In light of the recent Burnout Paradise news, I thought it was time to take a look at offline vs online gaming. The view of some games makers out there is that online multiplayer is the be all and end all. Don’t get me wrong, online play is a great feature to have, I just don’t want it to be at the detriment of the local multiplayer.
The two biggest recent examples of games following this trend are GTA4 and Burnout Paradise. Fantastic games and fantastic multiplayer modes, it’s just a shame I can’t play them with my friends at my house. Crash mode in Burnout was a staple party game in my house hold. My housemates don’t really follow gaming but they play what I put in front of them if it’s any good. So to have one of them enthusiastically come to me after seeing a Paradise advert only to have his smile ripped away was saddening. “Sorry Ben….we can’t play multiplayer on our one PS3!” I didn’t have the heart to tell him there was no Crash Party Mode anymore, until the Party Mode update, of course.
2 player San Andreas was also a favourite that has now been taken away from us. Now I know (insert name of criterion) says that if I want that experience back those games are still there. They aren’t though. The Xbox we used to play Burnout 3 on is dead and my PS3 won’t play PS2 games! More than that though why can’t I have the new Paradise experience at home with the people I want to play with? Don’t force me to not see my friends just so we can play GTA together!
There are plenty of us gaming online, but not all my friends are going to be owning a “next gen” system any time soon. Does that mean they should be left out of the experience? And what about the local online play? Anyone who played Goldeneye religiously can probably put up with playing an FPS in split screens. So why cant I take my friends online to show them what a 16 player death match is like in COD4. It may even convince them to get their own machine to play without being confined to a tiny corner.
Local multiplayer obviously isn’t a forgotten concept; the entire Wii experience is built around it. Sometimes I wonder though if PS360 games makers put it in as an after thought to their online experience. The entire reason I didn’t buy Motostorm was because there was no way I could play it with anyone I knew (good to see this issue has been addressed with MS2). The ‘core are the ones championing the online experience but selling to the ‘core will only get you so far.
My main problem with online gaming with friends is the way it changes how you play. Playing online with friends is all about the game, playing offline with friends is more about hanging out. Some of my fondest conversations have come while playing a game of PES. Something just becomes lost when you try to talk over a headset.
Online multiplayer has its advantages and sometimes is logistically your best option (I know plenty of people using WoW to keep in contact with friends all over the country), but in my opinion it should only be a substitute for the all-on-one-couch experience. It almost turns into another argument of “casual” vs “hardcore” with the casual fighting for offline play and the ‘core waving the banner of online. The fight for multiplayer wages but I want both camps to be perfectly happy. There are many games out there straddling the line, Buzz TV features some of the best offline fun with your friends out there but is also offering some of the benefits of the online experience.
I’m not insinuating that the industry views offline as out dated or dead, far from it. I just hate it when online is my only option. For me sitting on my own in my room with a headset will never be as fun as having a load of mates round and getting the beers in. What about you?
October 31st, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Online means there is always someone to play against, but it’s a far better laugh to play offline multiplayer
October 31st, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Seeing as all my mates are shocking at games I much prefer playing online for the extra challenge, plus i’ve met loads of great people over the PSN.
October 31st, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Back in the day when I had a Megadrive, and my best mate at the time had a SNES, I’d think nothing of wacking my MD & games in a rucksack, and jumping on my bike and getting round his house for a day of gaming….that what school holidays were for.
But as I’ve grew up and people have dropped out of gaming, and you have commitments (work, mortgage, family…) it’s just not possible for people to go round each other others houses as much these days… so online is a godsend
But nothing beats face to face….ever why else do you think the Wii has sold 3 billion quizillion trillion units, and us at TSA are the only people in the world with a PS3
Come on Sony give us our old skool back (but keep the online coming as well)
October 31st, 2008 at 4:51 pm
None of my mates are gamers, one of them likes to play me at pes when he comes round, but thats about it, so online is a must for me really.
October 31st, 2008 at 4:54 pm
In our house I have my two boys always begging me to go on my PS3. When all three of us get together there are often arguments about who’s go it is and for how long they’ve been on. (Usually aimed at myself). But we do work round this by making our own rules up to certain games. Formula 1 is a big issue in our house, (go Lewis), so while playing a quick 10 lap race on F1 CE we take it in turns to do a lap and then pass the controller to the next person. Everyone is kept interested and plenty of abuse is aired when you get it wrong on the track. Unfortunatley games developers and indeed Sony & Microsoft seem that hooked on the idea of online gaming, we have to invent these little games to please our in house community of family and friends. All the new games coming out are boasting about how many hundred players online there will be in team deathmatch, they never boast about 4 way split screen because it’s old news, we’ve done it before. Personaly I never have liked to play split screen, you loose so much for doing it. As for a local network, at present I’ll be lucky to know 6 people with a PS3 never mind 64, which Resistance 2 is doing if I’m not mistaken. So anyone fancy Warhawk!
