Why Online Multiplayer Needs Single Player

Over the last decade online multiplayer shooters have become increasingly popular on consoles. What once was a fun and exciting new mode to accompany the single player campaign has now taken center stage. In fact the online section of these games are so popular that a large portion of their player bases choose to only play the multiplayer and never bother touching the single player campaigns. This has sparked many discussions about whether or not most multiplayer shooters need a single player option to accompany them and if they could not only survive, but thrive as a multiplayer only experience.

A recent up and coming competitor in the online shooter genre was willing to put these questions to the test and release an online shooter without a single player mode for full price. This competitor was Titanfall and it was set to be the next big thing in the realm of online shooters. Titanfall was a success critically and commercially, although I think that it fell a little short of expectation on both of those fronts.

          This piece isn’t about that though. This is about my personal feelings towards Titanfall. I know I wrote a review to cover that, but there was something about Titanfall that I felt warranted further exploration and that is the following question that it left me with: would Titanfall have been a better multiplayer game if their had been a single player campaign?

Now, it would be easy to say that Titanfall would be a better game if it had a strong single player campaign, as it would be an additional enjoyable mode to experience. I mean, at the very least how could that make it any worse? This is not what I am trying to figure out. You see in my experience with Titanfall, one of my biggest problems was that the whole thing felt hollow. I didn’t care about anything outside of the game’s mechanics. I didn’t care about the universe Titanfall takes place in, nor did I care about the environments I was fighting in, I also didn’t care about the technology behind the Titans, or the Pilots I was playing as or the soldiers fighting with me or the voices from the game talking to me or even the weapons I was using (beyond the level of “which am I appearing to do better with”). Nothing in Titanfall grabbed me and made me care.

A contrasting experience for me is the one I’ve had with the Halo franchise. Halo is my favorite multiplayer series and I believe that the single player had a lot to do with that. By designing Halo’s single player first the game was given a wide variety of cool and interesting weapons that felt distinct from one another and were meant to give the player a sense of variety and allow them to tackle different situations, or to tackle the same situation in a variety of ways. This not only lead to their being a number of interesting guns and a level of strategy around which to use them in the multiplayer, it also made the players who had gone through the single player know all of that from the get go. Players knew what guns they were comfortable using, what ones they wanted to find and pick up and what ones they wanted to make sure their enemies never got. Would the energy sword be iconic if Halo was a multiplayer only shooter? Sure, I believe so. Would it be as iconic or as beloved by fans if it wasn’t a weapon only our enemies in the campaign could wield in Halo 1 and then in Halo 2 when you defeated one of them players had this magical moment where they find out they can now use it too? Probably not. Would being able to play as an Elite in Halo 2 multiplayer have mattered without knowing Halo’s story? No, because it would just be a second character model. But you know what? When we first got to play as Elites it was awesome because we could finally play as our fiercest enemies. And despite how cool it was to play as an Elite players like myself preferred to remain as Spartans because they looked just like our beloved hero Master Chief from the campaign. There is no connection like that to your weapons or Pilots in Titanfall, not even close.

          It is important for players to connect with a game. It is important for them to understand and appreciate the world around them, the enemies in front of them, the character they are inhabiting and even the weapons in their hands. I believe that a single player campaign has the power to do this for the player when it is handled correctly and that it is something competitive multiplayer cannot handle on its own. This is why I believe that a multiplayer focused game still needs a single player campaign. A good single player isn’t just something that is nice to have as an additional mode; it shares a symbiotic experience with the multiplayer that makes it more enjoyable for the player. 

          So even though online shooters could remove their single player campaigns and still sell millions of units at full price, just like Titanfall did, I don’t think it would be the right move for most franchises. I feel that not having a single player accompany online shooters would be detrimental to the player experience, especially for any series just starting out, as players wouldn’t have had a chance to connect to the game’s world yet. And for anyone reading this who hasn’t given the single player a try in the multiplayer shooters that they play, I recommend you give it a go and see if it helps build a connection to that game’s world and if that leads to a more enjoyable experience for you as it has for me.

