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Posted by: jkdmedia

A little ramble about multiplayer gaming

Please, allow me a few random thoughts about the current and upcoming world of multiplayer games.

But first, a few questions: Do you indulge in multiplayer gaming? What aspect of it do you enjoy the most? Is it the camaraderie of playing a friendly game against people from around the world? Or perhaps you are after the challenge of taking on the world and beating it at a game of your choosing?

The realm of multiplayer gaming has taken on many forms over the years. There are the innocuous forums of card games, heavily populated, and always capable of providing some entertainment and light conversation. Expand that with casino type games that offer a bit more of a challenge, and can sometimes serve more like a dating zone than a gaming zone.

There are the sports games that really test physical reflexive response and dexterity, games that may also be a bit on the cerebral side, but really need you to react quickly. Take NASCAR for example. You never really understand just how good some people are at gaming until you take a run around Talledega, only to be the one lapped by cars flying by with precision, daring and incredible speed.

There are some that like to hustle newer gamers, pretending to be a first-time player, when their actions betray their words. But those sand-baggers are in the minority.

Of course, you have the games that really play well either through an Internet hook-up, or a LAN. Role-playing games like Baldur’s Gate, or adventure RPGs like Diablo II really advance the possibilities of the genre.

You have the “king of the hill” style of gaming, such as Team Quake, and a host of other products that purport to advance the game, but are stuck in the realm of doing precisely the same thing that every other game is doing. Personally speaking, when a game is little more than capture the flag, it doesn’t offer the expansiveness and joy that its single-player adventure holds.

The world of the massively multiplayer game took a bit of a dive when The Fallen Age fell through. It appeared as though Neverwinter Nights was supposedly destined to be a MMO but was downsized to a single player game with multiplayer capabilities. (In case of that title, it doesn’t matter, it should still be a good game.) Ultima Online was supposed to evolve into Origin, a game with an incredible vision, but that also went down the drain, and instead Ultima Third Dawn brought some new experiences to a game that was, at its core, the same old game.

There are some newcomers on the multiplayer front, games like Roboforge and Evernight, that offer combat or Risk-style conquer formats. And the war-gaming faction is still going strong. When strategic war games moved to the PC, it merely expanded the possibilities of a gaming culture that has been active for a long, long time.

But wait, what’s that on the horizon? A game in which you race for pink slips? An outer space exploration and colonization vehicle? Yep, in the next few months, titles like Motor City Online and Earth and Beyond.

Earth and Beyond is a Persistent State Galaxy game played exclusively over the Internet. Players can mold the universe. If you create or destroy something, it stays that way, even after you’ve logged off. Motor City Online is a return to the era of hot rods and muscle cars. Earth is a product of Westwood, while MCO is an EA Games release. Both will be at the leading edge of MMO games that are arriving prior to the holiday season.

What makes these games so interesting is that they are offering players the opportunity to indulge in a multiplayer setting that evolves and changes. There is something to do, rather than killing the same thing over and over. Whether it is winning anc customizing cars, or civilizing a universe that changes as you change it – the possibilities are expanding, and that is a good sign for the multiplayer genre.

Yes, I am tired of capture the flag, or king of the hill. I want my multiplayer game to drown out my dreams with cyber visions every bit as fantastic and real as my sleeping sojourns. And it seems that the world is expanding in that regard.

But let’s return this to the original questions asked:

Do you indulge in multiplayer gaming? What aspect of it do you enjoy the most? What is your favorite multiplayer game? Drop me a line (mikel@gamezonemail.com) to give me your thoughts. If I get enough responses, I’ll include them, along with your name, in an upcoming column.