| Havicl_Baobab | Date: Wednesday, 18 December 13, 11:24 PM | Message # 1 |
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Private
Group: Users
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It's sad when games are being released that highly focus on Multiplayer and allow Single Player to lack greatly. What happened to those games that were filled with story. Sadly I remember a time when there was no Multiplayer (other than two people sitting in a room.) When a game meant something. When its story meant something and was thought out and not just a carbon copy re-re-re-release of the same thing that we had the year before. (I'm looking at you Call of Duty.)
I'd like to see the gaming Industry shift back to its roots. To see games that have story focused on just as much as Multiplayer is focused on. Though it is likely that wont happen in the future. Take a look at the game Destiny that is under development. In an interview about that game they said that "While it does have a Single Player, it also allows other players to enter your game. It has some levels and challenges that you need to have so many friends in order to complete it."
That sums up the direction the Industry is going. Single Player is being looked at to become wiped with games focused on Multiplayer; or where the Single Player campaign is designed to include challenges and levels that you won't have access to without so many friends. For people like me; those of us whom enjoy playing Single Player by ourselves and can find enjoyment in that, being forced to have to interact with other players or need a set number of friends is going to be devastating.
Games shouldn't be looked at as a "Service." They need to fall back to their roots and be an Experience. Not just a collection of a handful of Single Player levels that are lacking because they are overshadowed by the obviously focused upon Multiplayer.
Havicl Baobab
Baobab Merchant Fleet
Doge of the Most Serene Republic of Manda
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| Tremaine_Fowlkes | Date: Saturday, 21 December 13, 10:25 AM | Message # 2 |
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Sergeant
Group: Users
Messages: 24
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| I feel you, Havicl. I think this is because with multiplayer the companies gain more profits. I assume they have some sort of "hidden fees" with the game console companies in order to gain profits. Whetier it be Xbox One or PS4. That's really sad.
~Tremaine Fowlkes
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| Jace_Varitek | Date: Saturday, 21 December 13, 8:00 PM | Message # 3 |
 Major general
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| I can't fault them for making what sells, and Tremaine is right; it's multiplayer that sells. But I agree with this post completely. Consider the Battlefield series. It's clearly intended first and foremost as a multi-player experience, and though it has a single-player story, the story is built to showcase the gameplay, rather than the other way around. Gone are the days when the gameplay was in service to the story. Perfect Dark, for instance; the story was conceived first, then the gameplay, and indeed there were gameplay elements that the developers wanted as part of the story (such as flashlights, as part of a "darkness" theme) that weren't possible with the technology of the time. (Perfect Dark also had co-operative and counter-operative modes that brought multiplayer enjoyment to the single-player campaign; why don't we see more of this today?) More recently, there's Alan Wake, in which the use of flashlights in the game isn't just a part of the gameplay, but an inseparable part of the story. Alan Wake sold poorly (it came out in 2010 and I hadn't heard of it until Jamie mentioned it to me a couple months ago).
I also miss supplemental story-telling materials. Gone are the days of 50-page manuals that provide background to the characters and setting of the game. These days, all we get is a 1-page seizure warning, most of it in other languages. Supplemental story-telling material does still exist; Perfect Dark and Alan Wake, to use the same example, spawned quite a few fiction books. There was a lot of demand for Halo books. But these are the exception, not the rule. You don't see Battlefield or Call of Duty books out there, because no one would buy them. An acquaintance of mine recently told me, when I asked about Call of Duty: Ghost's single-player story, "I don't play that shit." (And he bought Ghosts for $50 when he's hardly able to pay his rent or buy food. Now that is a customer the industry can't resist appealing to).
But even if single-player doesn't sell, we can't deny this is probably a golden age for single-player stories. Just look at the passion over the ending of Mass Effect 3. (Disclaimer, I haven't played any Mass Effect games, but people tell me they're good). The story of Red Dead Redemption is one of the best in the Western genre; it has a lot of character development and some missions are simply for story purposes. Remember Me is a very imaginative game with an award-winning (and time-consuming) website that tells the background story. Plus it has a form of gameplay (memory "remixing") which only services the story. There are many other examples, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Xbox Live Arcade game Brothers—a multi-player experience for a single player, Brothers has you control two characters simultaneously with only 4 buttons, and the end of the game is so masterfully done that simply pushing one of those buttons at a key moment delivers an emotional punch you won't forget while simultaneously conveying the moral of the story. If there was any lingering doubt about whether video games are Art, that one moment at the end of Brothers settles it once and for all.
It's natural to fret about the direction the industry is going in, however. The titles for the next gen consoles so far are disappointing; we're not going to get much story from Battlefield 4, Dead Rising 3, and Sniper Elite 3. But some upcoming titles are promising, such as Whore of the Orient (from the makers of L.A. Noire, another game with a good story), and the new Sherlock Holmes game, which is supposed to explore themes from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. So I would say, fret but don't despair. More people buy the multi-player games, so we hear more about them. But there will always be games with good single-player campaigns out there too.
Here's hoping that Battlefront will be both.
Jace Varitek
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