In Defense Of Tomb Raider’s Timed Exclusivity

            When it was announced at Microsoft’s Gamescom 2014 Press Conference that Rise of the Tomb Raider, the follow up to Crystal Dynamics’s 2013 Tomb Raider reboot, would be coming exclusively to Xbox in the Holiday season of 2015 many fans of the franchise were up in arms. They felt betrayed by Square Enix and spited by Microsoft for taking a game series that had at one point been seen as a staple of the PlayStation brand and preventing PlayStation and even PC owners from being able to play the highly anticipated next installment. Following the fan uproar it was revealed that Rise of the Tomb Raider’s Xbox exclusivity is only for a limited time and that Square Enix & Crystal Dynamics have the ability to eventually bring it to other systems.

            Despite this fans are still upset: some have boldly proclaimed that they will never buy a Square Enix game again. This leads to two problems I have. One is that the Internet is so damn hyper-reactionary and overdramatic all the time. The second is its ridiculous need to villainize companies.

The idea that anyone who is upset because they really want to play Tomb Raider as soon as it comes out, but instead have to wait for it to be ported to their platform of choice will then NOT buy that game when it becomes available or ANY other game from a massive publisher like Square Enix is insane. Just because one entry in the Tomb Raider franchise will be on Xbox first they plan to never buy another Tomb Raider or Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts or Dragon Quest or Deus Ex or anything else Square Enix puts out? Give me a break. Not one person will keep their word; it is just a bunch of empty threats from grown men acting like insufferable children. Square Enix and Microsoft are not out to get anyone. They didn’t do this to piss off or hurt PlayStation & PC fans. They made a business decision to help each of their businesses do a little better. They are not evil, they aren’t even bad, they are simply looking out for their own best interests, which is something just about every business and person does. After all, these so called “fans” are only upset about this whole thing because Tomb Raider coming out first on a platform they don’t own isn’t in their best interest, or at least they don't see it that way.

Let’s not forget that this type of deal has been done before. Back during the Gamecube era Nintendo managed to get multiple exclusives from the Resident Evil franchise including, most notably, Resident Evil 4. Up until that point Resident Evil (like Tomb Raider) had been most strongly connected to the PlayStation brand, but then it went the exclusive route with Nintendo. Unlike Rise of the Tomb Raider, Resident Evil 4 spent a long time telling fans that it would never appear on another platform. When the game eventually game to the PS2 Resident Evil fans didn’t boycott it and they certainly hadn’t been refusing to buy all other Capcom games that were available on the PS2 in the meantime. No, when RE4 came to the PS2 fans rushed out to buy it. Why? Because RE4 was and still is an incredible game. It had critics raving, fans cheering and had won a bunch of awards. Resident Evil 4 made the series more talked about and more popular than it had ever been before. Now this is not entirely because it was exclusive to one console, but I do think that helped. Mostly people were talking about the game because it was great and being exclusive might have aided in that. The developers didn’t need to focus on getting the same thing running on multiple platforms and could just focus on making the one version as good as possible. Plus, typically, everyone pays extra attention to exclusives, especially when they go over well enough with critics and fans to reach that elusive “must-play” territory. Following RE4 the next major game in the franchise, Resident Evil 5, went the multi-platform route and was available on both Xbox 360 and PS3 from day one. Resident Evil 5 was a huge success and currently holds the title of highest selling game Capcom has ever released.

Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics said that they think having Rise of the Tomb Raider start out as an exclusive for Xbox platforms can help the Tomb Raider franchise.

“We know they will get behind this game more than any support we have had from them in the past - we believe this will be a step to really forging the Tomb Raider brand as one of the biggest in gaming, with the help, belief and backing of a major partner like Microsoft."

