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[ebullientprism]

Its not that everyone doesn't want to so what you did, it is that is nearly impossible to get everyone in one place AND wanting to play games holy shit

I imagine this is more or less it. It was easy to get friends over when you were in school. They had nothing better to do and neither did you. Now that the same people are grown up you need a schedule and coordinate and all that crap to call someone over to play Halo or whatever.

There are still a ton of couch co op/local multiplayer games. Current gen and last. AAA and indie. Its just that its hard to get 3-4 friends who are all into gaming over at the same time to play.

Gaming didnt lose local MP. You just grew up. Sorry.

 

[Arxisz]

Agreed. I remember the good ol days... now we have stuff like shareplay instead of local multiplayer modes.

 

[aygomyownroad]

Got friends coming over tonight. Alcohol and the WiiU, Xbox and worms. Will be glorious

 

[Maligna]

Just recently went to a Smash Party myself, I really cleaned up but even when I lost it was tons of fun.

It's just so rare to find people that handed the time for local co-op.

 

[Yatōkiri_Kilgharrah]

There's probably like three people on GAF that WANT Nintendo to go mobile. There's a fair amount of people who think it would be a good idea from a business perspective if they put games on mobile platforms.

Its really not....

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

I did this some weeks ago with 4 friends with smash, the same people we played Melee when we were younger during countless hours.
We had a blast again, a great remind of the past.

 

[suzu]

I was at a family-related gathering and we played like 6-person Bomberman and Tetris on our DS/3DS. Only needed one copy of the games.

Jamestown on PC was fun too. I need to buy some more local mp games.

 

[scaffa]

Great story to read! Also had a proper game night yesterday with some friends, played a whole bunch of Smash Bros, some Towerfall, Wario Ware (GC) and Samurai Gunn.

It's just super fun to get together and play some games. It's just very different experience from playing online together. Sure you can talk together with a mic but it's just not the same. I'm glad that local mp games are still a thing and that the library of games from that type is growing.

I'm currently working on a local mp game (Horizon Danger) myself and I get a lot of questions if there is also online mp. There is none, besides technical limitations, it was also a decision I made early on since I think the game wouldnt be just as fun if you played it online against strangers or even friends. Just seeing the reactions of the other players in the heat of battle is what I feel as something that is very important. Im glad that there is a group out there that has the same mindset

 

[Dunlop]

Friday night halo sessions are something I really miss

We had multiple xboxes and tv's setup in my buddies basement and a group of us would just drink and MP all night.

 

[SeanR1221]

The guys using the 3ds as a controller should have automatically moved on in the tournament.

Great story. I've had a few smash parties so far. I miss couch co op :/

 

[Refreshment.01]

I invited a couple others, too, that unfortunately couldn't make it.

There's your answer Skelington.

The mayority of adult players can't satisfy the amount of variables to get local multiplayer sessions (even less of that magnitude) even tought is probably the most fun experience you can get out of videogames.

The dead of local multiplayer is one or maybe the main reason some people see the Gamepad as a failure or as a worthless "ginmick". When in reality the Gamepad shines and enhances local asymmetrical multiplayer, is probably it's definitive feature of the Wii U, over remote play when speaking in gameplay terms. And this was demonstrated back at launch day with Nintendo Land.

Another thing is culture. We are living in a moment when people even close to each other chose to engage with others in a virtual way through the internet. A Wii U type console during the 6th generation (GC/PS2/Xbox) would have been a massive succes, now a days is just an specter.

Thoughts?

 

[onken]

Was shocked to discover 4 player split screen had been dropped from both PS4 CoD games - still have to keep my PS3 and MW2 around I guess.

 

[Exentryk]

Yeah, we do this on Fridays. It's usually Mario Kart, but this Friday was Smash.

I recall the old days when we used to play 4 player Crash Team Racing for hours on end. Local multiplayer is the epitome of gaming fun.

 

[Boss Man]

Local multiplayer is one of the (if not the single) biggest draws of consoles. It's weird that Nintendo seems to be the only one who cares.

 

[Raysoul]

I'm already a young working adult, and I still find some time (at least a month) to play with other Nintendo fans. Most of them already have kids.

Online play is great, but the genuine laughter when you beat your opponent next to you will never be replaced by a simple LOL on a chatroom.

 

[Neff]

We don't need anyone but Nintendo doing this, because Nintendo are doing it, and they're still the best at it.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

A lot of people don't understand that there are many things that simply cannot be done with online multiplayer, no matter how good the tech is. Information just doesn't travel fast enough to allow for an identical experience to that of local multiplayer.

