SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic - Single-player Only Games Are Finished

Posted: Dec 09 2010 06:53 pm

Black Zarak wrote:

Yeah I really don't see multiplayer completely replacing single player. More likely that every game will have multiplayer in the future and single player mode will be become more of what multiplayer is now to most games. If that makes sense. It doesn't, does it?

It does make sense, but I am quite saddened by that. Multiplayer RPGs usually have very weak stories, and honestly in the case of survival horror, multiplayer takes away from the terror of the game. One of the scariest parts of survival horror is that, ultimately, you are alone against some horrible force that wishes to kill you in the most gruesome and (generally) creative way possible. Having two people there takes away from that fear and, as of yet, I have yet to play a scary co-op survival horror.

Joined: Sep 17 2010 Posts: 156

I disagree that single player has had it's day and is out. I will agree why not add a multiplayer feature to a single player game as an extra option? Whether it's a verse mode, a co-op mode, an online mode etc...

In Fire Emblem, why not be able to face eachother or work with another person?

Will the game still be fun solo, yeah, it can be played and enjoyed that way.

Or Oblviion why not go fight eachother, or team up? It's definitely fun as a solo game from start to finish. I think there is extra enjoyment to be had by opening up multiplayer options.

I would contend genrally speaking the multiplayer option have potential for higher level of enjoyment. One can only program so well, human adapt and play off one another to bring games to the complexity of the human level and that are pushed by humans to our highest levels of play.

That said there will always be a place for single player games, sometimes it's hard to get friends together, or don't have internet access and you want to play a game, or you just want to play alone. I don't think they'll ever be replaced.

Posted: Dec 09 2010 09:19 pm

I hate it when i play a game with great story mode, but its over so fast it cant really do much, and the developers put all their cash into a multiplayer that blows

Joined: Apr 09 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3112

SnesGuy wrote:

I hate it when i play a game with great story mode, but its over so fast it cant really do much, and the developers put all their cash into a multiplayer that blows

I remember when it took me quite a while to beat the first Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. I beat Medal of Honor 2010 somewhere between when I bought it and dinner time. Shame, too, the SP in that game had so much promise.

Posted: Dec 10 2010 12:33 pm

Greg the White wrote:

SnesGuy wrote:

I hate it when i play a game with great story mode, but its over so fast it cant really do much, and the developers put all their cash into a multiplayer that blows

I remember when it took me quite a while to beat the first Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. I beat Medal of Honor 2010 somewhere between when I bought it and dinner time. Shame, too, the SP in that game had so much promise.

It's not that they put more effort into the multiplayer; it's that multiplayer requires less work. All you have to design for multiplayer are guns, maps, and rule sets. That's it.

A good one player experience requires a lot more: a story mode with multiple difficulties, and increased objectives on higher difficulties. A challenge/arcade mode where you try and earn gold medals to unlock more stuff for multiplayer mode.

Also, single player maps have to be MUCH bigger. A multiplayer map is usually just a reasonably-sized circle/square, because an environment that's too big is undesirable in PvP. In single player, the levels have to be more labryinthian, because the goal is for the player to achieve certain goals, not just mindlessly kill people or capture a flag.

Posted: Dec 10 2010 12:59 pm

If they turn the new Elder Scrolls into an MMORPG, I'm going to kill every baby I see from here on out.

Posted: Dec 10 2010 01:19 pm

For some reason, whenever I think of this topic, the first game that comes to mind is La-Mulana.

Joined: Sep 17 2007 Location: The Opium Trail Posts: 3475

Beach Bum wrote:

Stuff I hate is games like Call of Duty. My brother had a copy of one a few years back and I think I sat there for maybe 4 hours and beat the entire game. I couldn't believe people would pay $60 bucks for that little gameplay. Not to mention that one comes out every single year. I guess I just can't see wasting $60 worth of good food or beer for the exact same multiplayer experience every year, plus live gold costs, when I own Counter-Strike: Source lol. !

Really, were Super Nintendo games that much better of a deal? I mean what did those cost back in the day, the same amount? And unless you were playing an RPG, those games only took 3 hours to beat?

Another example is StarFox 64. That had to be pricey, especially with the Rumble Pak, and that game only takes an 60-80 minutes to complete.

I'm not defending Call of Duty ripping people off like that, but if you ask me I think the game industry could use less 20 hour games.

