"Honey let your cousin have a turn at playing the game"

[Linkabel]

Since the dawn of time, video games have been a multiplayer experience. Now, I'm sure there's lots of people out there that prefer playing alone, but at one point or another everyone has to play video games with another person.

And that my friends is what this topic is all about, the multiplayer experience.

Admit it, you probably given a control that doesn't work to someone you don't want to play with so they'll feel like they're playing.

Like the title of the thread, probably the first multiplayer experience you ever had was with family. Family visits and there's always that one cousin that doesn't own games or really sucks at playingthem. You're playing the last level or a crucial part of the game when your mom/dad comes along and says, "let your cousin play too." You hesitate for a moment but you know that you don't have a choice. You pass the controller and get ready to see your efforts go to waste.

"I was just about to rescue the president's daughter in Nights into Dreams"

It pains me to say this but I was that little cousin back in the day. I didn't own a gaming system back in the early SNES/Genesis days. It wasn't until the mid 90s that I got a Genesis and started getting the hang of playing video games, but until then I went to my cousins' house to sabotage their games (it didn't help they wouldn't teach how to play them right...bastards).

But once I got a console I started with playing others which brings me to another important aspect of the multiplayer experience: Playing video games with your friends.

"Do you think Mario ever has sex with Peach?" "Hahaha wtf dude we're not even playing Nintendo right now dumbass!.....but she probably has sex with Bowser"

Throughout the years I had many friends that I would play games with (even up to this day). To me it's probably the best multiplayer experience out of all of them. You probably have the same tastes, you say the stupidest jokes while playing and if they have other consoles or different games than you it allows you to have a better gaming experience. It's not without its negatives though, like letting him borrow your game and then giving it back in a worst shape than it was. But hey at least you have a good time.

Now the next multiplayer experience is playing with your significant other.

"So if I win will you wear that Bayonetta costume I got you?" "Okay Brian but if I win will you unshackle me and let me return to my family in Russia?" "Haha of course not Britney" "But my name is Natasha..." Shhsh you silly goose.....shhh."

Now this is like playing with a friend except that there can be kissing or "other" things involved while playing games. I have found, and maybe this is just me, that things can get very competitive. Probably the game where me and my girlfriend play the most is Super Smash Bros. Brawl. And I'm not kidding when I say that we talk smack to each other while playing. Regardless it is still fun but it's more hard to pick games to play that she actually enjoys.

"I play mature games not kiddie games like Mario and Sanic, MOM where are my hot pockets?!"

Probably playing online is how people get their multiplayer fix nowadays. For the most part I have a lot of fun playing online with others. You meet players that either are so bad it makes your little cousin seem like a pro (or it's really your little cousin playing, who knows) or it seems like you're playing against Skynet or something. Either way you have more of chance to meet players with different skills from all over the world that in the long run help you improve your own skills. But man do people talk a lot of shit online, which I'm not going to lie sometimes is fun, but sometimes people do cross the line....a lot Overall I don't really let it get to me because once you meet that other player that actually gives you a challenge it's a lot of fun.

So how about you guys? How have your experiences with playing with others been? Do you like playing alone or with others? Any particular multiplayer experience you remember the most? Is it more fun playing with friends, partner, family or online?

Discuss.

Edited February 15, 2013 by Jaime Bond

[Jeffhog]

Me and my brother tend to get at each other's throats after prolonged exposure to Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

 

'sides, you think "Let [xx] play too?" is irritating? Try when you're told "Let [xx] win" by your folks. MAN, FUCK THAT SHIT.

 

Though that happened way often in my younger days when he was more inexperienced. My little bro by 2 and a half years is as good as me in most titles now, so competitions can get heated but fun as hell at times!

[Swiss]

I truly miss the days of everyone sitting together in the same room playing crazy games like Smash Bros., Mario Kart, Goldeneye etc. Online gaming's kinda taken that away, with most developers not even including split-screen options nowadays. I love online play, don't get me wrong, but it's just a different experience entirely when you've got everyone in the same room to laugh and have fun with. Also, me and my girlfriend play Smash Bros. pretty regularly like you, despite her not being a very big gamer at all. It's just so fun and again, such a different experience to playing online or with friends.