I remember the first time I realized this as a kid, wasn't even gaming related. I was thinking about the possibility of having live musical jam sessions over the internet, and realized that it would never be possible.

 

[DrROBschiz]

This thread is making me all warm of fuzzy inside

Thanks for Smash Nintendo

 

[The Technomancer]

Yup, I have a group of people who I play Magic and multiplayer games like this with every friday for coming on four years now. Its really just fun

 

[OverturePT]

Really cool, man. Local multiplayer is one of the things I'd hate to lose, I understand some people don't care for it and some don't really have the time or friends available to do stuff like that, but it truly is something else. Some of the best gaming experiences come from that.

Smash is just fucking incredible due to the 8 players mode, but I always have a blast with Mario Kart and Gang Beasts on the PC. It always is a day well spent and I wish I could do it more times.

 

[User 73706]

(Yeah, we all sound a little "bro," but I promise we're not. That's just what several hours of drinking will do to you)

 

[Lactose_Intolerant]

Next time, spice it up with a little Gang Beast

 

[OverturePT]

Next time, spice it up with a little Gang Beast

I second that. It's amazing.

 

[crinale]

Well to me it always ended as the fist fight, so..

 

[joeygreco1985]

Friday night halo sessions are something I really miss

We had multiple xboxes and tv's setup in my buddies basement and a group of us would just drink and MP all night.

I've been playing split screen halo MCC for the past month, you can too!

 

[jackissocool]

I've been having a really incredible time with local multiplayer the past year or so. One of my roommates has a Wii U and all the games you'd expect him to have and it's a great time. I also got a PS4 at launch and it has a lot of amazingly fun local multiplayer games.

Knack
Injustice
Plants vs. Zombies GW
LittleBigPlanet 3
Towerfall
Sportsfriends
Octodad

And lots of others I can't remember off the top of my head. It's been a great experience.

Edit: Oh! I remember just two nights ago I decided to buy Fibbage cause one of my girlfriend's roommates was talking about wanting to play You Don't Know Jack. We ended up getting seven people together and playing for a few hours. Fibbage is a local multiplayer game that would be impossible without modern technology - it needs an internet connection and smart phones to play, and it works amazingly well. It was fantastic.

 

[BladeoftheImmortal]

This is what I wanted the MCC collection for. My friends and I used to have 8 on 8 CTF all the time back in the day. Now we can do it in glorious 1080p.

 

[Rezae]

I'd love to be in a position that the OP is in. My best gaming memories are local multiplayer related.


But my reality is that I've moved multiple times, have fallen out of contact with most of my old friends, and frankly would probably rarely have the time anyway to get together and play, and if we did, crying kids would probably be too much of a distraction.

Nearly anyone can jump online and play multiplayer. It's quick and convenient. It fits the aging gaming demographic well too. Local multiplayer takes work, and like a lot of things that require a little effort, it's amazing. Unfortunately for a lot of the market, it's easier to just hit the easy button and not focus on it.

 

[Nibel]

Very cool write-up OP, thanks for that.

While I agree that the Wii U is the current king of local multiplayer fun, I think that Towerfall for PS4 is incredibly fun as well.

I was wondering: is MCC on Xbox One still playable in local-mp? And any word if Halo 5 will have 4-player support?

 

[Jinjo]

If only I could get a hold of even one gc adapter....

 

[Neverfade]

Local never died for me.

There's a glutton of amazing local multiplayer games if you're looking hard enough.

And most of my favorites don't even require a Wii U.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

Honestly, id just be happy with every multiplayer game, online or local having LAN support.

It really is the best of all worlds. Publishers still sell multiple copies of the game, everyone gets their own screen, performance isnt harmed and games are perserved forever.

 

[legacyzero]

 

[Nesther]

Planning on doing pretty much that for the first time today as well, for my birthday. I was kinda worried how non-gamers(most of my friends don't touch video games besides the occasional Mario Kart or smartphone game) would react to Smash, but looks like it worked out well for the OP.

 

[farisr]

My friends make it a point to get together at least once a month (depending on schedule), sometimes it's at the end of every week.

Last gen, it was COD 4 player splitscreen, sports games, mario kart wii.

This gen, having only bought the ps4 initially it felt really lacking, 1, COD removed 4 player splitscreen, 2, we were not in a sports games kind mood.

Then I had the best impulse gaming purchase in years, thanks to a pricing error and landed myself a wii u. For the first couple of months, really didn't do much with it, friends weren't into mario platformers and the ninendoland stuff. Then Mario Kart 8 came out. Became our go to game for the next 4 months, until one of my main friends who was really into it got married and moved out of country. Racked up hundreds of hours of local multiplayer gameplay through that.

