iRate: Four reasons why online play sucks the joy out of gaming
Everyone loves a good online gaming session don’t they? Shouting “w00t!” at 4am as you pwn some noobs in some epic carnage on whatever shooter / driving simulation / arcade fighter happens to be your online preference at the time.
This is indeed my first reason why online play is a bad thing: the little joy garnered from playing online is stifled by the shit-storm of unintelligible language that is, in most cases, unnecessary (how much harder is it to type pwn than kill / beat / maim!?), combined with a heady mix of xenophobic, toothless buffoons and twelve year olds that populate many online communities. It baffles me that so many prepubescent boys litter online worlds; how is it that I get owned by some snotty-nosed kid in an 18 certificate game?
Forgive me for cheating a little here, but my second and third reasons are interrelated and so I’ll rant about them at the same time. One thing that really gets my goat is when developers choose online content over that which should be considered standard within most multiplayer games. You’ll most probably notice this in two ways: firstly, the smoke screen of hours of online content that covers the lack of an offline experience.
This doesn’t necessarily concern games that are online only, like Battlefield 1943 (a great game, even if we won’t be able to play it in a few years – see below), but titles such as Killzone 2 and, perhaps the greatest offender, Call of Duty 4. The enjoyment of the many levels available online and the high production quality in terms of graphics and gameplay don’t help alleviate the feeling of being gypped by having to pay £45 for a fifteen minute single player experience (okay, I’m exaggerating, but only slightly).
Surely it serves games companies to provide the best product they possibly can? Why can’t we link up two consoles and play four against four Call Of Duty 5? You could do it in Call Of Duty 3!? Whatever happened to AI in multiplayer? Remember how fun it was to face off against a computer team in Perfect Dark? All these questions, I fear, will remain unanswered as companies seek to provide the most modern gaming experience, often at the expense of less impressive features.
Online gaming is slowly but surely destroying gamers’ ability to reminisce about the games they played as a child. As a child of the ’80s, I can remember, with fondness, my experiences of loading up my first game of Monkey Island, Lemmings or Soccer Kid. I even, on occasion, venture into the loft, wipe off the dust and load up these antecedents of modern gaming for a trip down memory lane. But the shift to online gaming will make this impossible; as people stop playing games in favour of their newer versions, developers will stop supporting older titles. It’s upsetting that in years to come we won’t be able to fire up the Playstation to compare the newest incarnation of established series like Call of Duty or Battlefield to the games of yesteryear.
So I apologise if I come across as an online gaming hater. I enjoy online gaming as much as the next guy, but I don’t see why us humble gamers should get a raw deal when it comes to the games we so love.
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Wow that’s quite a rant there Tom. You have some very good points and I think its sad that lan features are becoming more and more phased out.
my answers to your questions would be:
Mute nobheads who cause you grief (even though you shouldn’t have to, it’s because some people like making pricks of themselves)
Internet gaming is ace, much more advanced features, bigger matches, more people to play with and what not. But singleplayer shouldn’t be comprised because of this (although I thought singleplayer in COD4 was brilliant.)
And well unfortaunely..there’s fuck all you or I or any of us can do tbh. Internet is the way these companies are pushing (I mean they are now distributing onlines digitally!) so unfortaunely looks like the next few years a gaming revolution is going to happen (or actually it’s already started happening) and yes it may not be to your tastes…but thats the way it is..so you’ll have to shape up or ship out.
Great article though..absolutally loved it.
You know what I really hate about online games? I hate it when the developers include online achievements, becuase you often get some bell end that totaly ruins a game all for his love of gamerscore/trophies.
Take for instance, in Army of Two, there’s an achievement for lasting a whole game without being killed. Achievement boosters come online and just fake being dead. You can’t shoot them when they play dead, and the whole game is ruined.
Call of Duty has it right when they don’t include any multiplayer achievements. And Resident Evil 5 made me very sad when they included the Multiplayer add on achievements. Sigh
You’re spot on about the achievements – some of them are impossible to get! Like Burnout Paradise, one of them you have to get 8 people to come and wait in the baseball stadium. Army of Two was brilliant. Can’t wait for 40th Day.
You know what I hate about online play? It’s game-specific – FiFa09. You know that no matter what, every person you go online to play against will be using either Man-U, Real Madrid or Barcelona. There I am, trying valiantly to compete with my beloved Luton Town FC, but all the glory whores pick the teams that look like they’re performing magic tricks compared to the Hatters!
Surely these achievements are for the huge amounts of gamers with short attention spans? As they get bored of the original aims of the game etc they turn to little side mission achievements to keep them interested. Plus the author knows here that the best multiplayer gaming is with people around you and not online. I always assumed online game play was merely for when you had the completed the game and were bored….