All by myself...2011-04-05 13:47 GMT
Whilst lounging on my living room sofa the other night, it occurred to me that we've really got it easy nowadays when it comes to social interaction. I hate to wheel out the classic 'when I was young' line (mainly as it saddens me that I am now old enough to do so without it seeming incongruous), but think about it for a second.
When we were kids, if we wanted to talk to a friend we had two options: a phone call, or a meeting at the local sweet shop to buy comics, cans of cola and those sour strawberry lace things that stripped a layer off your tongue. You'd only find out about peoples' happenings each morning in the school playground, often leaving you with tense evenings at home wondering how your friend was doing in the local conker tournament, or if you were the only person who couldn't get their head around a particularly tricky piece of Maths homework. You had to make an effort to keep yourself in the loop.
Fast forward to 2011 and we're taller, (probably) fatter and now wear bags under our eyes as badges of honour. We're also constantly bombarded with society, whether it be through Facebook, Twitter, Skype, MSN o
r good old-fashioned emails. It's something that rings true with this wonderful little hobby of ours as well; whereas we used to have to make some sort of arrangement for multiplayer fun, now we find ourselves in a position where selecting to play a game in offline single player mode is something the developers only threw in as a token afterthought admist a baffling selection of online modes.
Not only that, but with the invention of Achievements, Trophies and the like our gaming history and capability is on display for the entire world to gawp at should they wish. Gone are the days where you could spend five hours repeatedly failing the last stage of Sonic 2 (er, not that this happened to me of course...) before going into school the next day to boast of your amazing feat of completing it within 2 hours, or claiming that you went through Street Fighter 2's Arcade mode with perfect victories at every stage when in fact you ended up getting your arse handed to you by Blanka in the very opening battle. No - there's no place to run and hide now, unless you go to great lengths to cover your tracks.
Perhaps the saddest side-effect of this explosion of convenient network gaming, though, is that it's taken away one of the greatest pleasures we had: the local multiplayer session. Who remembers crowding round a 17" CRT, desperately trying to see the quarter of the screen that your Goldeneye multiplayer character was active in? What about the old push-and-shove distraction tactics during numerous Mario Kart Grands Prix? The tension being shattered by an almighty roar when you scored in the last minute to win a nerve-jangling ISS Pro tournament amongst your buddies? Golden moments indeed.
Even when consoles were beginning to embrace network play things could still be a rather more close-quarters affair. On one memorable occasion a chum of mine bought over not only his Xbox and a copy of Ghost Recon: Island Thunder, but also his rather ungainly television set in order for us to have a co-operative campaign. Lugging that lot around was not the work of a moment, but hey - once we were all set off we went, televisions back-to-back as we swept and cleared our way through terrorist strongholds, yelling instructions and warnings across the void as we went. It was teamwork at its finest, and all the better for being there in the same room as each other.
Fast forward to 2011 and we're taller, (probably) fatter and now wear bags under our eyes as badges of honour. We're also constantly bombarded with society, whether it be through Facebook, Twitter, Skype, MSN o
r good old-fashioned emails. It's something that rings true with this wonderful little hobby of ours as well; whereas we used to have to make some sort of arrangement for multiplayer fun, now we find ourselves in a position where selecting to play a game in offline single player mode is something the developers only threw in as a token afterthought admist a baffling selection of online modes.Not only that, but with the invention of Achievements, Trophies and the like our gaming history and capability is on display for the entire world to gawp at should they wish. Gone are the days where you could spend five hours repeatedly failing the last stage of Sonic 2 (er, not that this happened to me of course...) before going into school the next day to boast of your amazing feat of completing it within 2 hours, or claiming that you went through Street Fighter 2's Arcade mode with perfect victories at every stage when in fact you ended up getting your arse handed to you by Blanka in the very opening battle. No - there's no place to run and hide now, unless you go to great lengths to cover your tracks.
Perhaps the saddest side-effect of this explosion of convenient network gaming, though, is that it's taken away one of the greatest pleasures we had: the local multiplayer session. Who remembers crowding round a 17" CRT, desperately trying to see the quarter of the screen that your Goldeneye multiplayer character was active in? What about the old push-and-shove distraction tactics during numerous Mario Kart Grands Prix? The tension being shattered by an almighty roar when you scored in the last minute to win a nerve-jangling ISS Pro tournament amongst your buddies? Golden moments indeed.
Even when consoles were beginning to embrace network play things could still be a rather more close-quarters affair. On one memorable occasion a chum of mine bought over not only his Xbox and a copy of Ghost Recon: Island Thunder, but also his rather ungainly television set in order for us to have a co-operative campaign. Lugging that lot around was not the work of a moment, but hey - once we were all set off we went, televisions back-to-back as we swept and cleared our way through terrorist strongholds, yelling instructions and warnings across the void as we went. It was teamwork at its finest, and all the better for being there in the same room as each other.
Moving ahead a
year or so and we were both still resisting the onset of the online age, taking Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 3 for one last multiplayer hotseat spin before our looming post-school careers were to make such things nigh-on impossible. Over a two-day Red Bull-infused gaming session we crashed, spun and battled our way through an entire season of racing, with the championship only being settled at the penultimate race. Throughout there was a steady stream of healthy banter, some highly complex strategic discussions (using jelly beans on a table top no less) and countless tense moments spent watching each other doing our stints during each event.
Nowadays of course, the above-mentioned genres are possibly the most popular on any sort of format. Squads of 16 strangers from across the world battle it out in numerous shooters, whilst petrolheads from around the globe regularly meet on the grid for races. All of this is available within seconds of booting the game up, and it doesn't matter if you have company or not. There's no need to get the beers in, no need to lug expensive equipment around and no reason to worry about falling victim to a cynical rib jab just when you were about to win.
For all of the convenience and the reliability we have at our fingertips today, you can't help but feel a little hollow at times. Perhaps it's just a symptom of getting old, perhaps it's just our rose-tinted memories playing a few tricks on us. Whatever it might be, it's clear that multiplayer gaming has shifted a great deal over the past decade, and as good as it is now I wouldn't trade any of the less convenient experiences for the world...
... yes, even the rib jabs. Especially the rib jabs.
year or so and we were both still resisting the onset of the online age, taking Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 3 for one last multiplayer hotseat spin before our looming post-school careers were to make such things nigh-on impossible. Over a two-day Red Bull-infused gaming session we crashed, spun and battled our way through an entire season of racing, with the championship only being settled at the penultimate race. Throughout there was a steady stream of healthy banter, some highly complex strategic discussions (using jelly beans on a table top no less) and countless tense moments spent watching each other doing our stints during each event.Nowadays of course, the above-mentioned genres are possibly the most popular on any sort of format. Squads of 16 strangers from across the world battle it out in numerous shooters, whilst petrolheads from around the globe regularly meet on the grid for races. All of this is available within seconds of booting the game up, and it doesn't matter if you have company or not. There's no need to get the beers in, no need to lug expensive equipment around and no reason to worry about falling victim to a cynical rib jab just when you were about to win.
For all of the convenience and the reliability we have at our fingertips today, you can't help but feel a little hollow at times. Perhaps it's just a symptom of getting old, perhaps it's just our rose-tinted memories playing a few tricks on us. Whatever it might be, it's clear that multiplayer gaming has shifted a great deal over the past decade, and as good as it is now I wouldn't trade any of the less convenient experiences for the world...
... yes, even the rib jabs. Especially the rib jabs.