You know what bums me out? The lack of offline multiplayer these days.
This is something that’s bothered me for awhile now, and stems from the recent announcement of Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition coming to both the PS3 and Xbox360. I love Street Fighter, and grew up playing it in the arcades and with my friends at home. And that’s how I think it should be played. Don’t get me wrong — online multiplayer is great, but as the trend moves more and more toward interactive gaming being exclusively online, I feel like I’m being left behind. I’ve always felt that the whole point of multiplayer was to create personal competition and fun, and give you the satisfaction of beating the person sitting or standing right next to you (and vice versa). While technology has allowed us to connect remotely with other gamers all over the world, it’s also removed part of the personal, bonding element that comes with offline multiplayer.
In the old days (I’m not even that old!), a bunch of my friends would come over and we would play Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 for countless hours on end. We’d be screaming at each other, yelling horrible things, cheating by looking at each others’ screens… it was fantastic. After Goldeneye we’d pop in the original Smash Bros and be screaming at each other, yelling horrible things… you get the idea.
Those types of memories are some of the fondest I have — not just in terms of gaming, but my childhood and growing up in general. Sitting in my living room with my best friends and playing, joking, laughing for hours on end… the physicality of that experience is what connected all of us. Sounds overly dramatic and a little lame, but it’s the truth.
Pretty much my favorite game of all time
These days you sit in a room by yourself in your boxers or panties, wearing a headset that doesn’t work half the time (and when it does you get some 10-year-old kid from across the country who hasn’t yet hit puberty and shouldn’t be playing the game you’re playing anyway yelling random obscenities into your ear), wait in some virtual lobby for people to join, play a few rounds with random strangers, get annoyed at the lag, get cut off because your connection sucks, sign off and go to bed.
Now, I do know a good number of people that have joined different multiplayer groups/clans for specific games and found them to be very engaging, and they really do bond with the other clan members. And people complain about split-screen offering players the opportunity to cheat. But a) who cares, it’s a game and b) I still don’t think it’s the same. I would choose local multiplayer over online any day.
Anyway, let’s play! I’ll ask my mom if y’all can come over.
