What Are The Best Multiplayer Games of All Time?
GamaSutra asked the question, "What are the most important multiplayer games of all time (excluding MMOs)?" Unfortunately, there was apparently no good answer, so instead they simply posted some of the highlights from the reader survey. Most were predictable. The highlights include Bomberman, Quake III Arena, Quake I, Battlefield: 1942, Tribes, Wii Sports (I wonder how much of that is hype and newness... though having played it I agree it's a lot of fun), Goldeneye 007, Double Dragon II, Ikari Warriors (yay for the old school arcade games!), and Pokemon.

I would question some of the choices (I always thought Quake III Arena was eclipsed by both Unreal Tournament and Team Fortress), but that's a pretty solid list.

Now, as for *me*, what games would I put on the list? Well, I don't know if I'd call them the most important, but as to my favorite (and most significant in my life) non-MMO Multiplayer Games of all time, I'd say:

* Joust - This was perhaps the most brilliantly-designed multiplayer arcade game of its time. Some waves rewarded you for cooperating - some encouraged you to battle each other. The game is still amazingly fun, over two decades later.

* Gauntlet - This was the first real cooperative multiplayer videogame I ever played, and I remember the experience fondly. We dumped so many quarters into the machine one night at the pizzaria... and didn't regret one cent.

* Doom - The game that launched a thousand LAN parties. And it allowed cooperative play, which was even cooler. Ah, back in the day where you could get away with locking the framerate to the network update speed, and ignore standards to use port 666...

* Mechwarrior II - It was never intended to be played over the Internet, but we used Kali to do it. The game had a great following, and people invented meta-games to layer on top of it to keep it fresh. Such was the love the fans had for the game.

* Twisted Metal - Is it vain to me to say this? One of the coolest things working on Twisted Metal is that its creators were also its biggest fans. We had an awesome time playing this game, even if we were paid to do it (though sometimes I think we ended up playing it far beyond what we needed to in order to test changes...) It was Street Fighter in cars and 3D environments, and we just had a blast with it. Jet Moto was almost as much fun to play as we built it, too, but I'll leave it at only one SingleTrac game :)

* ATF Gold: Playable over the Internet, this game had a pretty large following for a while. A hack allowed people to fly every one of the 80 or so aircraft in the game. The game wasn't the most realistic sim of all time, but it captured the essence well enough, and unlike most other flight sims of the era, it was very stable online. We played it a ton at work. And, like Mechwarrior II, the fans were legion and created meta-games around it.

* Rainbow Six / Rogue Spear - The "Thinking Man's First-Person Shooter." We mostly played it as a LAN game... the first game had some real lag problems over the Internet. But both coop and competitive, we'd have an awesome time, every time. We'd rarely use hostages in our coop games - it was all us versus insta-death potential. Especially when George would use his SAW to shoot out all the windows on our approach... he says he just couldn't help it.

* Void War - More vanity. Like Twisted Metal, it's my baby. I suspect there have been very few online matches of 6 or more players at a time, but it is just phenominally fun. Asteroids in 3D multiplayer. My favorite trick (which works against the AI, too) is to fly the Nighthawk directly at an obstacle while my opponent is chasing me, and then hyperspace out at the last second. If I'm lucky, my opponent is still alive after crashing, but with depleted shields and armor so I can easily pick him off when I get back.

* Unreal Tournament 2004 - I'm not a big First-Person-Shooter fan. But UT2004 took everything that was awesome about the original and UT2003, fixed whatever it was they screwed up it UT2003, made it more awesome, and added more game types. And they brought back assault mode!

* Starcraft - I wasn't quite so fond of the game in single-player, but the fact of the matter is it's phenominal in multiplayer. And I mean "phenominal" - the thing is still selling nearly 10 years later, and it was a legitimate phenomina in Korea. That's not just a good game, there.

* The IL-2 Series - This includes IL-2 Sturmovik, Forgotten Battles, Pacific Fighters, and several expansions (I'm anxiously awaiting IL-2: 1946, which is supposedly going to be out in the U.S. any day now, but I think I may have to order an import from Canada or the UK). While ATF: Gold was impressive for having over 80 flyable aircraft with a hack, the IL-2 series (with all of the products joined together into one mega-pack) features over 220 flyable aircraft, and over 300 total aircraft, all modeled with painstaking realism. It's simply the ultimate World War II flight sim. And it's rock-solid in multiplayer. Granted, many of the flyable aircraft are variants of each other, but the game is so well modeled that the difference of a bubble canopy, more horsepower, and slightly bigger cannons makes a huge difference. If you are a hardcore flight sim enthusiast, you probably already have these games.

* Neverwinter Nights - We spent about 4 hours a week playing this game multiplayer for a couple of YEARS. That's the most time I've spent in a non-MMO multiplayer game EVER. While far from perfect, the ease in which you could create new modules, and the increadible "DM Mode" resulted in a game that allowed people to literally create the type of game they wanted to play. You had persistent worlds, role-playing oriented games, hack-and-slash action, and more. I haven't tried NWN2 out yet (I'm waiting for the patch situation to work itself out, and for people to give the thumbs-up on multiplayer), but I'm hoping it will offer even better.

* Guitar Hero II - particularly cooperative multiplayer. At the end of a difficult song, you can't help but want to high-five your partner for the both of you helping each other out to pull it off.

Okay, I *know* I've missed a few good ones. And while I loved Diablo and Diablo II, the multiplayer experience for me usually sucked unless I was playing ONLY with friends. So... what are the multiplayer games (non-MMO)


(Vaguely) Related Cheap Thoughts...
* Game Moments #16: Mechwarrior II
* Why Cooperative Multiplayer Is The Best
* Ah, a LAN Party
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Labels: Flight Sims, Guitar Hero, Mainstream Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:35 AM (Permalink)