In today’s world of internet and text messaging, face to face interactions are no longer necessary and game developers think the only form of multiplayer should be through an internet connection. When I was a kid in elementary school, some of my best memories were picking up a Super Nintendo game at Blockbuster, like Battle Toads and Double Dragons, after school on a Friday, having a couple friends over to spend the night, and playing games until we fell asleep. Back then, any game that wasn’t an RPG, you could safely assume it was more than one player. Even some RPGs were two player, like the Lord of the Rings on SNES or Secret of Mana.

Today is a much different, and much more frustrating story, where a trip to the local video store can take more time than expecting, sifting through the small, mostly rented out section of video games, searching for one that both you and your friend can play. I was สล็อต pretty surprised the other day when I picked up Need for Speed: Undercover and I saw that it was only one player. One player? I never saw one player racing games until the next gen consoles of PS3 and XBOX 360 came out. Need for Speed had what I believe to be one of the best racing games, Hot Pursuit, and my friends and I in middle school played that game for hours in two player mode.

I scratch my head as to why game developers these days limit offline gameplay to one player, because there seems to be a mixed message going out to gamers; the Wii purports multiplayer gaming and playing with friends, games like Rock Band are more enjoyable with other people, but other games require you to log on to play against other people. It is much more of a hassle trying to get friends together at the same time to play an online match in something like Call of Duty or Halo, especially since people have jobs at different hours, or classes, or have different systems (some of my friends still play Dreamcast). Sitting there and watching your friend play a game is boring; taking turns and sharing is for kindergarteners, so it just perplexes me that game developers would give the online multiplayer experience priority as opposed to encouraging a friend to pick up the unused controller next to you. When I play something like Call of Duty, it isn’t long enough to warrant calling my friends to get a match going, and since highschool is over, people aren’t sitting around and playing their consoles all day. People have lives, so when a friend is over and you want to check out the new game you got, it should be at least two player so both people can enjoy it.