October 31st, 2008 at 4:59 pm
i agree, online is a must but it would be nice if i could have a mate round and play split screen online CoD4, that would be the best of both worlds.
Some games are there, Warhawk for example but there aren’t enough.
a wicked offline social game has to be tiger woods though. there’s nothing quite as chillin as having a coupla mates round with a few beers for a nice round of (virtual) golf…
GamerRiley Says:
October 31st, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Golf is certainly one for all the family.
October 31st, 2008 at 5:13 pm
CC-Star, i remember those days fondly of walking down the street with a console in a rucksack, maybe a 10p mixbag. I cant see many 12 -14 yr olds putting a £400 PS3 and accessories in a bag and walking/riding a mile to their mates house, Can you?
I love the online experience, especially on COD4 but offline multiplayer against my mates is a much more fun experience. I think praise should go to EA for their effort in this field. I am absolutley addicted to beating (or being beaten as the case maybe) in the Lounge Mode of Fifa 09 which adds a whole new dimension by letting you sabotage your opponents team at the press of a button, lovely new feature and clearly showing that EA has not forgotten that beating your mate and then celebrating right in front of him when the 8th goal goes flying in, is still very much what gaming is all about
GamerRiley Says:
October 31st, 2008 at 5:19 pm
I can’t celebrate to much or my 11 year old son throws the controller at me in disgust. “God Dad grow up!” T-shirt over my head on my knees.
October 31st, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I also miss multiplayer offline gaming, we used to do GT3 and GT4 LAN games, it was brilliant getting 6 TV’s, 6 PS2’s together in one room and upto 13 of us all out racing each other, I must admit split screen racing is just stupid and a waste of time as its always just you and your mate and no AI. Online gaming is fun but can be quite lonely sometimes as you need to have a mate round to so you can both cuss like Irish drunks at the screen.
Once every few months i break out the old multi tap and play with 3 other adults some old skool ps1 multi player games like ‘Team Buddies’, ’syndicate wars’, quake’, ‘Blast Radius’(which was 2tv’s 2ps1’s linked up)’Bushido Blade’ was also a link up game,Toca 2 - link up,and the very first F1 game on the ps1 was also a link up game, all these great games required some organisation and furniture being shifted around, but the fun was priceless!. Online has its moments….but nothing like LAN gaming or link up games.
LAN is where it should be at for multiplayer and online for when ya mates cant make it
October 31st, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Agreed that was my biggest issue when I got into the “next gen” consols. Nothing really allowed local multiplayer. You do have Warhawk which is fun and GT5P but really nothing else. Unless you play a lot of sports games. But it does seem like PSN games are adding this feature, It is weird that the more complex the game gets the less people can play them on one consol,
October 31st, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Perhaps the PS3’s 256+256 memory doesn’t lend itself well local multiplayer on blockbuster games, where as online multi-player is sharing the workload, and this may be why some (supposedly) less advanced PSN games do include it
I would have thought the memory is topped out as it is, EA say it when it comes the replays on their sports games
October 31st, 2008 at 7:31 pm
online is more fun because you don’t need friends to play it.
welshandy Says:
November 1st, 2008 at 9:15 pm
That’s a sad thing to say.
The thing about offline multiplayer is that you’re there with the people who are playing the game. You don’t need a camera or a headset to see their reactions, and theoretically you KNOW the people really well too, which makes the experience much more fun. My family still sits down in the lounge today to have 4 player mario kart wii competitions, and it’s great fun.
This is something which is lost in online gaming. OK, so you have to squint at a smaller screen, but that’s part of the fun of it.
It’s a very sad day when somebody says that it’s more fun to play online because you don’t need friends. Everybody should have real life friends, and shouldn’t rely on online relationships for their social activities.
November 1st, 2008 at 3:18 am
Another down side to online play is the nobs you get. I have just come off CoD4 and there were 3 guys in a clan using unbelievably racist language with a tone of pure hatred. I was totally shocked. When I play with my mates at the very least I know they are going to be respectful no matter what. Such a shame that so few ruin it for so many. The behaviour of thes 3 guys is a low point in my gaming life
welshandy Says:
November 1st, 2008 at 9:16 pm
I absolutely agree, and that’s something which always makes me wary of playing games online. You get some absolute idiots on there. I had a go on the COD Beta the other day, and left pretty much straight away because of it.
