Almost any multiplayer is fun... initially. That’s why you see such glowing reviews and previews from people like us - we’re playing it in a perfectly populated, cheat-free environment, with no latency. The reality, however, is that most of you will end up playing with potty-mouthed, exploit-happy strangers for about six minutes, then move on to something better in 1/1000th of the time it takes the developers to create a restorative patch.
You think people are buying Halo and Modern Warfare for the story? True, Bungie and Infinity Ward have set the bar astronomically high, but if you’re not going to devote significant resources to maintaining servers, balance, and an online community… why bother? Wake up, developers! (And you too, you bad-decision-making suits up top!) Multiplayer is more than a bullet point to be sandwiched in between “720p” and “Leaderboards” on the back of the box - it’s not the Spanish language track on a DVD.
The following is a list of games we can’t wait to play, featuring multiplayer we can’t wait to ignore. Hey, prove us wrong, developers!
Above: One at a time, please
Why doesn’t Assassin’s Creed need multiplayer? Let’s go ahead and ask Ubisoft Montreal creative director, Patrice Desilets why they didn’t add it in the first place:
BING! Assassin’s Creed II came together as a masterpiece last year by addressing divisive shortfalls found in the original… obviously, multiplayer wasn’t one of them. What AC does better than another game, almost unique unto itself, is cast the player in the role of an acrobatic cat on a parkour playground filled with unwitting mice. So, what are multiple players supposed to do? Take turns waiting to be assassinated?
To be fair, the multiplayer Ubisoft recently announced is some sort of ACII offshoot starring Ezio, and not part of Assassin’s Creed III. But we’ve always applauded Ubisoft for investing millions in platforming perfection alone, with nary a dollar spent on frivolous modes like this diversion could easily be.
Hey, know what would be a cool idea for a zombie game? Co-op! Has no one done that before? Is there no precedent for incredible zombie-killin’ co-op? Apparently not, because while Dead Rising 2 co-op sounds crazy fun, they’ve instead decided to include a competitive multiplayer mode in the form of a “reality show” in which contestants compete to kill the most zombies.
Above: You’ve been voted off… uh, yeah, you get the sooo-last-decade reality show joke
We can’t say it’s the worst idea ever… sure it could be fun, but how much are we really going to play this? The Left 4 Dead series, and even CoD: World at War’s co-op modes have given us with hours of entertainment, but we only give DR2’s game show a few weeks before we go back to the games that set the standard for zombie mutilating co-op.
