Small LANs (or local area networks to the less tech-savvy) and splitscreen cooperative play are slowly dying. Today’s gamers are just different in a lot of ways. They’re much more demanding of their games graphically. They’re much more demanding of a linear, more streamlined fashion of gameplay. And their multiplayer requirements are all large-scale.
Increasingly, the idea of inviting their friends over for a nice splitscreen 4-player romp on their Xbox 360 seems like a foreign concept. Many log on to a console gaming network, find their friends online and play from home on their own screen — or turn to the Internet in lieu of friends to play with. PC gamers, who used to lug their gaming rigs to and from each other’s houses to participate in small-scale LAN parties just a decade ago, increasingly use the Internet to connect to their friends, or, like console gamers, turn to it for allies and opponents.
Sadly, the more gamers I meet here at the University, the more I hear they have never been to a LAN, and that their multiplayer experiences are limited to MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games like “World of Warcraft”) or the Internet skirmishes like one may find in “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.”
The togetherness and bonding that occurs between four to six gamers sitting in a living room or basement overdoing the Dew and Cheetos is something these gamers are missing out on. Seeing the expressions of laughter, joy and disappointment on the faces of their comrades in real time, without use of a headset, is a completely foreign concept. They have never had the joy of cooperatively beating a “Super Mario Bros.” game, cooperatively beating “Halo” on legendary, or more recently, sitting right next to someone and leveling up together in Borderlands or strategizing to conquer your enemies together in “Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3.
Small-group gaming has the same social benefits board games (yes, remember those old things with actual cardboard and plastic pieces?) do in creating a focal point for socialization and togetherness. How much fun would the game of “Life” be if your opponent was halfway around the world and wasn’t talking on their microphone, as is common in today’s anti-social Internet gaming world? All the tools are there; there’s just no communication.
It’s downright good, clean fun for the digital age.
Many gamers even seem to lose all patience when small-scale gaming. They have become so ingrained with their MMORPGs that the idea of slowing down to a cooperative pace is tedious. Their attention spans have grown so short and their need for personal achievement has grown so large that they have become incapable of this old-school experience. In an MMORPG, it is common for players to achieve goals as quickly as possible without even stopping to enjoy what they’ve done before moving onto the next, for fear of being left behind by other players. And when everyone is doing this, it becomes the norm to rush without stopping to smell the roses or even perform basic social graces.
I don’t blame the gamers, though; I blame the games. For a long time, many games shipped without any sort of cooperative mode as the world was completely in love with the online experience, and in making it as massive as possible. If you wanted to multiplay with everyone else, you had to invest the insane amount of time and energy that an MMORPG requires. If you wanted cooperative play, you had to go dust off an old game and try to convince someone to look past its aged graphics.
The hallmark of gaming, which made it so great for so long — sharing it with friends and family — was completely gone in lieu the more robotic and accessible online play. PC games began to ship without LAN modes and consoles games without cooperative modes.
But no more. The industry has realized that we’re pretty sick of the MMORPG inundation, and increasingly its bringing back splitscreen cooperative play modes for consoles and making PC games LAN friendly. Giving power to the players to play on their own networks or their own TVs on their terms.
So while these cold winter months persist and even into the rainy spring bits, stay indoors, but invite your friends over. Sit everyone down on the same couch in front of a single television (or two with system link). Gather ’round the kitchen table with your computers and game, together.
Make gaming social again. Make gaming human again. Bring back those good, clean times when you enjoyed your nerdy, anti-social hobby with other nerdy anti-socials in the flesh. Share a pizza and a pack of Bawls, and when you beat that game on the hardest difficulty together, high-five them. Hard.
Need some suggestions? Check out www.co-optimus.com for lists of the best cooperative games for each platform.
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