November 1st, 2008 at 11:46 am
I think this is one edge the XBox has over the PS3, offline split-screen.
In the summer 6 of my mates sat around to take turns causing carnage on GTA4, when that got boring we turned to Buzz then Super Rub-A-Duck of all things!! Warhawk gets a big NO from them because ‘Its hard’, which to be fair it is. And I was very dissapointed when Nofi mentioned no split-screen multiplayer in Quantum of Solace. Halo 3 however is absolute blast with 4 players in one room, so I would like some of the same for the PS3.
Bring on LBP! Hope the guys end up liking that!
Diver68 Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:22 am
I agree to the statement of “Warhawk” being hard (for the non-trained).
But it has to be said that this sort of ’sat-with-ya-mates-while-playing-online’ is perfectly addressed in this game! You can even have split screen x 4 and online!
It’s often I have 2 other friends around and we have a bash at Warhawk - simply because no other game offers this team-spirt-atmosphere!
November 4th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
There are a lot of pro’s and con’s for both sides, but the most important thing about offline gaming for me is that you have some sort of ‘tangible’ share of fun.. For example, playing PES with your friends and scoring a beautiful goal or beating them 3-0 in the first 20 minutes (where I’m from, 3-0 is an immediate Play another match for the losing party) gives you a great feeling which you can not only express, but also shapes a picture in your memory lane. In my case I happen to have a group of 3 friends who I’ve grown up with and played videogames with for over 10 years now, and sadly there are people on this planet who are less fortunate to have been given such a privilege..
Online gaming is a great way to measure yourself with the rest of the WORLD and people you will likely never (all) meet in real life, and often times is a way to meet new ‘people’.. or rather, online identities that you can play games with. There are always people online to play with, so you can just log on and play a game when you feel like it.. I often do this with Resistance: Fall of Man. The downside is ofcourse lag, and in the case of PES2009 the lag is so bad that I don’t even bother to play online anymore. Also, when you are not in possession of a headset, communication is rather clumsy. The fact that you can play at any time though makes it easier to fit in most peoples busy lives, but you are still by yourself in a room.
The conclusion to be drawn from this long uninteresting piece of thought that I produced out of utter boredom at work is that both sides have pro’s and con’s and it is really a matter of preference.. In my opinion, online play will never be able to beat offline play, for playing alone is never as fun as playing with or against your friends, the people who you share thoughts and moments with in life and who you will remember throughout your life, a lot more than random PSN identities met in a lobby chatroom.
November 11th, 2008 at 2:52 am
Thank god for motorstorm 2 growing up a bit and getting a proper multiplayer mode
I can’t believe how many games get away with no local multiplayer these days! A few weeks ago I checked out the chart of about 15 games in the local ‘Game’ store and only about a fifth of them didn’t have the dreaded ‘1 player’ on the back that puts me off a game quicker than a goat puts me off cheese.
But the craziest thing about it is that nobody seems to notice this massive takeover. Everyone seems quite content to let COD4 be ruined by some 10 year old american prick mouthing them off down a headset, as this is the only way we can actually get the most out of the lovely multiplayer infinity ward has made for us. As is the case for nearly every “multiplayer” ps3 game, the local splitscreen multiplayer is like the less hot sister of online multiplayer; it has less features and content but at least it’s not an entirely self absorbed bitch. Games are supposed to be fun, but the attitude of online gaming is ‘play to win’. Honestly, I don’t care if I have the 2478th best score for the most brownies eaten in a single race throughout Wales; I really don’t. Nobody actually thinks they can even get into triple digits on those things do they? Unless you’re one of those zombies who require the actual game itself as sustanence and as a result make online gaming almost pointless for the rest of us human beings.
I guess the only reason there’s so much of a gripe here is that local mp is just getting pushed into a corner while online is obviously the only multiplayer choice because, oh wait, we all know gamers don’t have friends. Out of everyone I play 4 player games with that I know, only one person actually has their own ps3. I can’t get enough of it so I’m the one with the tv, the console, the games, the munch, etc. I just wish I could show more of a variety of social games to play.
Hmmm maybe this is why the wii did so well…
No no it couldn’t be that, that would just be obvious.
And seriously, what’s with the complete absence of being able to have multiple profiles in a local game?????
Yeah yeah the rambling thing I know. This is just something I’ve been meaning to unleash this fury onto something for a while now.
-For the Record-
Night in with an online game: Fun until you think maybe you should have been doing something useful
Night in local multiplayer with the lads: Priceless
November 19th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
long live split screen!