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How important is multiplayer?
Do you enjoy groups, or playing with yourself?
Multiplayer has always been a part of gaming. Hell, most of teh first games you could name were almost entirely built around multiplayer in one way or another (I'm looking at you, Pong). That's kind of what arcades were all about.
Then, to make a long story short, arcades dropped in popularity, and games became more complex, giving more emphasis to single player experience.
And now with the internet being a standard feature on every console, it seems like every game has to have a multiplayer component as a sort of prerequisite. In fact, there's been several games lately whose entire point was multiplayer, like Left 4 Dead.
But are there games that don't need multiplayer, or where multiplayer is even a detriment? Console RPGs are the most obvious choice, so I'm not even going to go into that.
What I'm wondering is, did the Metal Gear Solid really need multiplayer? Granted, I've never played Metal Gear Online, but a large part of the reason for that is that that's not why I play the MGS games.
Maybe I'm the odd man out, but I don't play many online or multiplayer games. Most of the ones I do play I play with people physically with me (Super Smash Bros. Melee, for instance, and Goldeneye 007). While I do enjoy multiplayer, it's never been a make-or-break thing for me when it comes to buying a game.
And personally, I don't think every series needs multiplayer. It certainly didn't help Metroid Prime 2, for instance, and for the life of me I can't figure out why Nintendo thought it was necessary. Metroid's always been about the atmosphere and exploration, not crazy death matches.
So what do you think? How important is multiplayer when it comes to purchasing a game?
Comments
I've always been a single-player campaign kinda gamer. I like multiplayer when there are friends in my house, and we're playing together, most of the time. But I've been getting into the online scene a little bit at a time.
So, I would have to say that it's somewhat important due to human interaction, instead of bots.
Mostly solo. I like multiplayer but a lot of my friends either don't seem to care much for it or are playing different games.
Since I don't play online much, I like team based games when I do. L4D and Warhawk come to mind. I usually don't do FPS's cause there are some insanely good people. That being said, I am looking forward to KZ2 on Sunday. I wish I could've got in on the L4D day a few weeks ago...
Basically, I like playing with people I know. It's just a slow process expanding the friends list :)
I think Metal Gear Solid didn't need MP, but MGO should have actually just been a seperate game. MGS is story driven and has a long enough SP campaign that it really did not need MP at all, it could have survived without. Now most of these FPS games that come out and take 5-10 hours to beat, well yes they need a MP element to help justify a 60 buck price point.
With so many games on the market and rough economic times, i think most games really do need or could benefit from giving extra content (Multi Player)..
I agree. There are some single player games I play and go, "Man I wish there was multiplayer!" But more than often there's games that include a multiplayer that is unneeded.
Take for instance Bioshock. Fantastic game, absolutely loved it, but there was no need for multiplayer so there wasn't and I was completely fine with that. However, I've heard several rumors of Bioshock 2 having a multiplayer mode. Now I don't know what the exact details of it are, but it seems unnecessary. I think "multiplayer" is more of a selling point these days and is sometimes forced. When mulitplayer mode is forced you'll know because you won't be playing it.
i honestly think if the game is very story driven, then you really do not need a MP.
I tend to agree with you, Voyou. I tend to agree with you, indeed.
multiplayer is not to important to me i Mostly play solo