Synyster Graves

Want to play with friends? Stay at home, you jerk

by on Jan.26, 2012, under Gamer Rages

Yeah that’s exactly what the games industry says to you, the player…

I’m slightly concerned about the way that gaming is shaping up to be. Firstly I don’t see the point of the information on the reverse side of a box lying to you telling you that a game is 2-4 local co-op when it’s frankly not. This was one of the main reasons I actually went out and bought Red Faction Armageddon, because the back of the box says 2-4 co-op, saying nothing about system link. But with the lack of games supporting split screen gaming like on the Playstation 2, I can’t but worry for the way that the games industry is going.

"Co-op 2-4" player it states, when you CANNOT play 2-4 player co-op locally...not that the box states you can't

Personally I like playing co-op games, it’s much better than losing your temper against jerks online thus playing together with your friends is way more fun, and ultimately social. However, if you want to play with your friend sitting next to you, you just can’t do that. The only way to play the best games with your friends is for both of you to stay at home and interact over Xbox Live. For me this is ludicrous.

I’m still seething mad that I purchased Red Faction Armageddon and the concept was sold to me on the fact that I saw 2-4 co-op on the box and when I tried to play with 3 other friends over the weekend, there was no way that this was possible. I consulted the rear of other games I own to see if I was going mad and sure enough the details on FIFA11 and Perfect Dark Zero, which I know for a fact support 4 player co-op, were written in the same way as RF:Armageddon, yet did not support co-op. Since I’ve opened the game and put it in a console, I cannot now get a refund for the product being grossly mis-sold to me. If this is indeed a typo, rather than false advertising, then I want to know why was this product not recalled because the box is incorrect. Perhaps this was intentional to sell more copies? I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m now stuck with a game I bought for the sole purpose of multiplayer, being stuck with essentially ANOTHER single player campaign to play through. If the game turns out to be as good as Red Dead Redemption, then I will be satisfied. I doubt it though.

Which brings me onto the next part of the games industry’s attempts to abolish having friends. I read that the new Xbox 720 is implementing a mechanism to stop the same game being played on another system. This therefore eradicates swapping games with your friends, and taking your favourite game to your friends’ house to play with them, or let them have a go on their own console. This for me is completely senseless and encourages people who enjoy games into being an anti-social recluse. This would eliminate the Used Game market entirely and personally the majority of games I own I get from the used section as I’m unhappy to spend £45 on a new game, especially if I don’t know too much about it.

This implementation of this barring of playing a non-new game is frankly a joke and if this is followed, will be the death of gaming as we know it.

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2 Comments for this entry

  • Whyte Rabit

    It’s ridiculous, the XBox was sold as a social console, especially with the crappy “Kinect” adverts showing happy families playing together. I couldn’t believe we spent the best part of an hour last weekend trying to find a game that all 4 of us could play at the same time… without purchasing 3 more XBoxes, 3 more TV’s, 3 more copies of the game, and a load of networking cables.

    I love the idea of sitting on the sofa with a few mates having a beer and playing through a few games, but no. Most publishers now think it’s normal to sit in a dark dingy room playing BF3 or MW3 on our own a million miles from any other human.

    “You can play online against each other” I hear you say, well yes you can, but that’s a little more anti-social than sitting next to each other having a few beers and a chat. Plus; the Rock Band voice servers just pain don’t work, and I’ve been trying for a good 12 months now to have a “chat” session or a “party” session on the XBox with Tribal, and still no luck, because the MicroShit servers are so fucking obscure they only seem to allow chat connections between players if both players router model numbers have a 9 in them, it’s a Sunday, and there’s a W in the month.

  • mattyrasker

    Consoles are dying. Next gen this year will be the last. Then its services like OnLive that will take over. Shame as split screen is very cool, but yet as you point out, its not as common any more. Shame 🙁

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