Posted: Dec 10 2010 02:56 pm

JRA wrote:

Beach Bum wrote:

Stuff I hate is games like Call of Duty. My brother had a copy of one a few years back and I think I sat there for maybe 4 hours and beat the entire game. I couldn't believe people would pay $60 bucks for that little gameplay. Not to mention that one comes out every single year. I guess I just can't see wasting $60 worth of good food or beer for the exact same multiplayer experience every year, plus live gold costs, when I own Counter-Strike: Source lol. !

Really, were Super Nintendo games that much better? I mean what did those cost back in the day, the same amount? And unless you were playing an RPG, those games only took 3 hours to beat?

I'm not defending Call of Duty ripping people off like that, but if you ask me I think the game industry could use less 20 hour games.

Yea, but in those games you didn't have checkpoints and save-states. At most you had continues. So it could take you months to play through those 3 hours.

Joined: Sep 17 2007 Location: The Opium Trail Posts: 3475

Ice2SeeYou wrote:

JRA wrote:

Beach Bum wrote:

Stuff I hate is games like Call of Duty. My brother had a copy of one a few years back and I think I sat there for maybe 4 hours and beat the entire game. I couldn't believe people would pay $60 bucks for that little gameplay. Not to mention that one comes out every single year. I guess I just can't see wasting $60 worth of good food or beer for the exact same multiplayer experience every year, plus live gold costs, when I own Counter-Strike: Source lol. !

Really, were Super Nintendo games that much better? I mean what did those cost back in the day, the same amount? And unless you were playing an RPG, those games only took 3 hours to beat?

I'm not defending Call of Duty ripping people off like that, but if you ask me I think the game industry could use less 20 hour games.

Yea, but in those games you didn't have checkpoints and save-states. At most you had continues. So it could take you months to play through those 3 hours.

Are you kidding me? 99% of Super Nintendo games had both check points and saved games (I include Passwords under this by the way). NES is another story. The only ones I can think of at the moment that didn't were Turtles In Time and Contra III.

Posted: Dec 10 2010 03:00 pm

Star Fox 64 took a lot longer than 60-80 minutes to beat. "Beating the game" meant getting all gold medals on both difficulties. And that took a long time to do. I dare say that it was fucking impossible.

Joined: Sep 17 2007 Location: The Opium Trail Posts: 3475

Syd Lexia wrote:

Star Fox 64 took a lot longer than 60-80 minutes to beat. "Beating the game" meant getting all gold medals on both difficulties. And that took a long time to do. I dare say that it was fucking impossible.

I consider beating the game and getting 100% two seperate challenges. I haven't played much of MW2, but I imagine it takes way longer to 100% it. Merely beating SF64 takes a very short time. From deploying in Corneria to blowing Andross's brains out, it takes 60 minutes. 90 minutes if you suck at it.

Posted: Dec 10 2010 03:11 pm

JRA wrote:

Beach Bum wrote:

Stuff I hate is games like Call of Duty. My brother had a copy of one a few years back and I think I sat there for maybe 4 hours and beat the entire game. I couldn't believe people would pay $60 bucks for that little gameplay. Not to mention that one comes out every single year. I guess I just can't see wasting $60 worth of good food or beer for the exact same multiplayer experience every year, plus live gold costs, when I own Counter-Strike: Source lol. !

Really, were Super Nintendo games that much better of a deal? I mean what did those cost back in the day, the same amount? And unless you were playing an RPG, those games only took 3 hours to beat?

Another example is StarFox 64. That had to be pricey, especially with the Rumble Pak, and that game only takes an 60-80 minutes to complete.

I'm not defending Call of Duty ripping people off like that, but if you ask me I think the game industry could use less 20 hour games.

To be honest I never beat many SNES games because I was 5 when the system came out, and I sucked because some of those games were hard as hell. To be honest I haven't even beaten Super Mario World without a Game Genie lol. So out of all the games I had (something like 35), I only beat Mystical Ninja and Battleclash. I would say I got more than my money's worth out of them.

I still can't beat some of them playing on emulators, probably because I have grown incredibly soft thanks to the ridiculously easy games being pushed on us now. Seriously Actraiser kicks my ass up one side of the street and down the other. I have come close to beating Donkey Kong Country once but my dick neighbor stole it when I was 9 or thereabout, so I never managed to finish it.

Starfox 64 I still own and play, so for the $5 dollars I spent on it was more than worth it. To tell the truth I wouldn't even be willing to part with $5 for most of these CoD games because they lack any replay value.

Posted: Dec 10 2010 03:12 pm

Syd Lexia wrote:

Star Fox 64 took a lot longer than 60-80 minutes to beat. "Beating the game" meant getting all gold medals on both difficulties. And that took a long time to do. I dare say that it was fucking impossible.

