Random Gaming Thoughts II ~News Items Beware~

masofdas wrote:

Dark Souls is part of Drunkas joint top 3 along with SMG & Mass Effect Trilogy but I would of thought you Jas Bloodborne might of been the top of the scale.

I get why all three top of Drunkas and Souls yours even if it's not for me.

Bloodborne is one of my favourite games of this year but I still prefer DS over it, also I've not really thought of where BB sits in my all time favourites yet.

I've been thinking about multiplayer only games due to our chats here about Triforce Heroes (I know it's not really multiplayer only, but it's designed around multiplayer) and my time with the Rainbow Six Siege beta alongside a few folks from here. I think a single player component to a game is a huge factor in getting me to buy a game. I've really enjoyed the Siege beta, but I'm not sure if I'm going to buy it as I'm not one to jump into a random multiplayer game without a group of mates.

So I guess a question to you lovely folks - how important is a single player component to you when looking at primarily multiplayer games (eg. Smash, Mario Kart, most FPS games)?

Big deal, there's loads of shooters now which don't have a proper single player if any like R6: S, Star Wars and fighters like SFV.

All should be decent but with out a story mode, I doubt I'll buy any at full price but something like R6 as it's a December release, I could get for xmas.

Fighting games usually have a mode or two you can play by yourself, be it an arcade mode or some sort of challenge mode. Even that's enough to tide me over.

But after playing the likes of MK9, MKX, Injustice, DOA5:LR, Battle Fantasia and others, along with me sucking online & not having mates come over like back in the day.

I want more than a simple arcade mode for a single player experience for my £40-50.

I would say it's high on my list, but I live in Somerset so online play for things requiring precise timing - NBA 2k, Smash, Street Fighter, is just a fucking mess.

As a result, I want strong single player modes for them. Does it need to be a story, now that varies by game and genre. In Smash, no, but I like the effort they made in Brawl. What's more important for Smash though is AI which fight kind of like humans, which Brawl did not have. All of its AI in a random battle would hunt down the human, whereas melee felt like it was an all against all. Its one of the reasons why I'm not as huge a Brawl fan as many others might be. As always, Smash is best with mates, but sometimes I want to Smash when nobody else is in the mood.

I also really like the effort that went into the Injustice game's story mode, and think fighting games could easily make half decent stories, they just don't bother. That said, I'm never going to be pro at them, I just like mucking about a bit, so having a good single player in a fighter helps a casual like me.

Again, they don't have to be terrific stories, but a solid single player mode is necessary. It's why I don't pick up a COD game for example, because there's just no point unless you have a decent connection, but you could get away with Halo.

I'm not fussed about having no single player in a multiplayer game, however I'll only pick it up if I have a regular squad. I never get around to play multiplayer games when I could be playing single player stuff so it'd be pointless without a crew. I'd much rather have a polished full multiplayer experience without a half arsed singleplayer experience attached.

@Muss COD's SP aren't bad and this years looks decent with the CO-OP but again you need 3 other people over the net instead of the AI.

Muss wrote:

What's more important for Smash though is AI which fight kind of like humans, which Brawl did not have. All of its AI in a random battle would hunt down the human, whereas melee felt like it was an all against all. Its one of the reasons why I'm not as huge a Brawl fan as many others might be. As always, Smash is best with mates, but sometimes I want to Smash when nobody else is in the mood.

I didn't think anyone else bothered about this, especially in the online era, but this is an absolutely massive thing for me! I can get hours of fun out of simply hammering CPUs around, but I want to be able to lie to myself that they're human. SSBB's CPUs did have that annoying "hunt-the-human" behaviour; SSB4's are better, albeit not perfect. It's also a problem I have with Mario Karts, and CPUs that have cheaty get-ahead engines and/or blunder cluelessly into bananas because they follow a set pattern.

That said, SSBB did have a very good single-player mode, and I did appreciate that. With any given multiplayer game, I'm mostly going to be playing it in single-player - this'll apply even to online titles when I have a good connection, I suspect. So something I can play during those times is all but essential, which is a big reason MK8 hasn't got as much playtime as SSBU, or why my copy of Wii Sports HD is barely played. I miss things like MKDS' Mission Mode.

So basically, I need one of two things. I need a multiplayer mode I can play against CPUs, and believe they're almost human, with many parameters I can change so that games don't feel the same (as well as SSBM and SSBU, this is a big reason I played Meteos for days and days and days); or I need a decent single-player mode.

That said, I might buy a good game without either, because I do play quite a bit of local multiplayer these days. It just won't get anywhere near as much playtime, or be anywhere near as fondly regarded.

Balladeer wrote:

I didn't think anyone else bothered about this, especially in the online era, but this is an absolutely massive thing for me!  I can get hours of fun out of simply hammering CPUs around, but I want to be able to lie to myself that they're human.  SSBB's CPUs did have that annoying "hunt-the-human" behaviour; SSB4's are better, albeit not perfect.  It's also a problem I have with Mario Karts, and CPUs that have cheaty get-ahead engines and/or blunder cluelessly into bananas because they follow a set pattern.

Oh yeah, it absolutely matters to me, to the point where even if I had a good connection, I would still want a strong solo mode. The illusion of real opposition is important, but my needs do vary by game. In Smash, I play for fun and online there's a fear I'd get destroyed by people who know the game far better than I do. I generally play to win, but against the AI or mates I'm afforded the luxury of trying out silly tactics, which I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable doing online.