Then there were 2 months of downtime and smash comes out, the number of people coming over actually expanded and we did 7 player smash the first night the game was out. Played all night, so much fun. Played last night as well.

Nintendo gained a ton of respect from me this past year.

Actually, this is the first Nintendo console I've owned ever since the original NES, and intend on keeping (if I had ever bought an SNES, I would've kept it as well).

 

[robotrock]

Great story to read! Also had a proper game night yesterday with some friends, played a whole bunch of Smash Bros, some Towerfall, Wario Ware (GC) and Samurai Gunn.

Yeah! You know how to party.

 

[Az987]

Yup, I agree. Ive gotten my girlfriend into games over the past year and a half we've been dating and she even bought a ps4 so we could play battlefield 4 online together but the problem is when were with one another there really arent many games with same screen coop for the system outside of Indies and Lego games.

I had been wanting a Wii u for a while but the thing that really pushed me into getting one was all the games it has for 2 or more players. We've been having a blast with Super Mario 3D so far but she doesn't really like smash bros very much.

 

[Auctopus]

Looks like you had a great time, OP.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

Now that I graduated. I'm not sure being able to play multiplayer will be possible anymore, at least for a few years.

 

[TimeEffect]

I want to try this! I just need to buy some friends.

I want Nintendo products for Nintendo games and local MP. Even MS has Halo split screen which is great for parties. There hasn't ever been an equivalent on PlayStation that my friends and I all got into, so I'm always envious of Nintendo/Xbox

 

[Stallion Dan]

Aside from some 2 player co-op with my partner, local MP doesn't have a realistic chance of happening. Everyone too busy with jobs, kids and their own partners. More of a kids and singles feature imo, only ones with time for it.

 

[gruenel]

I wish I knew people that wouldn't laugh at me if I suggested something like this.

 

[MrFrankFontaine]

Friday night halo sessions are something I really miss

We had multiple xboxes and tv's setup in my buddies basement and a group of us would just drink and MP all night.

Yup, I used to host Halo nights before I had kids. Miss those days. I have a dream of finishing my basement and bringing back Halo nights.

Sounds like 8 player Smash would be a blast too.

There's nothing like local multiplayer.

 

[Skiesofwonder]

Like the OP, I had a Smash WiiU eight person tournament with a bunch of fellow nursing majors. Some of them were huge gamers, some were casual, and some hadn't picked up a controller since the PS2 era. We all had a blast, joking about how it felt like being kids again (but now we could drink). We must have played for four hours straight!

Since then we have gotten together a few more times to play. I never expected it to extend past that one day. Just finding eight people familar with Smash seemed like a stretch, but now regularly getting together with a group to play? That seemed extremely far-fetched just a month ago. And some of those very friends are now even considering buying a WiiU. The opition to play with up to eight players at a time was just genius.

 

[dramatis]

This was the feeling I had a few years ago when I played LittleBigPlanet local multiplayer. We were 4 people each smacking each other and then cooperating when our checkpoint lives ran low. That was the night that made me think it was a pity local multiplayer was going away.

 

[MastaKilla]

Nothing will ever beat playing games like Smash, Twisted Metal, fighters, ect while sitting right next to your friends. Good times indeed.

 

[PSYGN]

I play Mario Kart 8 at lunch with 3 others consistently and up to 6 of us play (3 Wii U's people bring to work including myself).

It really is more fun, you can not only hear the emotions but see it as you barely slip by 1st place before the finish line, or you get a red shell and pop the guy in first to take the lead. The game had me and my coworker laughing when his green shell had "bad physics" because it went past me and decided to turn around in the middle of the road and hit me. And bumping into each other on Rainbow Road, etc... just a lot of good times that remind me of when I was growing up before online multiplayer. It's always more fun to play games together in person but online is still a nice alternative especially for a working family man.

 

[Gipsy Danger]

I've had much more fun playing games like Dota 2 online with friends all over the world. I agree it's a real shame local multiplayer isn't as prevalent as it once was but I definitely prefer online.

 

[Michanical]

My girlfriend and I had a couple of friends over and we played mario kart 8. It was really an incredible experience. Local multiplayer is a bigger selling point for me now more than any other point in my life.

I want to try this! I just need to buy some friends.

I want Nintendo products for Nintendo games and local MP. Even MS has Halo split screen which is great for parties. There hasn't ever been an equivalent on PlayStation that my friends and I all got into, so I'm always envious of Nintendo/Xbox

If you own a PS4, you have Diablo 3, Sportsfriends, and Towerfall. Towerfall, especially, has a really high skill cap and gets very competitive.

LBP3 also scratches that itch.

 

[Michanical]

double posted!