Muramasa's Coop Trials and Tribulations

[Inaaca]

Jun 1, 2009 7:43:39 GMT -8 Kuat said:

Jun 1, 2009 1:53:03 GMT -8 You probably can't touch this. said:

^ ha ha

Actually I do have a lot more time that I thought before the trip. A week or more. We should form a Clan and pwn noobs on teh internets (mura now thinks I would make a terrible professor).

We should get to kicking ass and chewing bubblegum, then.

Well, you have the latter covered.

[Muramasa]

- Mario Kart Wii -

Hey, who wouldda thunkit? This is pretty strange game to talk about co-op, but just today I found out that Mario Kart does indeed have a co-op aspect. That's pretty outlandish to me. In this author's opinion, Nintendo has a tendency to do the strangest things when it comes how they handle multiplayer. For a while now, most of their 1st party games are solo affairs, with Metroid, and Legends of Zelda, and a few contemporary Mario games being about one guy or gal going in to get business done.

With the few 1st party multiplayer titles, it wasn't really coop in the strictest sense. Heck, it could barely be considered "2-player". In the ever classic Super Mario Bros, players took turns. I mean, it's kinda cool that one player could go through a level and then another player would try their hand at it upon the former players death. (especially handy if you had a nice older brother) But let us be honest here. Calling that co-op is like watching your friend play Doom, cheer him on until he gets killed, then shoving him off the comp so you can try it. The idea of side-seat gaming can, in a strange sense, be considered a form of co-op, but that is a discussion I wish to save for it's own article, so it's best get back to the side point so I can get back to the main point.

The earliest 1st party co-op title that I can think of is Kirby Superstar. In that game, Kirby can convert an enemy he swallowed into a CPU helper, who can then become controlled by the second player. The more recent ones that did include 2-player co-op are Super Smash Bros. Brawl, with it's Subspace Emissary game, and Super Mario Galaxy. (kinda) Actual co-op in 1st party Nintendo games seem to be rather few and far in-between. In fact, now that I think of it, their entire view multiplayer in general seems to be more malicious in nature.

This may be picking cherries, but let's look at it this way. What are Nintendo's prominent multiplayer games? Super Smash Brothers, Mario Kart, Mario Party. I'm not even going to touch the sports game spin-offs. Sub-space Emissary aside, a lot of these games revolve around being a douche bag to your friends. Their online isn't the most stable thing in the world, and in press conferences and interviews, they stress that you should be playing these games with your fellow couch dwellers. Hell, in the latest Nintendo E3 conference, they practically encourage doucheness in the New Super Mario Bros Wii game. They may as well change the console's name to Wii: Hate Each Other.

You may be wondering why I decided to go at length to talk about Nintendo's idea of multiplayer, when this article should be really about Mario Kart Wii. I've been trying to get my word count to around 1,500, so if case you are wondering, that is my answer. Honesty is the best policy I say. No way. Oil of Olay. Oi Vey. Big Tray. Okay.

With that over with, I'd like to say that the co-op in Mario Kart Wii is pretty retarded. It's basically the battle game, but in teams. The overall feel is actually sorta Team Deathmatchish, more specifically Halo's Team Deathmatch, for reasons I can't really seem to describe or comprehend. The funny thing about this game, I actually decided not to join in on this particular affair, it was much more therapeutic to watch the carnage. Vampyre, Vivi, and Shortperson were placed in a team with 5 other bots. Their opponents were 8 CPUs of the finest quality. The goal of the game was to obtain the most "hits". Not actually deaths from losing balloons, but the most hits. Some random things seemed to change the numbers as well, but I really couldn't figure out what was going on, nor did I particularly care at that point. From what I could gather from the mess, items from the same team have no effect fellow team members, but that doesn't stop CPU's from spewing out shells in random directions, confusing the crap out of you. A mini map located in the center of the screen does allow you to track teammates as well as opponents who happen to be close enough to teammates. Shortperson had a bit of trouble finding her targets, a lot of her turtle shells went in AWOL as they speed toward the horizon. Isn't funny how fast a turtle shell goes without the turtle in it? Otherwise, she fired it off at teammates. Vivi seemed to have a lot of trouble navigating the maps themselves, which really lead to him getting lost. If not, he was getting hit by all sorts of pot shots from enemy CPUs. I was not paying too much attention to Vampyre but...he didn't seem to be doing to bad. We could at least say that he wasn't vocalizing his complaints very often, or I wasn't listening to them.

