Coffee Talk #73: Are You Single Player or Multiplayer?

Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, tomorrow’s potentially huge Apple press conference, this excellent “Pants on the Ground” cover, or if Shawn Michaels will end The Undertaker’s streak at WrestleMania, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.

As I mentioned yesterday, MAG is available for Sony’s PlayStation 3 console. A lot of people are into the game simply because it supports 256 players. It’s a notable achievement, for sure, but for the most part it doesn’t interest me. For me, playing is a game is similar to watching a movie — it’s something that I enjoy by myself.

Certainly there are exceptions and I’ve definitely played my share of competitive multiplayer games. I went through a pretty big Quake/Unreal phase and I did have an EverQuest addiction at one point. I definitely enjoy playing cooperative games with a friend too. However, at the end of the day I love story-driven single-player games. When I watch movies at home or in the theaters, I pretty much shut everyone out. When I read comic books, it’s all about me getting absorbed into another world. This is my preference for gaming too.

How about you ladies and gents? Do you prefer multiplayer titles or single-player ones? Are games a solitary experience for you? Or do you enjoy sharing the excitement with a group of friends and strangers? I want to know what you’re thinking (pure energy)!

Author: RPadTV

https://rpad.tv

61 thoughts on “Coffee Talk #73: Are You Single Player or Multiplayer?”

  1. Traditionally I love a story driven one man operation.

    As I've gotten older MP games fit more into my free time; games like MW2.

    I will be very heavily into D3 when it releases but it has the perk of a good story.

  2. Single-player. Although, every now and then you need some local multiplayer to liven things up a bit. A gaming party is always fun… plus, there is always pizza!

    -M

  3. I like a little of both, especially with FPS and sports games. Once, i'm done with the story or season/franchise modes, why not go out there and try to kick butt with what i learned. RPG's and Action games, i like more single player because i want immerse myself more into the story.

  4. @RROD – ya I tend to go for long absences at a time. truth be told I have been on Dragon Age for some time now, damn Bioware for releasing Dragon Age and Mass Effect so close together. I will be working on a review for MAG this weekend so I'll fire her up.

  5. @topic – I'm straight single-player because I love a good story. it's the reason I buy most games.

    Like everyone else I know that multiplayer can be a lot more fun than playing by myself. but I try to only play with people I know. I'm not really in to the matchmaking

  6. 80/20 Single/Multi

    I have always been more of a single player at heart, mainly because I simply don't like unwanted interactions spoiling my enjoyment of a game that I pay for. Playing with friends, like in WoW or Borderlands, is very enjoyable as well, but I have to be able to split off if I want and tackle things by myself.

    Very few competitive multiplayer games really connect with me, the last one that comes to mind is the multi in Uncharted, and I haven't picked that up in probably a month and a half to two months. Probably will for a bit again once I get resituated and get the new skin downloaded.

  7. single player for me….although i waste my time with mw2 once in a while, but asides from that, i waste more of my time with RPG's or other story driven games.

  8. well, it depends on the game

    however, i DO play all the campaigns before i touch the mp, i come for the single player, i stay for the multiplayer

    the only games i really play online at all are buzz! world, madden, and mw

  9. Mostly single player. I like multiplayer enough, but often the other people are either too impatient for me to get the learning curve, or they are idiots that cant keep negative opinions to themselves. Oddly enough, my best online game in L4D was with a bunch of 10 year olds. They had teamwork down to perfection, and helped me learn the game, after the adults kicked me off cuz I was not a good enough boomer…

  11. I am very much in favor of single player games overall. But multiplayer does play a big part in my playing. Not multiplayer online though, something that is difficult anymore to do on a newer console, I prefer to do multiplayer with people in the same room with me. I have Live and the headset, but talking to people on Live and constantly changing who you play with gets annoying sometimes, and I would rather just do a 4 person mario kart race on N64 and see who can get the most wins after racing all courses.

    Single player is more immersive I think, and part of the appeal to video games (for me) is that it can be interactive on MY time. It is no longer my time when I have to sync my playing desires with someone else. I actually get discouraged from playing games that are made, for the most part, for multiplayer. Case in point, I have only owned Call of Duty 2 for the xbox360, none of the other ones interest me based on either a story I'm not interested in, or their obsession with multiplayer (modern warfare 1 & 2). Whereas I am totally in to Mirror's Edge and the FPS single player immersion that I feel when I play.

