The Top 7... Surprisingly fun multiplayer games (inside of single-player games)

I think the instinctively negative response to adding multiplayer is a sign of how little faith is placed in getting it right. Adding multiplayer all too often means something doesn't get the attention it deserves...be it the blatant "this is just a tutorial for multiplayer" of Chromehounds' single-player, or the half-hearted rehashing of the optional missions in Operation Darkness. Many games with both single and multiplayer would simply be better off going without, as that energy could've been spent polishing whichever one remained. It all to often serves as a sign of a series selling its soul to chase the lowest common denominator...giving up what made it unique, entertaining, or engaging to implement whatever's popular at the moment, in hopes of stumbling across the 'magic spark' that will catapult their game to the the sales numbers of CoD and its ilk. In the past year or two, it can also serve as a sign that the company has sold its soul to God Money. Where multiplayer is, too often these days shameless cash-grabs follow. [For the record: Not all for-sale stuff is a shameless cash-grab, but the temptation to make the game that way is definitely there]. Then there's the games that defy expectations, and remind us that multiplayer *can* be fun, and *can* be something other than Yet Another Zombie Mode, Yet Another Level/Class Loadout Deathmatch, and/or Yet Another Waves-O-Baddies Mode. AC: Brotherhood is probably the shining example this generation of defying expectations in this way. My plea to devs is this: You don't need multiplayer to make a great game. You don't need multiplayer to have replay value. If you're going to add it...carefully consider it. Make sure you can deliver *without* detriment to the rest of the game...neither the polish, nor the soul.

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It is strange that every time they add multiplayer to a single player focused non-FPS the campaign is at least great and the online at least works, yet the fear is always that multiplayer ruins the single player, but has that ever actually happened? Most often we get half baked multiplayer with great single player. Usually with FPS games because they start development with the expectation of deathmatch.

Mass Effect 3's multi is fun, but would have also liked to have been able to have fought against other players. You can only work with a whiner for so long before you lead a banshee to his position.

My precious games

Gollums balls? funny shit

Does this joke even have any context beyond Gollum saying "my precious"? Oh yes, he cleverly mentioned games at the end of the sentence. Top-notch humour! :D

I'm gonna have to disagree with the Max Payne 3 entry. The constant slow down and speed up made the game very choppy and frustrating to play. But hey, to each their own. I completely agree with the rest of the list though.

I agree with damn near all of these. Assassin's Creed's gave me one helluva good time, and for a lot longer than any non-FPS multiplayer has ever given me. Red Dead's was pretty good, but Dead Space 2's was incredibly unbalanced and infuriated more than it was enjoyable, but it felt stable and was pretty fun for a couple hours. Mass Effect 3's was awesome, but mainly because it was co-op, let alone reliable and addicting. For the rest, I haven't played. I'm just glad you didn't mention Far Cry 3. I swear, that co-op mode was one of the worst experience this year, which is odd because it might be on of my GOTY.

I personally loved Red Dead Revolvers Multiplayer mode better despite them not being online. Especially since it was more arcade-y and each character (a lot of them) had custom loadouts and everything. Good times....gooooooood times

Mass Effect 3's multi surprisingly fun? I mean yeah I played it but there is nothing new. Grinding for hours to MAYBE unlock a gun or character....shit gets boring after a while. It was fun, but not #1 fun.

The problem with most of these(not mass effect) is I'll play it once for an hour then never touch it again. I know it's not affecting the single player game but I would rather they just spent the money used to build the multiplayer on polishing the SP or something. Unless the multiplayer is actually trying to innovate (like the new God of war) then I would rather they just do something else.

I used to have a great crack on that Uncharted 2 multiplayer for a while. A few of us used to set our own deathmatch and have a gun-fight with just us which was a right laugh. I was looking forward to giving the Uncharted 3 mulitplayer a crack but never got into it. I found I was unloading a whole clip into some people but it just wasn't cutting it and the amount of ammo I had to pump into people before they dropped was ridiculous and totally put me off. Or maybe i'm just pants?

I liked the ME 3 multiplayer a lot as well, spent a lot of hours on there getting my galactic readiness up. But what about Portal 2, a game that in no way needed multiplayer but damn how amazing was that experience, GLaDOS commenting on everything that you did, randomly insulting one of the two players. Closing a portal so that a buddy falls down where once was a lightbeam, solving puzzles together. Laughing/dancing in front of camera's to piss off GLaDOS, amazing times! And Journey, doing it on your own was just as awesome, but noticing someone having the same problems that you have and no way to communicate with each other besides a sort of ping to get their attention and just hope they understand what your intentions are. I was traveling somewhere and I noticed someone was just tagging along with me, when we ran into problems he/she gave me time to figure it out but after some I think he/she knew I didn't know what to do so they helped me out. Later on in the game, we stuck together the whole time, we had to charge up this mountain with the wind blowing us back, there I had an idea what we were supposed to do, but the other person didn't, so after a short while I showed what we were supposed to do, yeah describing it can be hard but it was an amazing experience! You weren't able to communicate, you couldn't tell them what they were supposed to do, but you could make one noice, you could jump and you could glide, and that was more then enough to create something special. And would hitman absolution count? It's not really multiplayer as in a multiple people playing at the same time with or against each other but creating contracts for friends and starting challenges with them is still a lot of fun.

Absolutely Portal 2, but it seemed like the focus of this was deathmatch/horde style modes added to games. Portal 2's mode was awesome for a playthrough but how often do you go back like someone could for the rest of these since they're designed for repeated exeriences. And Journey was created from the outset to have multiplayer, that was interesting thing about it explained in previews.