My brother did it twice over.

Posted: Dec 10 2010 03:30 pm

The-Excel wrote:

Syd Lexia wrote:

Star Fox 64 took a lot longer than 60-80 minutes to beat. "Beating the game" meant getting all gold medals on both difficulties. And that took a long time to do. I dare say that it was fucking impossible.

My brother did it twice over.

Between my brother and I, we got maybe 70% legitimately. Then I used the GameShark's Unlimited Bombs and Always Have Best Laser cheats to get the rest. It's funny too, because I didn't buy a GameShark to cheat at games. I bought it so we could do Egypt, Archive, and Bunker with 4 players in GoldenEye. Egypt would always crash, but the other two worked fine.

Posted: Dec 10 2010 03:40 pm

You gotta also look at replay value too. Is the game fun enough to return to once you finished it? The thing about online games is that if they make the main appeal the online multiplayer and make single player take a back seat, the game is useless once other people quit playing and the servers are shut down.

Joined: Sep 17 2007 Location: The Opium Trail Posts: 3475

The-Excel wrote:

Syd Lexia wrote:

Star Fox 64 took a lot longer than 60-80 minutes to beat. "Beating the game" meant getting all gold medals on both difficulties. And that took a long time to do. I dare say that it was fucking impossible.

My brother did it twice over.

I've done it three or four times. It's never easy though. Especially on Katina, when you have some dipshit crashing into you making you lose your wing every single fucking time on extra mode.

Posted: Dec 10 2010 04:37 pm

JRA wrote:

Ice2SeeYou wrote:

JRA wrote:

Beach Bum wrote:

Stuff I hate is games like Call of Duty. My brother had a copy of one a few years back and I think I sat there for maybe 4 hours and beat the entire game. I couldn't believe people would pay $60 bucks for that little gameplay. Not to mention that one comes out every single year. I guess I just can't see wasting $60 worth of good food or beer for the exact same multiplayer experience every year, plus live gold costs, when I own Counter-Strike: Source lol. !

Really, were Super Nintendo games that much better? I mean what did those cost back in the day, the same amount? And unless you were playing an RPG, those games only took 3 hours to beat?

I'm not defending Call of Duty ripping people off like that, but if you ask me I think the game industry could use less 20 hour games.

Yea, but in those games you didn't have checkpoints and save-states. At most you had continues. So it could take you months to play through those 3 hours.

Are you kidding me? 99% of Super Nintendo games had both check points and saved games (I include Passwords under this by the way). NES is another story. The only ones I can think of at the moment that didn't were Turtles In Time and Contra III.

The 16-bit era, yea that's true. I was talking about back in the NES days. A game like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out probably only had 30 minutes of gameplay, but it took me years to beat it. And that one even had a limited password system. In Double Dragon and TMNT the Arcade game, I could consistently get to the last levels, but could never beat them without cheat codes or Game Genie. My point is that back then they could get away with having less game, because you were essentially forced to play through it over and over again until you could beat it.

Posted: Dec 10 2010 05:09 pm

Ice2SeeYou wrote:

JRA wrote:

Ice2SeeYou wrote:

JRA wrote:

Beach Bum wrote:

Stuff I hate is games like Call of Duty. My brother had a copy of one a few years back and I think I sat there for maybe 4 hours and beat the entire game. I couldn't believe people would pay $60 bucks for that little gameplay. Not to mention that one comes out every single year. I guess I just can't see wasting $60 worth of good food or beer for the exact same multiplayer experience every year, plus live gold costs, when I own Counter-Strike: Source lol. !

Really, were Super Nintendo games that much better? I mean what did those cost back in the day, the same amount? And unless you were playing an RPG, those games only took 3 hours to beat?

I'm not defending Call of Duty ripping people off like that, but if you ask me I think the game industry could use less 20 hour games.

Yea, but in those games you didn't have checkpoints and save-states. At most you had continues. So it could take you months to play through those 3 hours.

Are you kidding me? 99% of Super Nintendo games had both check points and saved games (I include Passwords under this by the way). NES is another story. The only ones I can think of at the moment that didn't were Turtles In Time and Contra III.

The 16-bit era, yea that's true. I was talking about back in the NES days. A game like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out probably only had 30 minutes of gameplay, but it took me years to beat it. And that one even had a limited password system. In Double Dragon and TMNT the Arcade game, I could consistently get to the last levels, but could never beat them without cheat codes or Game Genie. My point is that back then they could get away with having less game, because you were essentially forced to play through it over and over again until you could beat it.