- Darrell Gallagher (Head of Studio for Crystal Dynamics)

This strategy definitely worked for Resident Evil when it partnered with Nintendo, so it stands to reason that this could be great for Tomb Raider and subsequently all of its fans, especially when you take into account the fact that Microsoft tends to put a much bigger marketing push behind its key games like Halo and Gears of War than just about anyone else.

            Try not to forget that just because Microsoft is a big company that does not make them evil, and that just because you prefer PlayStation doesn’t make Sony a group of saints. If you are an upset Sony fan who thinks that this is a dirty, rotten move by Microsoft in getting timed exclusivity for the second game in the Tomb Raider reboot series, remember that Sony made a deal starting with the second game in the original Tomb Raider series for full console exclusivity. That’s right; everyone makes these deals: Microsoft, Nintendo and even Sony. I don’t see Rise of the Tomb Raider coming to Xbox first as a bad thing. I think it has the potential to make it a better game and give Tomb Raider a bigger name, which will then lead to more sales, thus raising the budgets going forward and further driving up the quality of the series. And I bet that is what Square Enix is thinking as well. Now you tell me, what is wrong with that?

Review: Titanfall

Ever since I first saw footage of Titanfall I had been excitedly standing by for a chance to play it. When a friend of mine got access to the beta on his Xbox One I went over to his place and tried it out. It did not take long for me to realize that Titanfall was not as incredible as I had expected it to be. Still though, when the game came out I bought an Xbox One Titanfall bundle and hoped that more time with the full experience would prove better. It did, but not as much as I would have liked.

Everything in Titanfall feels like it could have been expanded upon. The so-called campaign is just a series of nine multiplayer matches, one on each of the game’s nine maps, with about 90 seconds of voiceovers beforehand when you are picking your loadouts and some more sprinkled throughout the match. The story that Titanfall tries to tell does very little to engage you and feels incredibly contrived and rushed. There is only one mission (mission 8) where I felt they had woven the narrative into the match in a way that was interesting. For the most part, the campaign only serves as a way to pick which map you want to play on as there is no map voting system in multiplayer. However, even in this regard the campaign is a failure because each campaign level has an assigned game type preventing you from picking the game type you want to play on the map you like.

            The maps themselves ultimately don’t stand out that much though. They are nice looking when you stop and actually examine them, but the gameplay is so fast paced and you move so quickly with your sprint, double jump and wall-run/climb abilities you miss most of the details. There was one map where I had played on it at least 20 times before noticing that there is a massive ship in the background by the docks. Another distinctive characteristic of one map is that there are flying monsters in it. Unfortunately this is another instance of Titanfall coming-up short. They introduce “dangerous” wildlife, but they can’t hurt you and they don’t even get in your way. Instead they just fly away like pigeons when you show up. The only thing they do that is even remotely interesting the first time you see it is at the end of the match when they swoop down and snatch up the AI troops of the losing team.

            Titanfall has a number of small flourishes like this throughout the game. Another example is that you occasionally find a lone AI on each team engaged in a special animation, such as a Spector (robot soldier) picking up a human soldier and breaking his back over his knee. These things look cool upon first glance, but sense you can’t activate any of those special close quarters kills yourself and they can’t happen to you they are rather pointless.

            Titanfall is very focused on making your multiplayer matches feel like they have more going on in them than the usual fare. The one way that this goal actually manages to improve your gameplay experience is through the inclusion of AI soldiers. The AI units are numerous and very incapable; they are basically just fodder. This may sound like a bad thing (dumb AI) but it is actually why they work so well. The maps are fairly large, which allows you to make use of your traversal abilities and have everyone fit their Titans in comfortably. However, because of this if there were only the 6 players on each team the maps would feel rather empty. The AI serves as a way of keeping the action rolling as you move around the map. It also allows less skilled players to contribute to the game’s standard deathmatch type called Attrition as they can go around killing AI rather than players (player kills are worth 4x as much as AI kills in order to balance the two).