  12. I am more of a Single Player. I enjoy a good story but more importantly I can't stand how bad other people are at games.

    If at all possible I love to have some Co-Op action rather than multiplayer.

    I rarely do multiplayer at all. The first multiplayer game I was addicted to was Wolfenstein Enemy Territory. After that I didn't do multiplayer again until a little with Bad Company and very little Modern Warfare. I rented Modern Warfare 2 but still haven't got online with it.

  13. @Off topic

    mass effect 2 is the first game since gears 1 that has made me want to get an xbox,

    i hope ea decides to go multi platform with it

  14. @thunder – I think Mass Effect 2 going multi is going to happen, the thing you should be hoping for is that they include mass effect 1 in some sort of Bundle when the PS3 version is released

  15. Oh yeah I should have mentioned, for as much as I hate Multiplayer I just went and rented M.A.G. to try out. we'll see how it goes this evening.

  16. For consoles I tend to be single player, but for PC I play mostly Left 4 Dead 1&2 and Team Fortress 2 online. I play mostly on my PC but own more games for my consoles….. A draw?

  17. @shockwave

    yeah i know, mass effect 1 WAS the only xbox game i wanted…damn bioware, why they gotta have such good games?

  18. Both. You can’t beat a good story in a single player game but I also enjoy playing games online like Madden 10 and MW2.

  19. @Shockwave

    You haven’t been on your PS3 in 23 days. I guess after you get Mass Effect 2 today that will turn into 123 days huh?

  20. I love a good single player game, but I always need to have a break from it with multiplayer. Its like when you go on a long road trip and every once in a while instead of listening to CDS/Ipod you switch over to the radio. Just listening to another persons voice will keep you from going crazy.

  23. @ R Pad

    I disagree.

    John Candy, Mario Lemieux, Molson, Martin Short, Chris Jericho, Terrence (but not Phillip), Stu Hart & family, Todd McFarlane, Tommy Chong, Diana Krall… the list goes on and on.

  24. @MAG

    I am glad didn't want to actually PLAY MAG. I rented this game and put it in my console an hour ago and I am still downloading and installing crap for it. Thanks Sony hope it ends up worth it

  25. @MAG

    After all the updates and installs I get "We're sorry, but the MAG servers are currently down for maintenance"

  28. @Arguello

    Krewe de'Drewe back in Miami baby!!!

    @Rpad

    Who is Zoe? Not that chick who made AC huh? She is terrible.

    @Slicky

    LOL

  29. You would think that Sony would have upped the bandwidth for mandatory updates….

    One advantage of Live…even if it is an update for a single player game and you have a silver membership.

  30. Zipper is saying the servers are down for a server-side patch. And that it needed to happen sooner than anticipated (since the servers goes down every m-f 2a-4a anyway). They said it will be back up by 7pm pst.

    This all only affect players who were not already logged in. If you were playing and it went down there isn't supposed to be an issue.

  31. @Slicky

    That game is crap then. Who the hell shuts down servers for two hours 5 days per week? Should just take it back and get your money refunded or store credit lol. The beta left much to be desired.

  32. @MAG

    Well the servers came back right when they said and I have been playing the hell out of it. It is fun. Not enough time to get far enough into it to give it a verdict though. Have to be higher leveled to be a commander and to unlock more styles of missions.

    As of right now I intend on buying MAG after my rental runs out.

  33. @Nightshade/Mass Effect 2 – Wow. Just Wow. Glad to see I wasn't the only one up in the middle of the night playing lol. They really out did themselves with this one.

  34. I'm more single player myself – Multiplayer for me is generally MMO's. And I won't be in one of those until at least December of this year. Other then that I occasionally do the multiplayer thing on LBP and Fat Princess and rarely Soul Calibur IV but I don't play the latter much anymore. And since I really can't get into shooters, the rest just isn't for me ^^;

  36. @Larcenous: Yeah, I'm pretty hooked. The first Mass Effect was my favorite game of this console generation, and I'm gonna be fairly sleep deprived for the foreseeable future playing the second one.

  37. Agreed on Mass Effect – it is blowing me away so far. I haven't figured out how to obtain my armor and weapon from the Eb pre-order yet. I did, however get the Blood Dragon Armor which is sick, I just wish you weren't forced to wear the helmet always

  38. My only real nitpicks at this point are the load screens (which can be epic in length at times), and the planet scanning (which can get very tedious). The combat is much improved though as is the issues with texture popping. And the story so far is very good.

