Two weeks ago a bunch of us gathered to share in some X-Box LAN goodness, we managed to get about 12-14 people together with 3 tv’s, 4 x-box 360’s, one sweet-ass projector with sound system, and play a bunch of rounds of Halo 3. There was also some Rockband on the large projector, as well as some Smash Bros. Brawl thanks to Richie bringing his Wii along. I only mentioned Halo because it seems, these days, that’s the only game you can reasonably play at a LAN like the one we set up.
During my research to prepare for this LAN I was very upset to discover that many games that are out for the 360 still very much support the ideals of a comptuer LAN, the biggest factor to this is that games like Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty only allow 1 or 2 players to play on system link per console. This means to get a game of 8v8 going, you will need at LEAST 8 tv’s and 8 x-boxes (in the case of CoD4), or at the worst 16 separate tv’s each with its own x-box connected. Sure, I expect this kind of things from a Computer LAN because aside from a game like You Don’t Know Jack I don’t know of any way to share your computer with another player that still allows you to have fun.
With consoles it has for a long time been about the option of playing with a friend, at first just one other friend and then it expanded to 4 people playing Goldeneye on one tv. This is arguably one of the most iconic parts of playing a console, especially with games like Smash Bros. where the screen is shared (rather than split screen), which serves greatly to add to the excitement. But when it comes to the latest in next-gen console LAN gameplay, pretty much every popular game in today’s market EXCEPT for Halo 3 destroys this very concept.
Many of us had great hopes for gripping 8v8 battles in Team Fortress 2 that were dashed when it became apparent we would have to go through almost as much effort as having a full-on computer LAN party just to experience it. Again my initial reaction to this whole ordeal was disappointment that they had strayed so far from what a LAN should be, but after thinking about it I realized that it was a lack of progress which was the problem. Many of these games and consoles are developed very much in the old mindset of a computer, they aren’t take full advantage of what a console can provide in a system link situation. I really hope that in the near future a large number of games with great multiplayer modes are adapted so that they can take full advantage of split-screen play and allow people to more easily (and therefore more frequently!) gather for LANs and enjoy the purity that is knowing that your enemy can actually hear you cussing them out from the next room.
I think they shy away from doing split screen on games because it looks so limited when compared to playing solo and having the whole screen to yourself. I’ll be honest, I do not have an Xbox or PS2/3/etc. I’ll probably have to turn in my gamer identification for admitting that… but to get back to the split screen thing…
I remember playing Army Men 2 on the N64 and that was split screen for multiplayer games. With 2 players it wasn’t bad, one got the top the other player got the bottom and it worked alright. However, if you added a third or fourth player in there it got to be that you could not really see what was going on. With 3 players it was unfair to 2 of them because the top half of the screen would be split, while the third player got the entire bottom half. Granted, since the N64 I think the average television screen size has gone up substantially. Then a 32 inch tv wasn’t bad, now when looking at TVs in the store, a 32 looks so tiny compared to the others on display. I’ll have to hook up the old N64 and give Army Men 2 a replay to see how split screen action looks now I guess. Right now though, I should stop rambling and get back to work.
I definitely agree that split screen play, particularly 3-4 players can become hard to see. What I was commenting toward is that there isn’t even an OPTION for doing split-screen so that players with larger tv’s or projectors can play with 4 people per console.
Another thing that I forgot to mention is that a large percentage of X-Box games cap multiplayer at 8 people, which really surprises me.
For those that did a lot of LAN partying on older consoles, how many games for the original Xbox supported more than 8 players in multiplayer mode other than Halo and Halo 2?
I can’t think of others off the top of my mind but I’m pretty sure there were others.
I’d wager it was more a marketing decision than being stuck in a PC Lan mindset. If the number of players per console is limited, that forces the sale of more units in order to play locally. It also drives people toward their online services.
If you split screen you have a good bit more to process on the same box.
If you can sacrifice some graphics (which is what H3 did) then you can afford to do split screen.
A lack of dedicated server means that player caps are going to be lower over LAN play.
I think the whole no split screen sucks but at the same time, playing with a tiny corner of a screen sucks too. I think they are dealing with the reality of TV size and hardware limitations. Immediately leaping to the conclusion that it is entirely profit driven isn’t really fair to the game development companies.
All of what you said is definitely valid Josh, but I don’t think that any of that should have stopped them from including the ability to do it in the games. If players really want to play a huge LAN game they’ll readily deal with worse graphics and small screen size if they need to.
My intended point was that these things should not exclude split-screen capability, instead if they were a problem then it would be the player’s decision to use more tv’s rather than being forced to do so.
@Kameron: I agree with you %100.