Another part of Titanfall that the developers nailed is your character’s speed and maneuverability. It is remarkably fun to wiz through your surroundings in Titanfall. Your double jump and wall-running/climbing also makes you think vertically and gives you numerous ways to get to different positions and go after your enemies. You aren’t forced to head up a set of stairs into a death-trap of an enemy waiting to shoot at you. Instead, you can drop down from the roof or leap in through one of the windows.

            Now obviously there is another big aspect of Titanfall that is meant to set it apart from its competitors, and that is the Titans. At the beginning of each match there is a timer displaying how long you have until your Titan is ready, which you can shave time off of by damaging opponents. So long as you arrive at or around the beginning of a match you are essentially guaranteed at least one Titan. Titans offer a fun change up to the action as they are obviously far more powerful than pilots. That is not to say pilots are powerless against them though. In fact you have multiple ways to fight back against Titans. You have an anti-Titan weapon, which can do a lot of damage so long as you stay out of sight and can be a great help when there is a friendly Titan distracting your opponent. Another option is to try and board enemy titans, which can be dangerous as it requires going right at the Titan. 

            Obviously the simplest way to take down a Titan is to pilot one of your own, but if you don’t consider yourself very good at Titan piloting then you can still make your Titans useful by having the AI takeover them.  That way your opponent has to focus primarily on your AI Titan as you bring it down with the previous two methods. You can also set your Titan to hold a position, which comes in handy in objective-based game types. Overall Respawn Entertainment did a surprisingly good job of balancing Titans against pilots and giving them a number of different uses. Unfortunately, as this is the running theme with Titanfall, even the Titans feel like they are missing things. There are only 3 possible Titans (one is faster with less armor, one is slower with more armor and one is in the middle of each stat) each with their own distinct Titan Core ability, but that 1 ability is all that really sets them apart as they don’t feel that different when you use them and they all have access to the same secondary abilities and weapons. I expected to be able to take parts from each Titan and build my own custom one or at the very least give it a cool paint job and swap out parts for cosmetic purposes, so that is stands out in some way and isn’t just another big gray mech walking around. I expected too much on both accounts.

Titanfall is a fun multiplayer game, but one that feels incomplete. When the game launched you couldn’t even create custom lobbies to play in with just your friends. There is no single player and the so-called “campaign” is a joke. If you are a fan of multiplayer shooters then you should consider Titanfall as it is one of the better ones I have played, but if you aren’t already this isn’t likely to make you one and there are better games to start with. I had high expectations for Titanfall and despite being a good game, it failed to meet just about all of them.

Score: 3/5

Review: Need For Speed: Rivals

*Note: This review is based on my experience with the Xbox 360 version of the game. I felt I should put this because I experienced a number of technical issues with the game and it is possible that the next-gen version isn’t as buggy.

            I’m not a big fan of racing games. It is rather rare that I actually decide to play one, but on the occasions that I do I always go for arcade racers over simulation ones. I enjoy going insanely fast and being on the verge of losing control while also slamming into the guy beside me in the hopes that he will wipe out. My two favorite racing games are Burnout 3 and the original Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Ever since Criterion (the studio that made Burnout) took over Need for Speed I have been meaning to try and get back into the series. In a show of how rare I play racing games, I am only now getting around to seeing what they have done with it. Ironically, I was a bit late as Need for Speed Rivals was handled primarily by Ghost Games, with some assistance from Criterion.

