the Tommy|Zor era

Let’s say I’m sitting here, ready to play Resident Evil 5. So far, so normal. All of a sudden, someone suggests they want to play it with me. What do you mean? As in, I play and you watch, and we take turns?

Multiplayer? What’s this bullshit? A Resident Evil game is for more than one person at a time? Goddamn it, world, why are you doing this to me?

Wasn’t the point of this series that you’re alone and you need to survive?

Videogames have come a long, long way. Now with the advanced graphics, sound, and presentation, they are more akin to movies than anything else. The storytelling sometimes comes dangerously close to rivaling masterpiece books , which is useful, since I’m illiterate. Games are for me, first and foremost, a form of escapism. When I get into a quality game, I am completely entranced in what I am hearing and seeing. Having someone else there cheapening the experience, like reading a book at a party. No, fuck, like reading a book during karaoke night.

I could write an entire book about the feelings I experienced while playing Zelda: A Link to the Past as a child. Years of homing my imagination through books, television, music, friends – all culminated in this videogame for one month. With the vivid, limitless power of the imagination that only a child could have, I set out to play this game and it literally changed my life. Every screen was made into 3D by my brain, and every little 16×16 pixel sprite was right alongside with me. Ever since then, I’ve enjoyed making gaming a personal experience for myself. At the time, multiplayer games (well, 2 player games, mostly) were more of a novelty and were considered inferior, shallow entertainment. They were considered “arcade games” – games that were literally worth 25 cents.

With only Street Fighter II being specifically made for 2-player competition, I considered others to be truly inferior games. Let’s take Bomberman – a classic. 2 player, 4, player, 6 player – I had such a fun time playing it with friends. But so what? I never thought about Bomberman in my sleep. I never woke up at 6:30am on a Saturday to play Bomberman. To me, multiplayer games were just another form of sports – only done with other people because no one could stand all that work themselves. Multiplayer games are a chore – usually full of repetitive, simplistic tasks, usually based on timing or a score. This wasn’t going to transcend other forms of media – hell, it wasn’t going to transcend more than a weekend rental. I won’t even go into what I thought about sports videogames – I always considered them for white trash. Every time I went to a house of one of those backwards-hat, Hamburger Helper eating motherfuckers, it was always NHL ’94 in their Sega Genesis.

The only reason you should ever have a controller in port #2

Thanks to society’s “social movement” of bullshit pesudo-social activities like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Xbox live, PSN, etc; people seem to think that not really being with someone is suitable grounds for being social. Now we can easily play 2-player games with someone across the country, and you didn’t even have to know the person.  The question is, why the hell would you want to? Have we become so insecure, bored and needy that we must interject social behavior into everything we do? Consider this: I carry a cell phone so I can be away from other people, where some people use their cell phone as an extension of, well, damn near everything. Even worse, they pay money to make sure they have their perfect little social lives with them at all times. These are the same people who end up on heavy anti-depressants when real life catches up to them when they end up alone, permanently. Nope, not me! I’ll be the happiest fucker alive, knowing that I finally have the privacy and and freedom to play Super Mario Kart against the computer like god intended. Multiplayer games are bullshit. I hate being distracted by someone else, and someone talking over important parts. If games are now supposed to be like movies, then why does everyone want to talk through them? Shut the fuck up, and let me watch Aeris die. I can’t let you see me cry like a little girl.

I wouldn’t want to be in charge of wiring up these switches. Oh yeah, and these people also smell like shit

For every game system I’ve ever owned, I have 2 or 4 controllers. Who are they for, you ask? Me, of course. Each controller has such slight variances that are custom-suited to a specific application. I had one controller that was used for Super Metroid. Always. Something about the sound of the R button when pushed that was so essential to the game that my other controller did not accomplish. It sounds completely insane and neurotic, but I’d never use the same controller for F-Zero as I would for Super Mario All-Stars. One controller had experience, the experience necessary to win at 2D platformers that the other control simply could not manage. The controller used for 2D platformers and fighting games was always worn out more of the right side of the D-pad, because you’re generally moving right. Yeah, that’s how insane I am.

Now that gaming is beyond mainstream (your grandma is playing, for instance) it’s diluted some of the glory that gaming had. I could never want a grandma imagining that the videogames I play are something involving bowling, or that you have to move your arms around like an idiot. How can I ever possibly explain the nuances of the storyline of Xenogears to someone like that?  How can grandma understand the boss battles of Resident Evil 4, and how the areas are set-pieces, built one for one use and then discarded, never to be used again? It’s the opposite of repetition, but she wouldn’t understand that. How can I get good at something if it happens once? Exactly. That’s why it’s an experience and not a fucking chore. I bet you’re really great at vacuuming the hallway carpet. Multiplayer games are full of repetition, it’s basically their core design element. You’re either killing something, or building something, more often or faster than everyone else, ad naseum. You’re rarely outside those circumstances, and it truly cheapens the thrills you could be having. The games are simply not designed to engage any emotions besides pride and/or anger, and it shows.

Single-player games conjure all sorts of fond memories to me.  When a game is specifically made to invoke an emotional response by way of storyline event or environment, it’s pure magic. Some of the best moments of my entire life are those moments of wonder and amazement, which too many of you will simply not understand because of the games you’ve played. Let’s take Call of Duty 4, for example. I had such an amazing time playing this game, and the storyline and event planning was just supreme. The tension, the visuals, the thrill of finding out what happens next…

…and then I played multiplayer. Some kids ran around calling me a cocksucking faggot while I kept getting shot every 3 seconds. This repeated on and on. I tried different servers, different days. No matter when I played, it was just people in a room shooting each other forever, calling each other awful things (“Dick-licking Jew cunt dyke bitch faggot!” is a common one, and I didn’t even know it was a single term. My mistake.). Big deal. I simply couldn’t justify spending time doing something so shallow, so juvenile. I ended up selling the game for $5 more than what I paid for it, and that was a great deal. Multiplayer did not add replay value to my game, in fact, it left me with a bad taste in my mouth that actually made me never want to play it again. All of a sudden my last memories of the game were not killing the final boss then being aboard that airplane, they were being called a cocksucking faggot while people were jumping around on crates. Hmm.

Putting a fist through my fucking screen because I’m sick of getting shot by some punk-ass 9-year-old Hitler Jr. (not pictured)

Naturally, majority rules, so I have to go back and play old games where they still cared about the person who bought it. Games where the replay value was a great, short game that demanded to be played over and over gain. Alone.

I mean, what are they going to do next, make a multiplayer game with Mario in it that you fight other people, even over the Internet? Insane.

If you enjoyed this article, may we suggest another classic?

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