Exactly, and even without the save system we have now some of these new games can be beaten with next to no effort. Some of the shooters all you have to do is hide for a second or two and your hp magically comes back, so you never die if you pay attention.

I was playing Assassin's Creed 2 a while back and I don't recall dying a single time in combat. Had I not spent most of my time jumping off of really tall buildings for laughs I wouldn't have died at all. All that game took was holding block and then countering or dodging depending on the enemy, you never had to actually attack anyone offensively once you were surrounded. If you were fast enough you could avoid combat entirely by hidden blading guards who saw you murder their two friends right next to them, but hadn't gotten their blades drawn entirely yet. The only thing I needed the saves for was because the game was horribly unstable and kept getting CTDs lol.

Posted: Dec 10 2010 05:31 pm

That's true about Assassin's Creed. I think all my deaths were suicides.

Posted: Dec 10 2010 08:07 pm

Ice2SeeYou wrote:

That's true about Assassin's Creed. I think all my deaths were suicides.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

Posted: Dec 11 2010 03:19 pm

to really 100% Starfox64 you have to get all the medals on both paths, THEN unlock expert mode and do the same.

Very, very challenging.

Posted: Dec 11 2010 03:45 pm

Which my brother did. He made it seem so easy back then, so maybe I should have him do it again. I think the only stage he had any real problems was Sector Z.

Posted: Dec 12 2010 12:05 am

Beach Bum wrote:

Ice2SeeYou wrote:

JRA wrote:

Ice2SeeYou wrote:

JRA wrote:

Beach Bum wrote:

Stuff I hate is games like Call of Duty. My brother had a copy of one a few years back and I think I sat there for maybe 4 hours and beat the entire game. I couldn't believe people would pay $60 bucks for that little gameplay. Not to mention that one comes out every single year. I guess I just can't see wasting $60 worth of good food or beer for the exact same multiplayer experience every year, plus live gold costs, when I own Counter-Strike: Source lol. !

Really, were Super Nintendo games that much better? I mean what did those cost back in the day, the same amount? And unless you were playing an RPG, those games only took 3 hours to beat?

I'm not defending Call of Duty ripping people off like that, but if you ask me I think the game industry could use less 20 hour games.

Yea, but in those games you didn't have checkpoints and save-states. At most you had continues. So it could take you months to play through those 3 hours.

Are you kidding me? 99% of Super Nintendo games had both check points and saved games (I include Passwords under this by the way). NES is another story. The only ones I can think of at the moment that didn't were Turtles In Time and Contra III.

The 16-bit era, yea that's true. I was talking about back in the NES days. A game like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out probably only had 30 minutes of gameplay, but it took me years to beat it. And that one even had a limited password system. In Double Dragon and TMNT the Arcade game, I could consistently get to the last levels, but could never beat them without cheat codes or Game Genie. My point is that back then they could get away with having less game, because you were essentially forced to play through it over and over again until you could beat it.

Exactly, and even without the save system we have now some of these new games can be beaten with next to no effort. Some of the shooters all you have to do is hide for a second or two and your hp magically comes back, so you never die if you pay attention.

I was playing Assassin's Creed 2 a while back and I don't recall dying a single time in combat. Had I not spent most of my time jumping off of really tall buildings for laughs I wouldn't have died at all. All that game took was holding block and then countering or dodging depending on the enemy, you never had to actually attack anyone offensively once you were surrounded. If you were fast enough you could avoid combat entirely by hidden blading guards who saw you murder their two friends right next to them, but hadn't gotten their blades drawn entirely yet. The only thing I needed the saves for was because the game was horribly unstable and kept getting CTDs lol.

I'm not going to deny Assassin's Creed 1/2/Brotherhood are easy, but the AC games have never been about being hard, they're about being fun, and I find that that's exactly what they do. That should go for most games too, it shouldn't matter, all the time at least, whether or not it's hard, but whether or not you have fun and enjoy the game.

Posted: Dec 12 2010 01:39 am

I agree, that they are about being fun but I guess I miss having games that took me forever to beat. I always felt like those were more fun than something that basically lets you win. I guess newer stuff is supposed to appeal to people like me who have little skill, but whenever I beat them I'm not like "Oh damn I worked hard for that win, I earned it." I feel more like, "Eh it was a good story, but I wish it was more challenging."

When I beat a SNES game like Mystical Ninja, after owning it for 4 years, I felt like I had accomplished a great feat, even though I imagine it was easy for other people. Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way, I don't know.