            The thing that made me choose Rivals when I held off on Hot Pursuit and the new Most Wanted was the connected world that this game was offering. The idea of doing a race in an open world that just happens to take you by another player who is playing as a cop and then having to pass the computer racers while evading the player controlled cop was really cool. Another interesting possibility brought about by this connected world was two races intersecting and, at least for a time, doubling in size. I really thought that the connected world would lead to higher highs in the game, but instead it simply lead to more frequent lows. If you are playing on a system connected to the internet you have no choice, but to join a connected world (once there you can go into the settings and create a private lobby so you are alone) that can take up to a few minutes to find or create if no one is found. The world holds up to six players, all of which are focused on completing their own individual objectives. I found that being in a world with other players led to some degree of lag about half of the time and being near them often made it much worse. On multiple occasions I tried to bust a player controlled racer and found myself incapable of doing so. The lag made me miss all of my attempts to ram, side-swipe or even land a Pursuit Tech hit because the player had already moved far away from the position I was seeing him in on my screen. I had to disconnect my ethernet cable from my 360 in order to complete the game, since on top of the lag ruining the moment to moment gameplay experience frequent host-migration would screw up the events I was participating in.

            Even when playing offline, NFS: Rivals has its share of technical problems. There are a large number of glitches in the game; such as one area I found (and by found I mean crashed and went flying into) that kills you because it is out of bounds, yet is also a part of the spawning area resulting in an endless cycle of life and death. Other glitches include: the inability to start an event when you drive up to it, starting an event without all of the event vehicles spawning (in a Hot Pursuit as a cop this means the event is unwinnable as you are tasked with busting more racers than are present), the map not providing details on events, the Pursuit Tech ammo counter not dropping or showing that it is reloading even though it is done and lastly, losing control over your vehicle. You read that last one correctly, there have been points where the car won’t start when I press RT and others where the controls stop working while I am driving and strangely even moving in different directions from where I have my analog stick positioned.

            When the game is working and you are racing against the AI or trying to bust them there is fun to be had. The cars control well and have a nice weight to them making the impacts satisfying, but the game isn’t exceptional in either of these regards (or any other really). There are abilities called Pursuit Tech that you can use, which adds some variety from the Kart Racing genre to the experience, but they are not as creative or fun as what you would find in something like Mario Kart. Unfortunately I feel like open world racing games suffer from feeling too repetitive as you are going through the same environment over and over again and the events would be more enjoyable if they were on specifically tailored tracks as opposed to sections of a larger area. This would also allow for new places to open up and excite the player later on in the game.

Another thing that usually excites the player as they progress is the new cars that they unlock. Rivals has a lot of cars, but unfortunately the game basically discourages you from trying them all out. Every time you unlock a new car as a racer you not only have to pay for the car, you have to pay for all the stat and even Pursuit Tech upgrades that go with it. Your fully upgraded starting car is better than the majority of unlockable cars’ starting stats making the investment necessary to put them above your starting car seem like a waste. I kept my starting car until I was a few events from the end because I figured I would need a better car and had unlocked one of the best in the game at this point. Unfortunately, I was wrong because the enemy cars are determined by the vehicle you drive. This means that picking a faster car made my opponents get faster cars, thus eliminating any sort of edge I hoped to gain. This also means that it is a totally viable option to stick with your starting vehicle forever. The only problem is that certain Hard level events will be more challenging because better cars also have better levels of Pursuit Tech. Like I said though, I was able to get near the end before deciding I wanted a better car, as opposed to finding I needed it.

            At its core Need For Speed: Rivals is a good racing game, but not a great one. Unfortunately, that core experience is hampered by a variety of technical and design issues. It is a real shame that the connected world, which what was supposed to be Rival’s biggest asset, not only failed to offer anything of value, but managed to hold back and disrupt the experience of playing it. Even if you are a fan of racing games I think it would be best to just pass this one by.

            Score: 2/5

E3 2014: My 14 Favourite Trailers

Super Ultra Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix Hyper Edition EX Plus Alpha

This trailer just looks super fun and whacky. I love all the homages to Capcom’s past titles. If this was a standalone piece of DLC after seeing this trailer I would have downloaded it immediately.

Kingdom Under Fire 2

The battle in this trailer is mind-blowing. The number of detailed character models all battling and reacting to massive magical attacks is unreal. It says that everything seen was actual gameplay footage. Now that seems a little unbalanced, what with one guy ending every soldier with a single attack, but more than that it seems totally badass. Plus the guy can force-choke!