 

Probably why I'm not sorry Rayman Origins didn't include online, probably the most hilarious experience I've had with a game. It was just perfect.

[Cola]

A word of advice, don't put my brother and me in the same room with a Mario game. Any multiplayer one - New Super Mario Bros, Mario Party, Mario Kart, Smash Bros.

 

Trust me, it's not pretty. We either:

 

A ) Laugh like idiots and say the dumbest things

 

or 

 

B ) Laugh like idiots as we slap each other around and yell curse words

Edited February 15, 2013 by Colasaurus Rex

[D-Metal X]

Being an only child, I never had the issue of having to share my videogames with any siblings, but on the other hand I was always playing alone unless my friends were over or I was at one of their places. My parents never really were into video games, so I didn't play with them either, really.

I absolutely agree with the notion that playing with your friends, or rather with someone else in the same room in general, is a great experience. My friends and I, when we meet, usually end up playing some multiplayer game like Brawl, Mario Party, Halo, or Playstation All Stars. Hell, even playing against people online, but with your friends on your team (like in a 2v2 in All Stars) is awesome, cause you can vent with them if some BS happens, or laugh together at someone raging out, or just kick ass together. It's definitely fun.

Local split screen is awesome for the experience, no doubt, but I like online for the fact that I don't need to have people in the room to play multiplayer.

Edited February 15, 2013 by D-Metal X

[Wraith]

Smash bros? intense? Pffffhahahahahahaha, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

 

 

hoooooo man, this game. THIS GAME. You haven't seen true sibling rivalry until you see me, my brother, and my sister playing this game. Hell, Smash Bros would actually get us to laugh at each other's failures and help one another out. But here? Nope. Every man for himself. Even if we were on the same damn team we would screw each other over. This would usually result in insults, fighting, screaming, and my mom unplugging the gamecube in the middle of it all.

 

It was beautiful

Edited February 15, 2013 by Marth

[Old dead account]

My experiences with multiplayer have ranged from sort of Ok to fucking terrible with a massive skew towards the latter. Basically, in my childhood back in the days of splitscreen multiplayer, the only person I had to play with was my brother on Mario Kart or DK64 or Smash Bros and other games like that. He was only like 5 years old so naturally he would never be able to beat me and when he lost he would always start crying and my mom would get mad at me and force me to lose on purpose... so there I was always playing against him and losing on purpose because he'd start crying if I left. No fun whatsoever. Thankfully, I had one friend that liked to play Smash Bros and that was fun. I personally never liked splitscreen play, it was just a dealbreaker for me, Your screen is really fucking tiny or stretched making it hard to focus on what's going on and the other screens often veer your attention away from your own. Smash Bros has been the only pre-online multiplayer that I've really enjoyed. Fuck splitscreen.

 

Now for online it's also pretty suckish but for a different reason. Games like Left 4 Dead or Halo are really fun if you have the right people in your party. But the problem is that unless you know somebody with the games you like, you have to find a server with anybody. These random people can be people that legitimately play the game for the love of social gaming with no splitscreen and generally are great team players. But of course, there's bad apples too. You got screaming 8 year olds that should not be playing that rated M/T game, testosterone filled tough guys that scream and cuss at anyone that kills them, micspammers, people that just sit there and don't do anything, people that purposely kill team players just to troll the friendly-fire enabled sessions, idiots that are on the same team and are just shooting each other to look like noobs, people that just downright suck, hackers, and just plain retards that you don't want on your team making the legit players hard to find a lot of the time.

 

So yeah, multiplayer has never really been a fun experience for me. That's why I don't give a fuck about whether or not nintendo games have online play or not, I just don't do it. Also, maybe i'd have gotten more into it if my old friends' idea of a good time in multiplayer wasn't 82 hours of CoD and Halo, which can barely keep my interest for more than an hour at a time

Edited February 15, 2013 by Prince Solaris

[Da Blu Hedgie]

I can relate in every way except the significant other part.