Mario Kart is different though. I'm really good at it, tending to finish near the front consistently online and off, and Ninty have done a fantastic job of dealing with poor connections on this one - no doubt helped by the arcade, not too precise, nature of MK. As it is a home console release, I don't mind a sloppy single player nearly as much, although I would still absolutely want a competent one. Certainly versus MK Wii the single player is much better on the Wii U in my mind. As you say, the Wii version had a vile 'rubber-band' AI, and it felt like Ninty hadn't really thought through just how scummy 11 opponents can be in terms of scuppering your race. The Wii U one is much better though, and the field tends to spread out in such a way that you don't fall from first to last-ish nearly so often.

[edit] Also, yeah. Definitely agree that whenever I realise the AI is following a set pattern in a Kart game, or any game for that matter, it really, really bugs me.

Sort of paradoxical, but sometimes I play videogames to get away from human beings, so its nice to have good, human like AI - but AI that I can always engage on my terms.


@Mas - to be fair, I have only played Black Ops single player, but to my knowledge they're mostly corridor shooters in single player - the antithesis of what I look for in a shooter. I prefer design closer to Shadow Warrior, which is nice and open.

They are pretty much corridor shooters but done very well and have got more open over the years. Where Halo is going the other way.

But then this makes some sense as if your entering a enemy base you wouldn't expect it to be open as a Far Cry for instance.

Yeah that's a fair point, the openness of a level should be defined by the context of the game in part. Still, Black Ops had at least one stage set in, what was meant to be, large sprawling battlefield, but players could only ever go one way. On the other hand Shadow Warrior has numerous secrets scattered about each level. But it is true that it had a greater poetic license for such things, being a demon infested shooty-samurai game .

I have the luxury of friends who come round to game fairly often and internet which, if I've paid my bill and its a good day, holds up really well. This means I'm happy to buy a game on multiplayer alone. Remove the single player element and Splatoon, smash and kart would still be three of my most played games this year.

That said, I play more singleplayer games than multiplayer by quite a margin and even in games which will get multiplayer usage, a campaign is greatly appreciated. Splatoon was an excellent adventure with galaxy DNA. The halo deathmatch has traditionally bored me but the open combat, characters and adventure kept me invested in the game. Dark Souls is one of my all time favourite games and it has a huge multiplayer community I barely glanced at!

masofdas wrote:

@Muss COD's SP aren't bad and this years looks decent with the CO-OP but again you need 3 other people over the net instead of the AI

COD single player is awful. The worst kind of corridor shooting gallery with boring weapons and racist plots.

Bioshock, on the other hand, is a bona fide classic and though it doesn't make the cut for my top ten games it definitely deserves mention in the conversation.

I like CODs campaign and they've have been excellent like in COD4:MW to okay to decent, I see COD like a Michael Bay film it's silly blow stuff up but sometimes you want that.

Call of Duty campaigns are fine in small doses, and at their best when you first play a CoD game. I couldn't play a CoD campaign annually, and I loved Modern Warfare's campaign. It felt fresh because it was fresh for me - I don't think I'd really enjoy any of the recent CoD campaigns.

Michael Bay, whatever else he may be, is a master craftsman of action sequences and explosions. Nobody else creates ballets of destruction like him. On the other hand, the basic violence of a COD game I find tedious.

Also, Michael Bay has used the Transformers film to subvertively criticise American foreign policy whereas the COD games are borderline US Army propaganda.

JayMoyles wrote:

Call of Duty campaigns are fine in small doses, and at their best when you first play a CoD game. I couldn't play a CoD campaign annually, and I loved Modern Warfare's campaign. It felt fresh because it was fresh for me - I don't think I'd really enjoy any of the recent CoD campaigns.

MW was better than the recent ones because it deliberately tried to show the horror of war and so make you care for the characters, rather than glorifying it and making you play as overpowered invaders.

Each to there own but if I was going who would direct a COD film it would be Mr Bay with all its set pieces.

Like I said sometimes I want that alongside something like Everybody's Gone to the Rapture (which I'm playing now) which is the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

I just like games as you have put before.

Have you seen The Complete Call of Duty Campaign Critique, Drunka? It gets into what you're talking about, and it's a great video to boot.

@Mas: 10/10
@Jay: Will have to watch that later!

I have difficulty truly enjoying games that major in multiplayer. Not a huge fan of Mario Kart or Smash in general for this very reason - I'm after a narrative these days, really. Subspace Emissaries need not apply.

That was less of a narrative and more of a mental fan-fiction. I think our tribute fan-fiction back on The Old Place would probably work as satire, too.

JayMoyles wrote:

I've been thinking about multiplayer only games due to our chats here about Triforce Heroes (I know it's not really multiplayer only, but it's designed around multiplayer) and my time with the Rainbow Six Siege beta alongside a few folks from here. I think a single player component to a game is a huge factor in getting me to buy a game. I've really enjoyed the Siege beta, but I'm not sure if I'm going to buy it as I'm not one to jump into a random multiplayer game without a group of mates.

So I guess a question to you lovely folks - how important is a single player component to you when looking at primarily multiplayer games (eg. Smash, Mario Kart, most FPS games)?

The biggest thing for me is how engaging that multiplayer mode is, if I can see myself playing it for months on end (which I can with R6 siege) I'm not bothered how bare bones or non-existent the single player mode may be.

There are plenty of single player only games knocking about to fill that gap.

...Goodness me, the 3DS XL is a giant ugly-looking brick, isn't it? Picked up mine for the first time in a while, and goodness me it's a giant ugly-looking brick, isn't it?

That's why when I buy a N3DS, I think I'm going to go for the standard model. Much more manageable.