Ultimately, I can say that this little aspect of the game is giant mess. Only one session was played and if you're curious, they lost 1-2. It's a very brief look at this part of co-op in Mario Kart Wii, but then again, this game wasn't really based around car combat. Twisted Metal this game ain't. On the other hand, what was the other alternative? Play the actual game and get pissed off at each other? Or play with each other and get pissed off at the game?

Addendum: Official word count shows that I'm about 800 words. That's my average, but it looks like I have to start adding more extraneous crap.

Addendum to the Addendum: I added a few more lines, and I'm up to around 900. Slowly climbing that ladder.

[Inaaca]

I think the main problem was shoving so many players in such a tiny space. The result is simply chaotic gameplay. I barely even bothered trying to look at the minimap, because it's impossible to take it in at a glance. I preferred it back in Mario Kart 64. The stages were larger (i think) and the players fewer. At least you had a moment to even consider strategy in that scenario.

[The Dankness]

Funny thing about the battle mode in Mario Kart, I've enjoyed it less and less with each game that's come out.

Played practically nothing but battle mode in the SNES and N64 ones, but now I never touch it.

[Captain Galaxy]

I think I remember actually having fun on the Gamecube one.

[Inaaca]

Yeah, even though I never owned the SNES Mario Kart, I had fun in battle mode on that, too. I can't really say anything on the Gamecube one, since I never played battle on that.

[Captain Galaxy]

Jun 17, 2009 12:37:39 GMT -8 Inaaca said:

Yeah, even though I never owned the SNES Mario Kart, I had fun in battle mode on that, too. I can't really say anything on the Gamecube one, since I never played battle on that.

That's interesting, cause I played it at your house. Hmm.

[Inaaca]

The only time I ever remember playing Double Dash was on Brian's copy at one of his house parties... and that was racing. I never owned it.

[Captain Galaxy]

Jun 17, 2009 13:04:36 GMT -8 Inaaca said:

The only time I ever remember playing Double Dash was on Brian's copy at one of his house parties... and that was racing. I never owned it.

Hmm... may it was the 64 version we played then.

[Muramasa]

- Resident Evil 5 -

It was certainly a bit late, seeing as Resident Evil 5 was released around the middle of March. Still, I suddenly had a strange urge to replay a bit of it again, and I was fortunate enough to have my brother play along for a bit. Most of this article will be written retrospectively though, as I was really into it more when it was released.

This wouldn't be Capcom's first attempt at making RE more cooperative oriented. Unless there's a game I don't know about, the first co-op game title probably goes to Resident Evil: Outbreak. I've never played it, but from what I hear, it seems like an excellent concept that was way before it's time; it looks like a pretty genuine RE experience from the eyes of a average joe stuck in the middle of the Racoon City outbreak. The most common complaints I seemed to hear were lag, poor matching making systems, slightly cumbersome interfaces, and terrible (if not a complete lack of) player to player communication. If it were remade and revamped today, I think it would probably be more better received. Almost all consoles are online capable, and heck, most console games get ports for the PC as well. With next Resident Evil becoming a reboot, they may very well decide to revisit this idea.

Resident Evil 5 plays pretty much like Resident Evil 4, but with another person who follow you around. Like, imagine if Ashley had a gun and could shoot. This pretty much the core idea of the experience, so if you didn't like Resident Evil 4, you probably won't like this game. Well, that's not quite true. Like an emotionally unstable person, Resident Evil 5 is complicated. There are times when it's good to you. Other times, dealing with it is a very different kind of nightmare you won't forget. You've probably heard these complaints before: playing the game in single player mode is a significantly different experience than playing with a live person. The situation improves tenfold if that person is right next to you. I could go on to talk about how stupidly the AI handles itself, but I like to think of it in this context.

First, I think it was an intentional ploy by the developers themselves to force players to seek out human partners. There is something lacking in the AI partner that allows one to received the necessary gratification from screaming at it. That is to say, I don't feel productive when I curse obscenities at Sheva. Keep in mind, the character herself isn't the issue, I just get frustrated at the AI choosing to prioritize grabbing ammunition as opposed to shooting the monster. This takes me back to when Kuat and I would shout at our troops in Company of Heroes, but where were doing it together, so down the line, it becomes an experience to look back and laugh at. When you're alone, it's just kinda sad. But, by making the single player frustrating due to AI issues, it certainly gives one reason to seek out a competent player. Heck even an incompetent player would do the trick, the game does get that much more fun with another person.