 

Me: I'm playing sonic riders, yah sonic riders!

Sister: I wanna play

Mom: [insert my name here] let your sister play too.

Me: sigh fie

Me: I get 1st,

Sister, bump, bump, bump, at last 10th, "Yah I won!!!"

She was like 3 or 4 btw, so everything was winning.

 

Now when we got a wii, my sister wanted to play sonic unleashed, but she couldn't read and got frustrated, then there's the luma you feed in mario galaxy, oh she loved seeing how fat they get.

 

The last time she touched one of my games (well all the wii games are both mine and my sister's (well minus m-rated games of course))

was donkey kong country returns...she had no idea how hard the game was.

 

Now about the offline perspective, oh man I played 7 player online in halo reach, in the same house btw, they had 2 xboxes.

Of course I always love playing co op w/my best friend (and that's the way he prefers it offline).

 

Now my first online experience was just confusing, I was borrowing cod: blops from a friend and went into some random lobby, I found no enjoyment and was completely confused.Oh wait that was 2nd, halo 3 was my first, w/friends multiplayer online is very fun, offline however, ehhh it depends, I just HATE playing with (Im) mature kids!!!!

[Tracker_TD]

"I was just about to rescue the president's daughter in Nights into Dreams"

SOMEONE needs to play NiGHTS again. XD

 

Anyway, I'm JEALOUS of the people with brothers arguing over Smash Brothers. My brother DESPISES Smash Brothers.

 

...and any game that isn't GTA IV. :<

 

Regardless, my mum will still demand I give him a go of any new game we get, even if he can't be arsed. But eh. The rare moments when he DOES play competitive multiplayer (he sticks to games like LBP2 for MP-games like SA2 and Smash Bros. he despises, as mentioned) are very fun indeed.

[Vertekins]

I remember many years ago when I would play Sonic 2's 2P Special Stage with my sisters and they'd get pissy every time I jumped in front of them in order to snatch the rings. Those levels became a game of "out-jump the other to get the rings" XD Very riotous!

[Linkabel]

SOMEONE needs to play NiGHTS again. XD

I played the special edition

I remember many years ago when I would play Sonic 2's 2P Special Stage with my sisters and they'd get pissy every time I jumped in front of them in order to snatch the rings. Those levels became a game of "out-jump the other to get the rings" XD Very riotous!

This reminds me of a friend I had that owned all the nintendo systems but somehow always wanted to come to my house and play the Sonic 2 multiplayer. He never won once.

[Blue Wisp]

I'm too alone in real life so I almost never play Multiplayer offline. But when I do, I play it online.

 

I remember the first time I won a Free-for-All match in Black Ops online. It felt awesome. And I love playing online in Guitar Hero, it's a great feeling.

And I love losing my cool when I lose online. c:

[EmmBee]

I very distinctly recall my neighbor wanting to play my SNES all the time when we were younger. I think both of us were around five at the time, and I had games like DKC3 and Super Mario All-Stars (which she called "Mario Magic" due to Mario being a magician on the cart). When I played DKC3 with her, she always wanted to play, and surprisingly she never caught on to how she wasn't actually doing anything when she was pushing buttons on the controller. When I switched between Kiddy and Dixie, she thought she was the one doing it. A few years later, after she moved, I learned that she was more than likely mentally challenged, so... doesn't feel too good now.

 

Recently, I lived in an apartment where I was above a single Mom with two kids. One of them loved Mario Kart Wii, and I once left the Wii unattended for a few minutes while he was around it. When I got back, I discovered the Nunchuk's analog sticks had turned orange. This was because for the last hour, he had been dipping his fingers in ketchup and licking it off.

 

Needless to say, I wasn't too happy.

[Autosaver]

It's really hard to play multiplayer games locally for me.

