Sounds like they wrote themselves into a corner, and then decided to shoe in Co-op and yet again wrote themselves into another corner. That's great, because Mass Effect isn't an rpg or anything with a story and pacing that will get wonky with 4 players trying to play a very dialogue heavy game. I don't want to play this game in Co-Op...I'm a silver member. Oh, it's harder for me to get the best ending? Thanks bioware, appreciate it.
And the only game that threw in a co-op or versus gametype in a previously single player game that was any good was AC: Brotherhood, although the SP brought nothing to the table and was boring to me, it was a noble sacrifice cause the MP turned out pretty clever, not polished, but clever. Last year would have been a lesser year without it.
Bioshock 2 had crap MP that nobody liked and a ho hum SP.
Dead Space 2, while I thought it was creatively bankrupt, was praised for its SP but, again, nobody played the mp...yet another waste of resources. And yes, it is a waste of resources. Money, time, space and people were spent creating something nobody played and could have been spent making a better (more varied) SP. Full budget on SP of course would have resulted in a better SP.
RE5 - ...do i need to beat that horse cause it looks dead?
You know what helps development sometimes - confidence. A little confidence that the product doesn't need to be expanded because what you got is good, and will sell, and fuck em if that's not enough. You don't need that second throwaway studio to build something irrelevant on the side, and if you do want to hire a second studio, why don't they help with the main product at hand. Concentrate the effort. Make something that doesn't feel completely and minimally iterative but with another dumb mp mode attached to it.
I do not for the life of me understand why gamers don't value their time in the least. Anything, to them, is better than their time. A bad mode in an otherwise good game, fine. They'll gladly not enjoy themselves rather than just simply be done with a game that was otherwise enjoyable. A turd on your ice cream sundae? Yes please. That's more product for me for the same price! What a bargain, what a value!
I have yet to play a game in years where it was really really difficult to choose a mode to play because they were all so good. My standards are quite high in comparison to the average gamers out there, but that says it all. Even IW, who are probably the kings of over-doing it and making it seem easy, have bit their lip biting more than they can chew and trying to make their product as value-centric as possible.
But, as long as people ooo and ahhh when they hear about multiple modes of play, then multiple modes is what you'll get. Most gamers can't really tell the difference between something that's shoehorned and something that isn't, so more power (and by power I mean sales) to them I suppose.
