by FEMAELSTROM, HSM team writer

It’s a hot day, and my back pack and gun are heavy. My gun has been firing so much, the barrel looks like a chain smoker’s mouth, belching out its cloud of heat. I look up into the sky and the shine is hard and stark. In the distance is the sound of the rapid fire of others that I fight with and against. Many fall, and I watch them. My goal is simple: defeat my enemy. They are evil on every level. The sweat drips down the side of my face as I run with my heart in my throat, looking over my shoulder to make certain that I do not get ambushed.

I get to a good hiding spot and without thought, pull the trigger on the first of my enemies that comes into my range. He lets out a cry as he dies fast on the sun-baked sand that is everywhere. The concussive sound of heavy artillery is rattling the streets. I grip tightly the handle of my gun and run into the street once again, fearing the absolute worst. There is the sound of a grenade nearby. That all too familiar “cling”. I dive for cover just in time. I rise to find the one that threw it, and with the spastic pull of a trigger, he falls.

I covertly creep around in the baking sand through this desert town, and see my nemesis.  He stands by a short, knee-high wall, facing away from me. Ready for what he believes is where I will be. He holds his shotgun, of which he is a master, at the ready. I can almost feel the tension of his trigger finger. I raise my rifle and fire a thunderous three-burst shot into his back. He falls with out a sound and the siege is over, despite the losses.

I have taken the city of Mos Eisly, and the Imperial Star Destroyers that hover in orbit below the twin suns of Tatooine are no longer a threat to me or the rebels to the Galactic Empire. My half of the screen reads the only word that matters in two-player battle: “Victory”!

I sit with my nephew and give him a friendly elbow and chant “Victory for me, victory for me, victory for me”!

Yeah, this is really very juvenile, and there is a good chance I did a dance, or threw some form of salty snack at him, like popcorn or potato chips, but in the end, it was a great battle because the fun of this multi-player was the face to face play, and that sadly is a dying thing.

This is what a lot of people love to see. DIE! DIE! DIE, Friends!

Nowadays games are more and more focused on the online multi-player, and many people like, or love this. There are countless people in lobbies for games like Call of Duty and Battlefield. Friends of mine are playing a wide variety of games like Tomb Raider, which has online multi-player, as well as Borderlands 1 and 2, Test Drive Unlimited and so many others it is nearly impossible to count. My question, though, is this — have we traded the concept of player vs. player or co-op split screen fun for the online modes?

Online play does have its pros and cons, and I think it is important to see what we are gaining compared to what we are losing with the rapidly dwindling  quantity of split screen games.

Pro: With online play, the user can join lobbies that are filled with far more players than is possible in split screen.

Con: Those people can be total strangers, and if the user is forced to play a public lobby as opposed to a created match for friends, sometimes the players can be brutal in how they treat people in an effort to gain more experience and make the leader boards. I know a person who went into a lobby for a game on a rival system and was trying to level up, but was in fact demoted to negative one million points by the lobby host, effectively killing the joy for that game where the primary game play mode is the online suite.

Pro: When you invite a friend into a lobby, it is a new level of fun that you can have with somebody you may never have any physical contact with, except through the online realm of the game at hand.

Con: Not having a person there to play with, elbow to elbow, a sense of the “personal” competition among friends is just not there. Sure, there is a sense of competition — but the personal part, where one ends up throwing a handfull of salty snacks at the other player, is gone. This to me is one of the grand values of split screen multi-player.

So much to ponder with the online, I just wanna play something with somebody

Pro: The user can make new friends in these lobbies. For those who play well and are not able to easily make friends in the real or virtual world, this can be an invaluable tool that allows one to enjoy the experience of the game with others.

Con: If you lose connection to the the Internet, you can be dropped from the game, or in some cases the connection may force a migration of the host , which breaks the stride or flow of the game. If the connection is slow, then the players can suffer with lag. This can have very bad effects on a game and its full potential, as it may become unplayable for you, while others are playing freely. You become the frozen soldier in the corner, being used for target practice.

Pro: When you share the room, you don’t have to worry about hearing the other player through mic’s or reading in game text — they are right there. With your friend/opponent or game mate, you can jibe and plan with no worry of the communications lagging, stalling or just not getting there in time.

Con: Smaller image on a split screen. With the monitor being cut in half for the two players to compete, it does reduce the image for each and unless you have a 10 foot wide screen, it does make small objectives or details harder to see than when only one person is looking at one screen. Also, this means your friends have to be trustworthy, as they can easily see your location on the screen, and this is a way to cheat in desperate times if you’re on the losing end.

Pro: The ability to have a lot of people in a lobby encourages a party environment. With that many people in the same game, if you get into a good lobby, the participants can make it a fun place to play, with everyone working together to a singular objective.

Con: When in lobbies, others may not want to have fun, and ramp up the hard. It is something we see here even in Home — some people are not in to the game so much for the fun of the whole experience, but instead for their own advancement, and can make it hard for the less proficient to have fun when the gaming level gets ramped up by the locals seeking their own gains.

Maybe things will be better on cool Hoth.

Whichever way one likes to play, there is still a lot of fun to be had in multi player. There are strong points to be made for both sides, and this writer would like to see a lot more of that camaraderie between friends that comes with the side by side, split screen multi-player gaming. I do believe split screen, multi-player should be offered as well as the online modes, for those that have local  friends that want to play with the seasoning of elbow to elbow competition that makes gaming so personal. We all love to do a victory dance in front of our friends after we destroy their fortress or beat their team, and I personally believe that there is something lost when we can’t gloat (in a fun and friendly way) over the demise of our friend’s troops losing a stronghold or the sports championship.

Fortunately Star Wars: Battlefront II had some cooler environs. Tatooine is hot this time of year.

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One Response to “Living on the Sofa”

1. Burbie52 says:

   May 24, 2013 at 2:52 pm

   I have pretty much always played single player games when it comes to video gaming. The few times I have played with someone in the room with me it has always been a fun experience, though I agree that split screens are an issue because of their size, especially if you have a smaller TV.
   I think I have had more fun recently playing with my friends online, this was a new experience for me back when I tried it with Red Dead a couple years ago, but I loved it. I still prefer single player but playing with others can be a great deal of fun.
   Nice read as always Strom.

   Reply