 

1. PS3/360 experiences can be "too deep" for a lot of people, unfortunately.

2. Developers are opting for online multiplayer instead of local.

3. I have to play a Nintendo game for local now.

[Speederino]

Admit it, you probably given a control that doesn't work to someone you don't want to play with so they'll feel like they're playing.

 

...Guilty as charged.

[Red]

The only multiplayer problems I had was with my sister during Sonic 2. We would always fight over who was Sonic and who was Tails. No ONE wanted to be Tails back then. D:

[Meow]

Man my cousins and I never had this problem.

Everytime I went over to his place we'd put in Digimon World in the PS1 and take turns playing the hell out of that game. Due to the nature of it it was rather easy to give eachother advice and co-operately play through it despite there only being one controller. It was a lot of fun back then haha, and since I had an N64 and no PS1...when he'd come over he'd bring the PS1 so we could continue playing it at my house! DIGIMON WORLD ALL DAY EVERY DAY. I have no clue how that game holds up now though, its been a looong time.

 

As for a recent co-operative experience my sister and I beat Fez together. I was playing it solo but she got interested and so while I manned the controller we put our brains together and 100%'d that, though we had to look up a couple things here and there in order to 'figure the game out' near the end. A certain monolith relating to a heart comes to mind here, if anyone knows what I am talking about . BTW FEZ IS AWESOME GET IT.

Edited February 16, 2013 by Charlie

[iDEATH]

Never had many fights playing games with my brother as a kid, there would be mini fights though when we played streets of rage together because it was so easy to hit each other.

Speaking of streets of rage, did anyone else ever use the two player option to cheat? You could start a one player game with two controllers and play until you were nearly dead on your last life, no continues left, press start on player 2 and drop in as player 2 with full lives and continues two levels from the end of the game.

Also in the first SoR if you played on two player there were two bosses at the end of the level but if you played one player then dropped in player 2 there was only one. I miss those little hacks

 

These days I can't stand multiplayer, I ate the online experience where you only ever go up against people who have never played the game in thier lives or done nothing but since launch day and are at the top level and basically unbeatable.

I'm also sick of paying so much money for a game only to find the game itself is tiny and you're basically paying for an online "experience" you don't want...

[Crash]

I've never really had much fun with it. My brother is a sore loser so I don't bother.

 

My younger cousin.... he always wants to play Star Wars: Battlefront 2! It's so annoying, yes it's a good game but he makes me hate it!

[JezMM]

Mollfie and I mostly just play co-op platformers with each other, though I tend to play them single player first to get a lay of the land. In the past year we've had a blast with Rayman Origins, NSMBU and Kirby's Adventure Wii. Outside of that the majority of my multiplayer gaming is just Left 4 Dead online with friends these days.

Now the next multiplayer experience is playing with your significant other.

Now this is like playing with a friend except that there can be kissing or "other" things involved while playing games.

 
Pffffffffffffffffft fuck that I'm playin' Kirby.

Edited February 16, 2013 by JezMM

[Linkabel]

It's really hard to play multiplayer games locally for me.

 

1. PS3/360 experiences can be "too deep" for a lot of people, unfortunately.

2. Developers are opting for online multiplayer instead of local.

 

You know, I'm getting really disappointed with many games now being exclusive online multiplayer. The other day I wanted to play Anarchy Reigns with my girl only to find out that it wasn't possible.

[MizukiMoon]

I'm an only Child and have never had any friends. I've only ever played 2 player once, and that was last year when my friend brought round his Wii controller and we played Mario Kart Wii. So. Freaking. Fun. Oh, and a couple of times with friends at arcades.

 

So yes, it kinda sucks to be me D: Being on your own 24/7 means you miss out on awesome things like these. 

[Skyward Sword]

You know, I'm getting really disappointed with many games now being exclusive online multiplayer. The other day I wanted to play Anarchy Reigns with my girl only to find out that it wasn't possible.