  39. I know, it's funny people complained about the elevators when really they were more entertaining than load screens. I do like the mini-games for hacking and such.

    I think my biggest gripe with the story so far is that they chose to name Martin Sheen's character The Illusive Man… I just want to laugh anytime someone says it, kinda takes me out of the moment

  40. @Shockwave: Have you read the two novels? The Illusive Man was a major player in the 2nd book.

    Yeah, I never minded the elevators for the most part in the first one. The exception being the one in the Normandy. The new hacking minigames really are and improvement over the QTE's in the 1st one. I usually just used Omni-Gel to open stuff instead, even if it was a waste.

  41. @Nightshade – I haven't read them, I probably could but I don't read a ton.

    I used Omni-gel in the last game too, after my first run it felt the supply of it was endless. The elevator in the old normandy pissed me off too but now there's 4 decks and an elevator ride between each one. navigating the ship between missions to talk to everyone won't be quite as easy as "the camp" from dragon age. haha. although I must admit the new ship is pretty awesome.

  42. @ Nightshade386 and Shockwave562

    I just about cried when Joker showed up after the "crash". Out everyone on my ship, Joker is most important to me. Did either of you notice the picture frame in your new room on the Normandy? I thought it was a very nice touch to your ME1 play though.

  44. @Sandrock – agreed on the picture, I wonder when/if I'll have a chance to run in to that character. SPOILER: it's good to have Joker back, though I didn't expect him to die, Seth Green isn't the voice talent you kill off in 10 minutes.

  45. @Shockwave: Depends on who it was I believe, but I'm pretty sure that all surviving members of your crew from the first game at least make an appearance. I'll say no more, because I'm a lot farther a long than you are in the story. I basically played from 2pm to 2am yesterday.

  46. @Nightshade (Spoiler to others): ya it seems as much, I had only about 4 hours to play last night. mostly I checked out the Citadel, met with Anderson and did the Normandy crash site mission which I thought was pretty cool. it had the right mood for a memorial.

  47. @Nightshade386

    I'm on the Arcangle mission. Out of curiosity, is he who I think he is? I would actually be disappointed if it isn't because the way that mission is set up, makes Arcangle look like a B.A. and would make him seem like a much better B.A. than he was in ME1. He came of as winey in ME1 to me.

  50. @ME2 – The only problem I have so far is having to hold thr trigger down for mining. It would have been much better as a toggle. Having been taught by people that were almost china farmers in wow, resource mining is simply something that has to be done as soon as I enter a system, so I spend a huge amount of time both restoocking my pods, and holding down that damn trigger lol. I am enjoying it more then the Mako though.

    Love the story so far, can't wait to get back to playing it.

    Another thing that really impresses the hell out of me are the news reports in the Citadel. Having imported my Shepard, literally every mission I did has been mentioned or hinted at in the news briefings, with other little easter eggs thrown in for good measure (Helena Pierce, I am talking about you!)

  51. Nice! He's killed a dozen people so far and I haven't even crossed the bridge yet. Be glad to have my old {SNPR} back.

    {this is my spoiler tag.}

  52. @LarcenousLaugh

    I my only beef with scanning is that the courser is so freaking slow. Hopefully the patch that as it just takes to long to scan. The first planet I scanned had like 20+ mining points and finding them is very time consuming.

  53. @Sandrock – I got across the bridge and up the stairs and the moment I saw him, I yelled, OMG it's {SNPR}. My friend Andrew, who is playing it on the PC, just sat back and laughed.

  56. The fact that no one knew where he went and no one knows who Arcangle is, was just enough for telling for me to connect the 2. Once you look at their goals and methods it becomes a little obvious. Still a B.A. way to bring him back. And I bet I know why he disappeared and why he has a team, just not what he is after. Sad that his team didn't make it though. I'm sure he is upset about that, and probably hurt his self confidence… again…

  57. @Smartguy Hmmmm, how to describe Zoe…. She's my former nemesis, sparring partner, co-host at Yahoo! Reset, and travel companion. For years she's been one of the best parts of my life.

  58. @Sandrock – He is certainly putting a more bad-ass foot forward this game though then the last. I can't wait to find some of the other ones.

    Did any one else get the Moneypenny/James Bond feel from the Kelly/Shepard interactions? I mean, she is your secretary, is it to much to ask for her to simply climb under the desk? And do you think Ashley/Liara would understand?

Comments are closed.