dreamcast; we still play it every now and then because I have two friends with Dreamcasts); some Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II (GameCube); a bit of TimeSplitters (tough because only one of my friends had PS2 multitap); and, of course, Super Smash Bros. (the original and its GameCube sequel, Melee).
It's always great to hear the outtakes of podcasting.
Have a nice show!
Actually, that reminds me. A couple times, we got extra adventurous and hooked up two TVs to one machine and each player or 2-player team would get one TV, facing in different directions to keep one from team from seeing the other, then we'd cover one half of the screen to keep the other from 'screen looking' in games like Perfect Dark and Conker BFD. Especially the Beach, with the frenchies and Tediz. That stuff got way better like that. Anyone else try that?
bitches don't know about my haggar!
Anyway, I think the best "multiplayer game" was when your little brother, cousin or whatever wanted to play, so you connected his controler, told him he was playing and he believed it.
I had a Four Score and a Satellite on my NES. With about 8 controllers too, for no reason. The best co-op games for me were Gauntlet, Super C, TMNT 2 and Double Dragon. I also remember 4 player RC Pro-Am being really fun. When a mutual friend of my brother and I got a SNES we would play Final Fight and Street Fighter for hours. Whoa, nostalgia rush. I'm going to go play Final Fight on Gametap with my 360 controller now. Sorry to cut this post short :)
I don't how to say this without making it sound so ridiculously awkward, but I think I am a little bit in love with you. I was totally going to talk about my strange obsession with Anticipation on the show tonight and how they need to remake it for the Wii.
Super Dodge Ball was responsible for the vast majority of my callused thumbs back in the day. My friends and I LOVED that game.
And I agree with Reaprar, the Simpsons arcade game had some of the best multiplayer action out there.
GoldenEye = best multiplayer of all time, though :)