I really agree with this. It seems that developers are now completely ignoring playing a game with actual people you can see instead of people you've probably never met in real life. It really takes away some enjoyment.

 

I will say that on-line multiplayer is great, especially as playing single player can sometimes feel quite lonely. But playing local is a much more engaging experience to me.

 

Just recently I played Nintendo land with my dad and I didn't really enjoy it as he spent all the time complaining about the game, and he is the only person I live with or have over to play games, so it's hard to have local multiplayer.

 

So, as a whole, nothing beats the enjoyablilty of playing local multiplayer, but I can never find the time to do so. With on-line, it is much more convenient for me.

[Jango]

No online multiplayer will ever come close to the fun that is playing with someone on the same couch. I almost never played with my sister, since she's 8 years older than me and not really a gamer, but she enjoyed watching me play Crash, for example. I do played a lot with friends.

 

Since I always was a Sony boy, I can't relate with your Mario Bros fun-times, although I hope some other people here can relate with me. My most fun experiences came from the good old PS1. I had a NES and Genesis before it, but I only played these consoles alone, since well... my first console to have 2 controller was the PS1 ^^ Anyway, most of my friends had the PS1 as well, and we had lots of games together. The most played were Crash Team Racing, Marvel vs Capcom, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (all of them, most of times THPS2), Dragon Ball GT Final Bout, Vigilante 8 (fuck Twisted Metal) and Digimon Rumble Arena. 

 

I could tell multiple stories from each game, but that would take too long I just remember how mad my friends got at me in CTR, because they could never beat me >:]

Also, how cheap was Dragon Ball GT Final Bout. DUDE HOW YOU DO THAT KAMEHAMEHA AND HOW DO YOU REPEL ATTACKS? I remember my friend hiding the controller under his t-shirt, so we couldn't see the command he was inputting to do it, that bastard. He only knew it because his older brother taught him

Not to mention the fun of giving silly names to the character's special attacks on MvsC

In Tony Hawk, we had our own way of playing. We didn't play score attack, we play tag. Since the characters in Tony Hawk could slap each other, why not? I remember the good times of going to a really high or hard to reach place of the level, and standing there 'till the other player arrive, just so we could jump out in the last second laughing.

In Vigilante 8, who don't remember the horror when that giant meteor hit the ground, and that GIANT ALIEN ANT WITH LASERS start to wreck the shit out of the level and players? 

And there was Digimon Rumble Arena. This game, oh thissss game. DIGI---VOLUTION. I remember almost slapping my friend sometimes, my God he was really cheap playing that game, you could barely stand when he was with Black Wargreymon. But we all knew that Renamon was the best character, DIAMONT STORM.

 

And of course, all the burping, swearing and even farting during the game sections. And my mom bringing snacks and cake during critical moments in the middle of the game XD

 

Edited February 18, 2013 by Jango

[C.J]

My experience with multiplayer has been pretty fun. Even though I only have one sibling who is older than me, I was still able to experience it when friends came over or if I went over to their house. There were also times where my sister played with me. I have to say it's a pretty great experience, whether you are working together as a team or against each other, it's still really nice to see everyone enjoying themselves, laughing together, encouraging their team or raging after losing then demanding a rematch. I also used to play with my some of my family members and we'd get really competitive when playing games such as Mario Kart, Sonic and Halo.

 

I remember playing DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 2 a lot with both my cousins and friends. We were hooked on the PS2. For most of the time, I would end up winning and my cousin would get annoyed then he would quickly be in denial about losing and everyone ended up laughing at the end after seeing his reaction. Even when I was in primary school, whenever it was "Toy Day" almost everyone would bring different types of gadgets such as the Nintendo DS and play together in the classroom. I have to say, I really miss the experience of everyone being together in the same room. It made the atmosphere  in the room more alive while the game got more intense.

 

 

Admit it, you probably given a control that doesn't work to someone you don't want to play with so they'll feel like they're playing.
 

 

*Raises hand*

 

Yeah, I'm guilty of doing this.

Edited February 18, 2013 by C.J