Second, reviewers who complain about that AI haven't played Phantasy Star Portable yet. Now that is some frustrating artificial stupidity.

Like any good co-op game, Resident Evil 5 is all about direct communication and the sharing of an experience. I personally feel that this game is a couch game, that is, a game that should be played with friends within the same vicinity. Don't get me wrong, the game does a great job sending the necessary information to both players in an online game, but it lacks a certain variable in the equation. I feel that it is the bonding that is created is kinda similar to watching a scary movie with a friend who gets scared easily. It's a bit more fun. A sort of understanding is created because both players are kinda in that position at times, so players end up sharing an experience. It's hard to explain in words sometimes.

My brother and I have gone through this game about two times formally, in normal and veteran mode. And we probably spent countless hours in Mercenary mode as well as replaying certain chapters (in part for collecting cash and points, as well as just for the heck of it). One thing that Resident Evil 5 offers that no other co-op game offers at the moment is the satisfaction of working with another player to beat snot out of Majini using the context-sensitive melee moves. Leon is a cool guy, but seeing Chris sock a 10 foot colossus in the face is very gratifying. It's even better when your pal sets up an opportunity to do that for you. We tend to communicate fairly well, though admittedly there are times when both of us fail to properly vocalize an important observation. It happens to all partners-the tongue becomes a bit tangled, the mind is a but numb from sleep deprivation-when a simple thing like "hey, watch out behind you" becomes "umphablah, HOLY SHIT!!". My brother and I have a tendency to focus more on flashy teamwork sometimes, just like the aforementioned tag-team combos, we sometimes subconsciously try to do things that just look cool or silly, like cross sniping and firing at the same time, or ganging up on a single guy and knifing him. It's funny how violent that statement is out of context.

All in all, it's a fun game to come back to once in a while. Just don't play it alone. It's frighteningly frustrating solo.

[Captain Galaxy]

I think I played most of it solo in order to finish some of the S rankings after I had finished it with a friend online, and it was actually pretty good, but that was mostly because at that point AI Chris had infinite ammo, so that completely corrected the single player experience.

I've played it with friends on and off-line and communication was the same in both experiences, the only advantage would go to the online-experience due to the fact that you get a whole screen to yourself, and boy does that improve gameplay experience a whole lot, not to mention it just looks infinitely better and doesn't lag.

Either way that you would still write about Resident Evil 5 even though it has been nearly three months after its release just goes to show how awesome that game is. Probably my fourth favorite of this generation. Oh yeah, not to mention that you can still go back to it, I just wish there was more reason to, they definitely need to make extra characters available as DLC for mercenaries.

[Muramasa]

Did you guys have microphones online?

[Captain Galaxy]

Yeah.

[Muramasa]

Alright, fair enough. I've played online without microphones, and even if there was one, I think the experience is better when a person is right next to me.

[Muramasa]

-Trine-

I have a tendency to re-read my own reviews. While it may sound a bit narcissistic, it does help me to get into the groove of writing more of these little articles as well allowing me to see what I wanted to improve on in my writing. Two things never seem to change though. One is that I tend to stray off the topic more than not. The second is how I tend to write these prefaces that aren't really relevant to the article at hand. Another theme that occurs a bit, but not really common is when I start off an article with "boy, it's been a while since I've done this."

Boy, it's been a while since I've done this. Honesty though, it's really due to the fact that I've haven't played any new coop games until now. It has been a real good year for fighting games though so I've been playing a ton of those. And the coop games I have been playing are old ones that Kuat and I felt like revisiting. It was good to get back into SWAT 3 and Age of Mythology , and playing it again helped me see why I loved them so much (admittedly not Age of Mythology as much because I am slowly becoming shooter-tard thanks to Uncharted 2)

I had been looking forward to this title for a while now. Trine doesn't really innovate much, but I was expecting a classic platformer with major emphasis on physics puzzles. That's pretty much what I got with this game. The premise of Trine is that you're 3 characters trapped in one body. Throughout the game, you have to switch between the 3 characters depending on the circumstance of the puzzle, as well as your preference in solving the puzzle in order break out of the Trine. And in doing so, you'll fulfill a prophecy and stop an evil. Pretty simple stuff.

