Welcome to the first in our new weekly series, Loot Ninja’s Battle of Wits. Each Monday, we’ll be examing a hot topic in the gaming industry, whether it be an awesome new announcement, a designer saying something asinine, or just general thoughts on current events. You’ll get multiple views from multiple Loot Ninja editors and contributors. We want the Battle of Wits to open up a good discussion with all of you, so make sure to let us know your views in the comments.
For this week’s inaugural edition, we’ll be discussing the need, or lack thereof, for multiplayer and co-op in new releases. A heated debate went down between myself and Steve, so read on to see where we each stand on the topic.
The conversation started after the announcement of Uncharted 2’s multiplayer and co-op modes. While the co-op missions could be very enjoyable, the deathmatch-type multiplayer modes seem completely shoe-horned into the game. If there was any game that did not need multiplayer, it’s Uncharted 2. One of the main reasons it’s getting tacked on is to increase the perceived value of the game. With today’s economy, people are not going to buy a $60 game when they only get 8 hours of new gameplay. This is one area where both Steve and I agreed, seeing that the developers should extend the single player campaign instead of adding on frivolous modes, especially when there already is a hugely competitive online multiplayer landscape will all the FPS games on the market. Steve would rather have a “20 hour campaign than a 7 hour campaign with added multiplayer just to say that they increased the ‘replay’ value.”
On the flip side of the coin, some games would greatly benefit from additional multiplayer, such a co-op in Killzone 2. While I think it wouldn’t work completely given the game’s story, they could have made a fun co-op mode like Resistance 2 or Gears of War 2’s Horde. With the game dominating the multiplayer landscape of the PS3 already, I questioned if is it even worth it for Guerilla Games to implement a co-op mode at the point? As Steve eloquently put it, “[Guerilla Games and Sony] need people playing it for years, not months. Anything that can be added to facilitate that is a must.”
In the long run, game developers and publishers need to know what they and the audience want from a game. The problem with shoe-horning multiplayer into games right now seems to stem from company higher-ups saying “Multiplayer is the hot shit; we need that. I don’t care what it means to the game.” Many games already have had a tacked on multiplayer mode that just didn’t work, in particular Metal Gear Solid 4. The single player campaign of MGS4 was amazing, while Metal Gear Online didn’t hold up to the standard set by the series. Developers and publishers should stick to what they know, as it’s better to do one thing perfect than several mediocre.
[Battle of Wits is a weekly feature from Loot Ninja discussing the current topics in video games, our thoughts, and their implications on the industry. Feel free to join in the discussion and, if you have a topic you want to see covered, let us know.]
Of course games need co-op and multiplayer. The multiplayer has to be split screen online, none of this CoD 4 bullcrap with one person per screen online. Halo 3 is the perfect example of how multiplayer and co-op needs to be done in the future of gaming.
yes, yes they do.
god killzone 2 would be sick with co-op. and i think it would work fine with the storyline because one would play as sev and another as rico or natko.
I prefer the game the designers/publishers intended on delivering. Not a game that’s constantly changing due to gamers feelings of entitlement. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a diverse game as much as the next guy, but seriously, get over yourselves. If you had the holy grail of gaming in your brain. Here’s an idea. Go to school, learn how to program, learn how to develope, market it, sell it, and reap the rewards. There’s obviously room in any industry for constructive criticism. But, constructive can hardly be the word we apply to most of the criticism these days.
Morne
I’m pro-co-op. Playing with friends is better than playing without.
All games should have co-op, even if it does feel tacked on.
I see how co-op would be a good thing in any game, even if the campaign is bad. I think all games with a campaign should have some sort of co-op, cause its fun playing with your friends.
But multiplayer, thats I whole different story. For a multiplayer to work, it needs good gameplay, good maps and game types, and also good party system. It takes alot of work to make a good multiplayer, and cause of that, and thats why I think most games have poor multiplayer. And thats why I think most games should NOT have multiplayer, so the developers can make the co-op campaign so much better. But if they want a good multiplayer, than make one, don’t just tack one on the game to make the game look better.
Why not? I can´t recall a single game that became terrible because of co-op addition. I can, however, remember co-op games that could also be played in single-player mode, but was much more fun in co-op.
So, why not co-op to be a pre-requisite in all games? I would love it! I am not asking for any game to be co-op only, but to feature co-op and single-player modes, so everyone would be satisfied.
I guess the next thing they could do in co-op is a JRPG (I know Eternal Sonata and Vesperia has co-op, but only in battles). I imagine the game would be very hard to make, but I am thinking in something simple like Secret of Mana (yes, it had co-op up to three players).
Co-op is something that encourages new players! That´s why love co-op so much. As for Deathmatch, like you said, there are alrady a lot of games that has this feature.
Co-op increases replayability too. I finished Halo 3 with 3 more people a lot of times; it was always 3 distinct friends everytime, so the game was never the same.
The only game I can remember that was worse in co-op as Fable 2. Any other game I had much more fun playing with my friends!
Hate Co-op. Don’t like people enough to want to talk to them let only waste good AI gaming time playing with people I don’t know, don’t want to know and don’t care about. Bo Boom!!
HELL NO.
not every game needs co-op imagine god of war with co-op it would suck.
the combat would be boring because your not geting all the kills.
the puzles would be to easy because theres 2 people working on it,
another uncharted 2 would be so annoying with co-op both people would be in the way of each other.
when jumping from platform to platform you would have to be 1 apart it would be such a stretch for the camera.
FPS are the only games that should have co-op and MP im sick of every single game getting MP and takeing away from the quality of the SP campaign.
KZ2 is a perfect example of that 50 bucks says if they dident have MP either the game would of been out WAY sooner, or the SP would of been ALOT better and WAY longer.
but thanks to MP i missed out
Did it ever occur to you that co-op modes are optional?