Gaming with Friends, Gaming with Strangers

The world of online games like SOCOM are probably supposed to be more competitive anyway, but what about the other growing online animal, the infamous MMORPG?  Here I can speak from some nascent experience with Everquest Online Adventures.  And I must say this game has unbelievable addictive and communal aspects to it.  It  forces you to team up with other players to have success - you and your companions against the world and its NPC’s.  This seems like the very definition of a co-op game, no?

The problem lies in the fact that when you play a MMORPG on a console (or a PC for that matter) you are restricted to one player, one console, one screen at a time.  So unless you happen to have multiple consoles in your home, you and your buddies can’t really get together and play a MMORPG.  Now you have probably seen the infamous Everquest commercial, where one friend calls the other on the phone and says “It’s time to slay the dragon!”  Not only is that the rankest cheese ever put on television, how often is that situation going to arise in real life?  You and your friends have to stay away from each other to game together?

The bottom line is this, when you play a MMORPG, chances are you are going to be meeting the people you play for the first time online.  And I’m not going to say that is not a gratifying experience, because it is.  Actually, it is rather a new experience that I think should be examined more closely as online gaming continues to grow.  But no matter how much “chatting” you do with your virtual companions, I still maintain you are in essence gaming with strangers.

But to return to the offline experience again, annoying my mother is no longer a problem; and the group of friends that used to game in my living room for the most part has shrunk to a few close friends and my girlfriend.  Still, there are occasions when we like to play together (dare we say, on the same console?) and I continue to scrounge for offline multiplayer options.  The problem is that most games that offer 1-2 or 1-4 player options on the back cover are really misleading you.  Pop that game in and you will see that it is really a single player game with a sparse and bastardized multiplayer option.  For example, two of my favorite and oldest friends came over for a night of Medal of Honor action on the latest Gamecube version of the game, only for us to discover that the multiplayer option was a simple deathmatch on a few deserted maps.  We wanted to kill Nazis together!  Instead we were stuck stalking each other in the skins of the few characters MOH offered.  As much fun as my friend Tosh had playing the Old Lady character and tooling us with the BAR, (worth 5 minutes of yuks to be sure) this experience was shallow and short lived.  Why is it that developers, for the most part, refuse to allow gamers to campaign through the story modes of these games together?

I must say that one of the best experiences I have ever had playing a game cooperatively is playing Baldur’s Gate on the PS2 with my girlfriend.  Here is a game that lets you enjoy the entire story mode of the game cooperatively.   BG is an action RPG and lends itself well to co-op play. We actually finished it; and though a short game, this is still a proud moment for us.  More importantly, it is a single screen coop experience.  Unless you have a gigantic television, the few split screen co-op shooters available (Timesplitters, etc.) make it really hard on the eyes.

I continue to scrounge the shelves for 3^rd person single screen coop games, mainly due to the great time we had with Baldur’s Gate.  We have had some fun with the Gamecube version of Hunter the Reckoning (which actually allows up to 4 players co-op) but never stick with it – probably because it lacks the quality of BG.  You can see why I am so excited about the coming releases of Baldur’s Gate 2, FF Crystal Chronicles, and to a lesser degree, Hunter: Wayward, all games featuring single screen co-op action.  I will continue to be on the lookout for upcoming multiplayer offline games (even if it’s a decent split-screen FPS!)

I will also continue to go online in search of teamwork and cooperation.  But I still wish there were more offline co-op options available for consoles these days.  Hopefully, developers will address the gap in this aspect of console multiplay so that we continue to have as many options for playing with friends as we do for playing with strangers.

- Mr. Michael

(June 22, 2003)