So Happy Together

Okay. So I understand that this blog is called “Playing with Myself,” and that title might suggest to some that I only play single-player games, and the majority of the time that is true.

I do love multiplayer gaming.

The awesome part is, since the advent of broadband internet, it is now easier than ever to play multiplayer games online with your friends or complete strangers for that matter.

PC gaming has been in the online multiplayer realm for quite a few years and even pioneered games coined “massively multiplayer” with upwards of 500 people all playing in one instance of a gigantic virtual world at a time. Consoles have only recently made the foray into the multiplayer world in the past 6 or 7 years. Microsoft was the first to launch a successful multiplayer platform via Xbox Live.

Now, as a husband and father, both going to school and working full time, it’s hard for me to find time to get all my friends together and play in person, so multiplayer gaming online has become the primary means for me to play games with my friends.

But as of last night, I remembered how much better playing multiplayer games with your friends is in person.

I went over to my buddy Phil’s apartment the other night to play a bit of Borderlands via “split-screen” multiplayer, and I had a blast.

First, let me start by saying, split-screen play is a major adjustment. For a while you feel like you have blinders on, and when you have to access a menu, you have to use the right analog stick to move the menu around to see it all. That’s kind of a pain. Soon after; however, I acclimated and we began rampaging through Pandora (the fictional plant the game is set on) just as we have when we’ve played online, and it was fun.

Now, it is hard for me to say what is so different about in-person multiplayer as opposed to online. The differences are subtle.

Both offer the same exact cooperative gameplay, and through Xbox Live we even have real-time verbal communication through our headset. Albeit, the voice chat audio is close to what I think Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone call might have sounded like. And with multiplayer games, voice communication is probably the only essential communication medium you need between players.

That said the differences are subtle. The ability to look over at my pal with a look of disgust when he picks up the repeater pistol I had my eye on is great. There are just times when my facial expressions can say more than my words can. It does also seem that fewer things spoken tend to get lost in translation like they do over voice chat. My theory is that our voices carry subtle clues as to the target and tone of what we say that maybe can only be heard with both ears. Does our stereophonic hearing senses really aid in that? I don’t know, this is a gaming blog, not a medical study.

Then there is the obvious fact that is was good getting out of the house and seeing my friend again. Humans, I believe, have a built in desire to socialize. Perhaps, this need is not truly satisfied inside a digital medium.

At the end of the night, we copied our in-game characters we created that day to a portable memory unit so I could take them home and we could play with Todd and Karl online. We probably will, and we’ll probably have fun doing it, but I look forward to the next time we can both get together and play again.