The game's story is charming, if rather cliche, but that is not the point. It looks fairly interesting and colorful and lively from a aesthetic point view. Unfortunately, I hope you like skeletons, because 97% of the enemies just consist of some skeleton variant. If you're really lucky, that skeleton might have a helmet. Music is nice, voices get the job done, can't say much about the sound department either. The game does run pretty well though there are moments of intense lag, which haven't prevented my brother and I from playing the game, but it's there.

The game is fairly interesting in that the characters do handle pretty differently from each other. The warrior beats things up, defend himself with his trusty shield, and can lift objects. Rouge has a bow and arrow and a grappling hook. And the wizard can levitate objects and conjure boxes and platforms. It seems rather underwhelming when I describe it, but in the context of single-player Trine, it works as it offers the player certain degrees of options and approaches to solving the puzzle. Multi-player on the other hand is a different beast. If one player controls each character, certain limitations become apparent. Warrior isn't the most agile warrior, so he has trouble navigating certain kinds of jumps. Rouge can get around pretty easily with a grappling hook, but arrows aren't that great for close combat, and truth be told, she isn't a real credit to the team. Wizard is great for the team. But he has almost zero offensive capabilities. One could try dropping objects on enemies, but his telekinesis is kinda clumsy and a bit unreliable.

In multiplayer, the nature of the game chances rather drastically. Instead of one person controlling three characters, each player controls their own character. My brother and I decided to tackle this challenge. He remained dedicated to the rouge while I jumped back and forth between warrior and wizard characters. Yeah, it was kinda cheating, but I liked to think of it as if the wizard had a second personality he called upon when the moment was dire. An Amazing Steiner. Once again in multiplayer, the coop aspect does shine when things work right. While I said before that rouge isn't that much of a credit to the team, my brother was the primary offensive force for our sessions, with me going warrior every once in a while. Not only that, his use of the grappling made grabbing treasures (their locations being kind of a puzzle in itself) feasible, if not just easier. Unfortunately, my brother and I did tend to use the "Rouge Plank Surfer trick" more often then we should have. The puzzles are simple in concept and design, and allow for a decent degree of freedom as to how one solves it. And the moments of combat are kinda nice, especially when I'm playing as a wizard as I have to either improvise, or find some way to stay alive while my brother takes care of foes. There are some moments where combat can get boring, or become unwanted because they are bland and uninteresting. They are skeletons with swords. They rattle toward you and slash at you. Some have bows. It's like this through pretty much the entire game.

On the brighter side of things, Trine does well in making me feel cool at times. Nothing brings a smile to my face more than dropping a plank on top of a hard to reach skeleton, or turning a dangerous set of jumps into a very casual bridge made of magically conjured boxes and planks. While combat can be dull, it is satisfying to bash a skeleton with mace as the warrior. And even Rouge has her almost Spiderman like moments at times.

Overall, I did enjoy the game. Haven't played it all the way through as a single player game, but not a bad choice as a multiplayer game. And it's fairly cheap too. One could spend twenty dollars and worse things.

[Muramasa]

-Left 4 Dead-

This is the review I can't ever seem to write. I actually got this game the day it came out, back in November of 2008. The game is fun enough, and I've played it several times between the year, but every time I attempt to write an article, I either lose motivation, or something just interrupts me. I've attempt to write this article about 7 times.

With Left 4 Dead 2 being released, perhaps getting around to playing the game again was timed well. I have no intention to buy the second game at the moment. Honestly, I want to have a little more time to enjoy the first game, and I say that the sequel did seem to come out a lot more sooner than necessary (though I won't go as far as boycotting Valve for it). Secondly, while I think Left 4 Dead is fun, it's not fun for a prolonged period of time. I remember when going through commentary mode in the game, the developers talk about how you can come back to the game after a long period of not playing it. I find this to be true, I still like playing in when I come back after not playing for a looooooong time. I can't play this game for that long a period.

Honestly, Left 4 Dead doesn't do anything particularly clever on a co-op front. For the most part, the extra person really is an extra gun. That being said, the game does a few things that foster the need to have competent team mates around. A few annoying things. In addition to the infected, there are specialty zombies. The thing is, most of their abilities usually revolve around incapacitating you in some way. For example, the smoker will use his long tongue or intestine or whatever the hell he uses to grab a player and drag that player toward him. A hunter will pounce on his prey, pinning him to the floor while he rips them to shreds. The specialty monsters really force players to stay close and try to be aware of their surroundings. In addition to that, AI partners do well enough, but sometimes they lack a bit of strategy that can be integral to surviving the campaign. Most basic problem is that sometimes, it's essential to ignore some enemies and run to the safe house, and the Partner AI will just keep on shooting. AI partners also won't pick up pipe bombs and molotovs, which are very helpful (unless you have grenade happy friends).

