Multiplayer Gaming by Stelfo64!

(NOTE: Today we have a treat, it's a guest blog by Stelfo64 covering his thoughts on multiplayer video gaming! While I personally prefer playing campaign modes first before even touching the online mode, it seems as if gamers these days are beginning to do more and more online gaming. Stelfo64 plays games online a lot, as do I, though I think beating the campaign mode is more important than just buying a game to play online. But either which way, here is his post, enjoy!)

Stelfo64's back for some more mayhem! Well it has been a while since I have written anything for the Thought Corner and Manga4life has been getting on my back trying to get me to write something else so here we go!

Wherever you may stand on multiplayer online gaming it is impossible to deny that it has dominated the way most people game over the past decade. Gone are the days where you buy a game pop it in the old console and save the princess all by your lonesome. We now can join up with people across the globe and take down 8 other players in team death match or perform a hadoken on some 9 year girl in the United Kingdom who then counters with a 15 hit ultra-combo. Few can deny that multiplayer gaming can be fun as all hell but why is it dominating the video game market and my time so much. More and more people buy games just for the multiplayer, me included. I own the last three Call of Duty games and I have only completed a small portion of the campaign modes and yet I have put in at least 7 days worth of multiplayer gaming on all three of them. When did this happen…not too long ago I would have ridiculed anyone that bought a game and didn’t complete the campaign mode. Don’t get me wrong I still love a great campaign and there are a few titles like the Uncharted series where I just strictly play the campaign and not the multiplayer but it seems that those games are becoming the exception and not the norm for me. So I started to ask myself why I am sometimes obsessed with multiplayer mode and barely give the campaign mode the time it deserves and I have come up with a few answers. First off developers are now putting just as much if not more time into the multiplayer modes as they are the campaign modes and it’s hard to argue with their logic.

First and third person shooters tend to sell almost solely on how good the multiplayer plays and not the campaign mode. That doesn’t mean the campaign can be crap but it doesn’t have to be great to sell the game.  

With the additional attention the multiplayer gets from developers we can now enjoy a high quality gaming experience that is often superior or at least as good as the campaign. The second thing I came up with is that games are too easy these days. Yeah I know there are almost always hard difficulty modes but it used to be that most games were just one difficulty and in the 8 bit era especially that difficulty could be best described as break my controller hard. These days aside from playing on ultra-hard difficulty in the campaign mode the real challenge is in the multiplayer where you are competing against the best gamers on the planet (9 year old girls) who will gladly shove a frag down your throat for daring to challenge them. It is also a measuring stick for how good you truly are (or aren’t), just about everyone can beat a campaign on normal but can everyone maintain a lifetime 2:1 kill to death ratio…I think not. The third thing I came up with is the time factor. As we gamers get older there are more and more things that take up our time so it’s hard to just sit down and dedicate say 2 hours to any game on any given day. We need to get our gaming fix but we don’t have the time so multiplayer fits perfectly in the older gamer’s schedule. Sure you could take that say 30 minutes you have that day to spare and put it towards the campaign mode but that barely puts a dent into most campaigns. Hopping online and getting in 3 team death matches is just much more satisfying to me. 


The last thing I came up with is gaming with friends is so much easier. We can all pop in our game hop online and play with friends and family we have on the other side of the country! Back in the day everyone would have to be in the same house and would have to wait their turn if there were more than 2-4 people playing at a time. As you grow older hanging out with friends in person is just something that you don’t have as much time for. Online gaming allows you to catch up with friends and then take out troop 9 (take that Marines….wait… troop 9 are a bunch or girl scouts…) all in a matter of minutes. I am not saying that I am right and you are wrong if you feel differently but for me multiplayer just fits better than most campaign modes because of all of the things I mentioned. I want to get my gaming fix in with a quality game in a short amount of time while playing with people who are not only friends but offer a challenge. That doesn’t mean I do not enjoy games without robust online modes and it doesn’t mean I won’t be completing game campaign modes in the near future it’s just that online gaming fits my and a lot of other gamers lifestyle better.

 

As always I want to take the time to thank those who took the time to read my blog, it's much appreciated. Also, you can always check me out at www.twitter.com/manga4life as well as TZ and CBR, feel free to say “hi”.

Take care,

Manga4life

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