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Forums - Gaming Discussion - How Essential is Multiplayer to FPS/FPA Games?

My question is: how essential do you think multiplayer is for first person shooter and first person adventure games? This has been bothering me for a while now, but it's really come to a head with the prominence of Bioshock and Metroid Prime 3, two excellent FPS/FPA's, neither of which have multiplayer. What I found interesting is that looking through the reviews for both, a consistent complaint about MP3 is its lack of multiplayer, whilst this complaint is seldom, if ever, expressed about Bioshock. Given this apparent lack of symmetry, just how important do you think multiplayer is? Furthermore, what particular features of an FPS/FPA demand it have multiplayer? For example, why was Bioshock not pulled up on lack of multiplayer but Metroid Prime 3 was? Now let me make myself clear, in case anyone wants to start flaming: in no way am I saying that Bioshock sucks - it's obvious that it doesn't. I'm just curious as to why some FPS/FPA games are criticised for lack of multiplayer and others are not, despite their many similarities.



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Hi LG, welcome to VGcharts

How dare you say Bioshock sucks...JK

I think the reason why many people whanted MP3 to have multiplayer is because the Wii lacks a great playing online shooter, Bioschock (haven´t played it yet) doesn´t seem like a realy multiplayer type game (just like MP3) but since all the multiplayer fans are waiting for Halo 3 it would have been forgotten very soon.

I think there are so many kinds of FPSs that many are better of without multiplayer, while others really only work in multiplayer. Slapping a cheap online mode on a game will make it seem worse when the single plaer is great. It also works the other way around, many games have great multiplayer but the story mode is half assed (excuse my frence).   



 

 

 

If a game is short, it will be criticized if it lacks multiplayer, as you'll see from threads about heavenly sword. Likewise, if a games sucks it has to have an incredible multi to back it up. Bioshock is amazing, so it requires no multiplayer. Halo 1 could live without multi cause of a great storyline, but Halo 2's single-player wasnt as good, so it needed its incredible multi-player to be a hit. Gears of War has a FANTASTIC single-player game, but its only about 8 hours and so needs the multiplayer to supplement it



starcraft - Playing Games = FUN, Talking about Games = SERIOUS

I think the main difference might be that MP3 for the Wii could have been the first multiplayer online fpa/fps. The 360 and PC at least both have many other games you can pick up so lack of a feature isn't seen as so much of a loss. Having played MP & the Bioshock demo, I'd say neither game is a good candidate to have multiplayer.



To cash in my CC rewards points for $300 in Circuit City gift cards to purchase a 360 or not: That is the question.

Remember Goldeneye for N64, its release increased N64 joy pad sales by over 200%. Everyone bought the extra pads to play multiplayer and the replayability of the game was greatly increased.
Medal Of Honor : Allied Assault never had mutliplyer but the suits made sure Infinity Ward included multiplayer and heck the game spawned 2 expansion packs and a shit load of sequels.

Multi player converts game rentals into game sales, if it is a good fps game with no MP, I would just rent the game for a week return it and move over to the next one. But if it has great multiplayer i would sure as heck buy the game.



Heeeeyyyy!!!! <Snap>

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It's not essential to me because I'm in the 1/3 of the American population without access to multiplayer-capable broadband. ~_~



Nobody is crazy enough to accuse me of being sane.

I'd say for first person adventure it's definitely a secondary issue. Adventure games don't lend themselves as well to multi-player as pure shooters do. That said, Metroid Prime 3 raises the bar for control for first person games on consoles by a lot and it would have been nice to see it with some multi-player.

Halo, on the other hand, focuses more on bringing experiences from PCs to consoles -- single and multi-player were done better in 1998 and 1999 than they were by Halo, but a lot of people loved it because they were never exposed to Half Life, TFC or Counter-Strike. That said, multi-player is critical to Halo's success although on-line multi-player, again, is secondary.