I've played this gaming session with a lot of people, though I'll probably focus on Sunday night's game, which consisted of Dex, Kuat, my brother and I. In the roles of Bill, Louis, Francis, and Zoey respectively, we stomped through a ruined highway, a decedent lumber mill, a sorta abandoned church, to a house on a river and shot, punched, burned, and blew up any infected we could find. Given that we had four human players, a fairly rare event, we decided to try our hand at Advance mode, as Normal mode would probably be too easy with Dex (as you may remember, our resident First Person Shooter guy) around. For the most part, the journey was pretty smooth...until the finale. The last part too us 5 tries to complete, though this was because we were re-discovering ways to handle the mass of monsters efficiently. It eventually lead to us hiding in the closets until a Tank came around, in which case we scattered. Of course "finishing" the campaign is sorta misleading. In the end, the only person who made it out alive was Bill.

Overall, we did have a pretty good time. I can't and won't be able to play it for long however. The game is most fun with 4 people, and we generally don't have that much people available to play all the time. Not only that, but there are only 5 campaigns, and after a while, they do get dull, even with the AI director. But, perhaps we'll just get tired of the game now, and then come back to it at a later point in time. In a way, it's sorta like fried chicken for me. I eat it, and it's good, but I never want to touch it for a while afterwards. And I do eventually come back to eating fried chicken.

[Kuat]

A good summary of how I feel about the game as well. It's like a disneyland ride to me. Sure, it's fun for those five minutes you ride it, but subsequent rides don't add much, and you're good without visiting for a few years. This is the problem with left4dead is the lack of content. Five maps is rather lackluster, even if they are rather lengthy. After you've played all five maps, you've seen all the game can offer. This isn't to complain, because many single player FPSs are like a limited ride: get on, see what is there, get off, reride when the experience will be rewarding again. However, most single player FPSs have the good taste to have a reasonably priced expansion, not a full other game. I'll get L4D2 alright, most likely when it drops to $10 or under, the price it should be now for an expansion.

As far as comparisons, multiplayer team-centric games life TF2 and Enemy Territory for me have vastly more replayability just because there is a lot more variety in what you can do. The L4D guys are identical in abilities, unlike TF2 where playing the same map as any of the classes yields a different experience. To compare it to other co-op experiences, I'd say it's like Sven Co-op: the maps are fun to play, but not the same one repeatedly. I'll compare it against Swat 3/4 as well, in that the swat games also have variability in play styles and objectives so that replaying the same map a few times to reach "perfection" (i.e. no kills, all arrests, no clown car) is a rewarding experience (in a way).

However, of the zombie mods out there, playing as a zombie is great in L4D. Hell, you get variety the human players don't have. Unlike Zombie Panic or whatever the shit that was, I fucking hated that with every inch of my body. Being a zombie was punishment in those games.

[Inaaca]

Zombie mods? You can play a zombie perfectly legit in versus mode. My favorite to control is probably the Smoker.

[Kuat]

Nov 10, 2009 20:51:43 GMT -8 Inaaca said:

Zombie mods? You can play a zombie perfectly legit in versus mode.

I know that. I was referring to other zombie mods for the source engine, like again, zombie panic.

[Muramasa]

Nov 10, 2009 20:26:47 GMT -8 Kuat said:

However, of the zombie mods out there, playing as a zombie is great in L4D. Hell, you get variety the human players don't have. Unlike Zombie Panic or whatever the shit that was, I fucking hated that with every inch of my body. Being a zombie was punishment in those games.

Hey, I think Zombie Panic was pretty fun...if you weren't a zombie.

Yeah, it kinda sucks that all the characters are inherently the same, though I can understand why they choose to approach the human characters in that manner. With only 4 characters and no duplicates allowed, it would suck if you got stuck with a character you didn't want.

Well, next time we do play the game, we probably should consider playing on versus mode, but all of us stick to the same team. It'll probably increase the longevity of the game by a bit.