So what are you guys theorizing we'll see in versus mode?
I hope it's more than just the pre-existing modes in split-screen with separate scores.
In my humble opinion, to create a great versus mode, they need to make all the players feel like they are interacting with each other...like they are negatively impacting their opponent's performance rather than just positively impacting their own. It won't be great if it feels like two people playing isolated single-player experiences which just happen to be happening on the same TV at the same time. It's the same reason their aren't two basketballs on a basketball court at the same time with each team putting all 5 of their players down on their scoring end scoring as many shots as they can in 48 minutes.
Some ideas for versus mode only powerups that I feel would accomplish this are powerups that would
temporarily:
- Let you kill your opponent by boosting through them
- Give you some of your opponent's screen real estate in splitscreen mode
- Reduce your opponent's weapon upgrade percentages by 50%
- Randomly cycle your opponent's weapons
- Change your opponent's weapon strengths to whatever meteor was currently rarest on screen (i.e. if there were all gold and rock meteors, turn all your opponent's weapons into blue weapons that were only powerful against ice -- blue rock crusher, blue gold meter, and blue ice bullets)
- Magnetize your opponent to draw in meteors
- Weigh down your opponent's ship so they are affected by inertia (i.e. sharp turns would not be possible -- especially coming out of a boost)
- Hamper your opponent's controls so they would have to rapidly move the analog stick to fire each and every bullet as opposed to just holding it in one direction (alternative: temporarily make your opponent have to push in / click the analog stick and push it in the correct direction to fire)
- Without warning, make your opponent's bombs be on a 5 second delay and magnetize them so they would be hard to escape from (i.e. they would chase your opponents ship at a speed only a little bit slower than your opponent's ship)
- Turn your opponent's weapons against them without them knowing until it was too late -- examples:
---> Rock crusher bullets could fatally bounce back at your opponent
---> Extended (10 seconds straight) use of ice bullets would freeze your opponent's ship into a mini ice block that would completely lose all ability to fire and spiral out of control until thawed (maybe 5 seconds). During this time, enemy fire or any collisions would shatter your opponent's ship.
---> The gold meter would be turned into a tether/tractor beam that would temporarily (maybe 10 - 15 seconds) tether your opponent to whatever he just shot. Weapons would be disabled during this time as the gold meter would still be active. Your ship would be slowes down during this time if the tether was taught as you'd be dragging a giant meteor around. And if you moved and stopped suddenly, the tethered meteor would keep moving (inertia) and could smack into the back of your ship...or...if it passed you, it would then pull you in whatever direction it was just moving. To make it more interesting, the person tethered to the meteor could attempt to swing it at their enemies. Boosting/bombing while tethered would rip the cannon off your ship and would leave you with only bombs until you died.
I don't need anyone to tell me I overthought this (but feel free to point out the obvious if you like)...but I'm just killing the last 30 minutes of work here
These are just some ideas I'd be excited (even though they'll never happen) to see implemented.