‘Connecting to servers, please wait’, ‘Downloading file from network’, “Finding online match, please wait’. These are just some messages we’ve all seen before and probably do on a regular day-to-day gaming fashion. Virtually every single new game you can find will either have an online multiplayer mode, downloadable add-ons or both. Developers are relying on the online services more and more for their games, but is this always a good thing?
Downloadable content is all the range now in video gaming. Whether it be something as simple as a character costume for your favourite action game or an entire game altogether game makers really do see DLC as the way forward. But is this approach leading to un-finished products hitting the shelves? Last year Capcom released the latest sequel to their zombie shooter series Resident Evil 5, the game was a success and recieved good reviews all around. However, shortly before the release of the game it was announced that a ‘Verus Mode’ would be available as Downloadable Content for £3.99 on the PSN store and whatever that is equal to in Microsoft points. For those who don’t know, ‘Verus Mode’ is nothing more than a cover-up name for multiplayer mode. When I first heard that would will have to pay more cash on top of the game for this I thought it was a joke. For Capcom to expect you pay more for multiplayer mode, a basic mode which should already be in the game and nearly every other game created now, is disgraceful. They must have been drinking milk from the cash cow when they thought up of that.
On the subject of downloadable extensions adding new missions and levels to games is something that I feel needs to be carefully thought about especially if you’re going to change or continue the game’s story. Like me, my cousin is a huge Mass Effect fan, he was actually the person who told me about the game and whenever we meet there’s a pretty safe bet we’ll end up chatting about the series. Unfortunatly though due to where he lives he can’t get a decent internet connection so there’s no way he can get Xbox Live, which means he is missing out on all the Mass Effect 2 content that is forever being added to the Marketplace. Many times my cousin has asked me “What’s the Normandy Crash mission like?” or “Is that new character’s loyalty mission any good?” Luckily for him these missions are more like side quests which follow a linear story and don’t really effect the story. But, BioWare have recently stated they plan to release new missions to download which are going to take place after the final mission and link up the gap between Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 and focus heavily on the story. This means my cousin could be missing out on important backstory when Mass Effect 3 does be released. Of course I could try and explain to him what happens when I buy the content but in Mass Effect, your decisions can make a big different, so there’s a very small chance that what will happen for me would be the exact same as to what would happen for him. When this DLC does eventually happen, I hope that the BioWare will release it on a disc to buy along with the option to download, the same what they did with Dragon Age’s expansion Awakening or Fallout 3′s list of new content. That way both online and offline gamers can go into the end of the science fiction trilogy on the same playing field, and some won’t be missing out purely because of not having an internet connection.
Aside from DLC, a game’s actual online multiplayer mode is something that could be causing the standards of single player slip. Modern Warfare 2 is a prime example of this in my eyes. Although everything from the story mode in the game has been improved; the graphics are brilliant, the action is great, the story is gripping and so on, it’s ridiculously short. I managed to finish the game in just two sittings of playing it which is a record for me, and it wasn’t like I was up all night playing it either, just your basic evening in front of the Playstation. The reason I feel why the story mode was so short is because the guys at Infinity Ward wanted to up their game on the online mode. There’s no doubt about it that Call of Duty 4′s online is the reason why it was so popular and is still played by many to this day, so Modern Warfare 2 had to try and match it, and sadly the story mode had to be sacrificed in order for this to happen. What worries me is will this thing of putting multiplayer over single player become a trend? Are we going to see games that have an overhauled online mode but a short, unfinished story that will be patched up with DLC you need to pay for? As much as I enjoy meeting up with friends and playing other people from across the planet I’d much rather perfer a game where a detailed and fun story is the key. Many of my games I haven’t even looked at the online mode simply down to the fact that I’m hooked on the single player mode. I think I’m starting to become part of a minority with this opinion because almost all of my friends spend their gaming time playing online mode of a game and one goes as far as to say “hardcore gamers only care about online these days.” Personally I think saying that is a bit sad and if that where to happen, it would be the death of video games.
Well, that’s my views on the matter of online in the world of gaming. I’m not saying that online is a bad thing and should be boycotted, I like online and think there is a lot of potential in it. I just want games developers everywhere to be careful when thinking how online will play a part of their product. Think of the people who don’t have the service and don’t let it take over everything you planned to do from the beginning. Hopefully they do already know this otherwise I could be seeing myself going backwards to a simpler time of old-gen gaming when single player was the thing everyone cared about.
Another issue is that I believe company’s rush the games to market without doing proper de-bugging and testing, figuring they can just ‘fix it later’ with patches.
Dragon Age is horribly buggy. In the old days, the game would be ‘closed,’ so to speak, and everything would be set in stone, and it would work properly because there was no way to fix it after.