My new camera hasn't arrived, so I apologize for the bad camera angle that cuts off a bit of my head and the poor sound. Can't be helped. I was going to skip it this week but we needed the content and, well, it doesn't feel like Friday if I don't post one of these now.
Problems aside, this is a subject that's close to my heart, so at least the argument is solid. I've ranted about it before, most recently in the July issue of GamePro. It's about how single-player games are being forgotten by developers and gamers alike in favor of multiplayer and co-op.
Check it out, and let me know what you think of the subject!
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
2:00 PM on 08.20.2010 | 
I don't even like most multiplayer games, because if I play online I want to dedicate myself to it and learn the ins and outs of it. So I don't have time or motivation to play every multiplayer game out there, I always prefer single player. So this trend is worrying me quite a lot.
A truly wonderful singleplayer experience can never be mirrored in multiplayer. and Vice versa.
Not to say that I don't like multiplayer games, as TF2 and Left 4 Dead are fantastic games to play with others, but it pains me to see multiplayer shoehorned into so many titles these days that don't need it to the detriment of the single player experience(Resistance 2 I'm looking at you).
Has it been announced if Bioshock:Infinite will have one? I'm hoping they repudiate Bioshock 2 and leave it out, and just craft another brilliant single player experience.
As for people who won't buy a game because it lack multiplayer....well, stupidity is nothing new in the video game world.
Another fine Jimquisition. I'm happy to see this is a thing now.
But seriously, I am with you 100% Jim. I'm quickly growing very tired of multiplayer this and multiplayer that. But then again, I'm 32, and grew up with single player gaming. The first time I ever played a multiplayer game on a console was the PS3.
Mic if fine. Amusingly, it was the camera that was suffering from the mic tosses, not the microphone. I ended up managing to twist the microphone port on the camera so badly it was unusable.
In future I'll remember to leave me enough slack on Mic's cord.
It really does come down to the talent of the individual developer, though. I remember the dev in charge of Wanted: Weapons of Fate saying that he didn't include any multiplayer because he didn't want to compromise the single player portion, but then the single player game was crappy and short anyway.
Such as pictures and recordable video from within the games. Rather than have to come up with some fancy voodoo setup to record video and take screengrabs. We live in a blogging, social-networking generation.
I don't want to just talk about my Monster Hunter or Phantasy Star character, I want to show it off in a post or something. Right now, I have to do some voodoo just to get my SSBB picks off my Wii, I still haven't figured out how to grab my pics from Metroid Prime Trilogy.
There aee games that don't need multiplayer and aren't improved by them. Metroid, Castlevania and Bioshock each tried, but it felt like a waste of space and effort.
The mic will be back. This was a practicality issue not a style issue, since the camera is busted and won't accept microphones. The new camera is shipping to me right now so it ought to be business as usual next week.
Pick what it is that you want to do and stick with it....
Some games really Need to be single player while other games don't really benefit from single player and should stick to multiplayer. I will give you there is the occasional game that does both well and benefits from both experiences but those are few and far between.
What gamers want is an awesome game experience not some watered down, run of the mill, vanilla blah and that is exactly what you get when someone from the marketing department pops in and says they want multiplayer for X game by last Tuesday..... then the next five months wondering why their game got blah reviews and sold poorly.
But what really irks me is when it diverts funds and attention from the main game, that time could be spent adding the final layers of polish and smoothing everything out. Sometimes it turns out ok, Uncharted 2 wasn’t any worse off for having multiplayer , but most of the time the main game suffers for a bullet point on the back of the box that nobody bothers with after the first months of its release. Come to think of it I didn’t even touch Bioshock 2’s multiplayer.
But I totally agree. I tend to skip multiplayer mode most of the times because I feel that most multiplayer features have a rather sloppy standard.
I already have games that I play when I want multiplayer. I have Team Fortress 2, I have Left 4 Dead, I have Mario Kart, I have Modern Warfare 2, I have Super Smash Bros. Brawl. These are all games that I think do what they do the best and until something really great comes along, I'll continue to play them.
I barely touched Uncharted 2 and Red Dead Redemption's multiplayer modes because I felt that their single-player experiences were more than enough for me and that I got my money's worth out of them. The multiplayer modes, as polished as they were, didn't seem necessary to me because I felt that the multiplayer games I was already playing were much funner.
Anyway.. I agree 100%
The single-player experience is where I tend to devote most of my time, as I did with games in the past. This is why I am really looking forward to "Vanquish." I think it's great that Platinum Games is devoting all of their efforts on the title into making a (hopefully) meaty SP campaign. While I'm not too fond of Shinji Mikami's penchant for cheesy characters & dialogue (*shudder* RE4 & Godhand), I want to support his game and his willingness to skip over on a feature many gamers seem to want every title to have.
I'm not against MP - I have had fun with friends playing MP modes in games, but the SP experience has always been my favorite part of gaming. A game I really liked was RE5, but I wish it could have been 1-player only in the main story (especially since the sidekick felt tacked on, and the computer AI - when you weren't playing with a friend - was absolutely terrible). MP worked fine in Mercenaries & Versus, but it was NOT needed in the main story (which suffered because of it) IMO.
I do agree, not every game needs multiplayer, especially ones that don't really seem to have that kind of a vibe to it. But if some shooter game comes out with some cool new mechanic, and they want to make a multiplayer mode for it on top of having a good story, I have no qualms with it. This is how we got Transformers: War for Cybertron, which I've heard is quite good in the multiplayer area.
So, it's a two way street.
Like most working parents I don't have a lot of time during the week to game, so I'm naturally going to drift towards games where I can go at my own pace with an immersive single-player experience -- Okami, GTA IV, The Saboteur, and Red Dead Redemption being prime examples. EACH of those games me at least 40 hours of an immersive and fun single-player experience.
You're spot on with this one, Jim.
Loved this video as always!