Tom Clancy’s: The Division

This is an intense, and I would even say powerful, trailer. So far the in-game footage hasn’t conveyed this type of drama or any similar emotions, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is a great trailer.

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Lara Croft went through a lot in the first game, so I am glad that they are going to show that those events still haunt her and that she hasn’t simply brushed them off and become an unstoppable action hero. I wonder if there will even be a single point in the game where you are in a therapist’s office. I kind of doubt it.

Rainbow Six: Siege

The problem with a lot of multiplayer stage demos is that everything works out flawlessly and dramatizes things to make them more compelling than the vast majority of matches would be. With that said, it did show off a number of cool features like the ability to pick where you enter from, setting up defenses and being able to destroy the environment to give yourself or an ally the proper line of sight. I really hope people online are willing to work together and coordinate, so that we can at least have our matches come close to resembling this.

No Man’s Sky

No Man’s Sky presents a limitless universe filled with countless planets all of which are procedurally generated and distinct. I like objectives in my games so just exploring a lot of different places aimlessly without any real benefit or purpose doesn’t appeal to me. This trailer though is so compelling; I love how the music builds as the action escalates and the flying part seems really cool. I also love how you can leave one planet, encounter a group of spaceships and pursue them onto another world without ever having to stop and load anything.

Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain

This trailer is visually stunning and the music fits the tone of the story and the character of Big Boss really well. Kojima has been knocking it out of the park with The Phantom Pain’s trailers so far (they all say that he personally directed them). I’ve also allowed myself to become convinced that the message “Coming 1984” actually means September (9) 8^th (8) 2014 (14). Kojima has said that it won’t be out this year, but he loves messing with people’s expectations and this is the possible date based on rearranging the number 1984 that makes the most sense to me.

Batman: Arkham Knight

Batman: Arkham Knight is gorgeous. The city seems appropriately alive with police cars chasing after criminals as Batman zooms by in his Batmobile, which seems to handle pretty well and just smash through whatever you happen to hit. I like the movement on display, whether it is calling in the Batmobile to show up as you land or ejecting out of it to carry your momentum into your gliding, chaining takedowns or even sliding down ladders and vents everything seems to allow you to get around quickly and with ease. Then there is the Scarecrow section at the end that is properly chilling; it’s interesting how they have changed his face since Arkham Asylum and I wonder if he is working with the Arkham Knight or if they are two separate major villains like Hugo and Joker in Arkham City.

Assassin’s Creed: Unity

Both the cinematic trailer and the in-game one are absolutely worth a watch. As we have seen in the past with previous Assassin’s Creed games, Ubisoft always nails the pre-rendered hype trailer. It is great to see Assassins being badass in the first trailer and then seeing that type of awesome coordination and dominance in the second where people are actually playing.

Splatoon

Splatoon was a wonderful surprise. I think listening to the ideas behind the game and what you can do is really interesting. I would love to get together with a bunch of friends and play this. Also it is great that Nintendo is showing that you can do something fun and unique with a shooter. Not to mention the fact that this is a game that actually makes the screen on the Gamepad a handy thing to have.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End

Uncharted 4 looks interesting, we’ve seen Nathan Drake injured and in trouble before but the title and the dialogue throughout adds an ominous vibe to the whole thing. It makes you wonder if they brought Drake back just so they can end him.

Phantom Dust

I loved the original Phantom Dust, so seeing it again was great and I love the fact that the characters are using moves from the game as they battle. Also as an added bonus I had it pointed out to me that there is a very visible Halo Wars poster in the trailer. Who knows, maybe they are making a sequel.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection

Master Chief giving the Covenant back their bomb is one of the seminal moments in the Halo franchise. It is different in this trailer, but it is cool to see that moment reimagined. Also that it sets up Halo 5 by introducing Agent Locke who is with The Arbiter, whom we haven’t seen since Halo 3, is really cool.