Having single-player, multiplayer and co-op separately is like, so yesterday |
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| BY Rain Anderson Aug. 1st, 2009 | More on: |
Senior game designer Edward Stern from UK-based developer Splash Damage believes it’s “ridiculous” that games these days still have the single-player, multiplayer and cooperative modes as separate entities. “It’s just inane,” Stern said in a recent interview. “You get games shipping with separate executables, a completely different experience, sometimes a different control scheme. Why would you ever do that? It’s crazy now. There’s no reason to do that. It seems ludicrous that we’ve got this notion of completely separate online, offline, single-player, multiplayer. That’s in the past. There’s no reason to put up with that anymore.”
Of course that’s one way to look at it. One could also say it’s a good thing that the $60 bucks will in essence get the player three different gameplay experiences.
But Splash Damage isn’t having any of that as their new ‘genre-breaking killer app’ Brink is trying to meld the three into a singular experience, “You could boot up Brink and see that one of your buddies is online. As far as he’s concerned, he’s playing solo, but you can join him and we’ll swap out one of the AI players.” How it will turn out remains to be seen but judging by what we’ve seen so far, there are reasons to be excited.
August 2nd, 2009
at 1:21 am
I agree about the separate executables. I own COD4 on PC, and I have to load up a different file for single and multiplayer. It’s retarded. It’s subtle, but the console versions do this as well. When you hit multiplayer in the main menu, the game basically reboots. That is absurd.
From a gameplay perspective… eh, it’s single and multiplayer. If I want to play by myself, I’d rather still have that option. Especially if any ol’ public player can hop in on my game. Screw that. Hopefully there’s some privacy switch we can hit to still have pure single player.
August 2nd, 2009
at 6:56 am
What about deathmatches? That’d severely mess up my story experience if some tit decided to keep killing me.
August 2nd, 2009
at 7:30 am
It just depends on the game. Just take Uncharted 2. It is a very story driven experience about characters, and it would just not work if your friend could come in and take over one of your allies as they change throughout the game, and the characters are so strong. So in that case it certainly is a good idea to have separate modes, especially when there is platforming, something which is not so fun with multiple players, and have a co-op experience that is retooled to be best for co-op.
August 2nd, 2009
at 9:03 am
do they have witchdoctor’s in this game?
because that dude’s head is laughably too small for his body.
August 2nd, 2009
at 10:33 am
What about games like Silent Hill or Shadow of the Colossus where lonliness and isolation are the point? And RE5’s single player campaign was hampered by a badly programmed AI because co-op was teh focus. Also how can you have cinematic and scripted moments on par with the single player campaigns of Uncharted 2 or Metal Gear Solid? I’m pretty certain Brink won’t have any of these things, or whatever it will have will be nowhere on the same level as game modes dedicated to single player, multiplayer and co-op. I’m all for Brink being a unique experience in its own right, but I wouldn’t want every game to follow Brink’s philosophy…
August 2nd, 2009
at 12:42 pm
Is he an idiot? Doesn’t he know Microsoft just copyrighted drop in and drop out co-op to ruin the fun for everyone that doesn’t own Halo 3, Crackdown, Fable II or Gears Of War. How are third party developers (and Sony & Nintendo) meant to implement this without breaching that copyright?
Still he has a point. I just wish major MS would stop ruining it for the rest of us (Exclusive DLC, Custom soundtracks patent).
August 2nd, 2009
at 12:46 pm
I hope they don’t think adding multiplayer is going to help save their shitty game.
August 2nd, 2009
at 7:50 pm
Bravo, blame the two idiots who patented “the idea” of XBL and PSN around fourteen years ago, and are now have a successful patent suit against MS and Sony. You can bet this is where MicroSoft got their idea from ;)
August 3rd, 2009
at 5:33 am
but its a good thing.
have people become so antisocial that they cant invite friends over to play games they have to play them online.
its all fine and good if that person lives far away or so, but what happens when friends come over and want to see that new game you got.
than 1 gets to play and the rest are bored shitless for 20 minutes or so, than rinse and repeat.
its despicable that almost every single game released on the ps1 ps2 had offline co-op or splitscreen but now for ps3 your lucky if 1 out of 50 supports it.
August 3rd, 2009
at 5:36 am
another prime example of M$ trying to monopolize the market.
no wonder they got sued in Europe so many times, shame the US does not have rules about big company’s buying out all their competition.
i cant believe a court would allow that, its like saying ok M$ your the only company thats allowed to make there consoles with a CPU everyone else has to figure out another way.
August 3rd, 2009
at 11:27 am
Saying M$ does not make you sound smart btw.
August 5th, 2009
at 6:30 am
its not my fault they try to buy their way out of everything.
thats why i hate them, instead of competing and giving customers a reason to by their product over the competition they buy everything.
they remind me of Politicians, instead of coming up with a alternate solution they just bag there competitors ideas.