Is On-Line really the future?

[m0zart1]

[QUOTE=feilong80]I agree with everything except point 2. I don't think single card DS multiplayer is crappy at all. New Super Mario Bros, Tetris DS, and Metroid Prime: Hunters all provide solid single cart multi experiences, to name a few. You cannot expect the full on game; the DS has limited amounts of memory for which to even store the downloaded games.[/QUOTE]

Elite Beat Agents also has a good single cart multiplayer experience.  And it's definitely nice to have.  Considering that Osu Tatakae Ouendan did not, it was near impossible for a player in the US to play with someone else competitively.

[Steeforth]

Rob -

In my personal experience the DS multiplayer (single card) has been more hit than miss.

Funny you should mention Advance Wars, I have been looking it to getting that one, but it sounds like they screwed the multiplayer on that one, eh? To me that is really cheap. What is the mode they let go through?

What do you think of Metroid for DS? Is it worth getting? It is going down in price so I am kind of interested. I have the demo, and I thought that was done pretty well.

As far as Tetris goes, I also have a complaint. I don't care how many new features are added to Tetris, they should give you the option to turn them OFF! I really did not like the spin for eternity before your piece drops feature, and I was stuck with it. I didn't like it, I didn't want to use it, but there it was. To me at least, it hurt the game.

[Blah]

Online play is absolutely awsome unless it's on a handheld. On a handheld, games constantly lag and shut down if some idiot runs out of batteries. Plus, you have to stay in one place to be in range of one wireless router, but isn't playing as you go the main reason to have a handheld?

[m0zart1]

[QUOTE=ajsmart]Online play has never really interested me much, but I do like having the console connected.  The ability to download demos, trailers, and the small budget games is nice. 

 

Some criticize the console updates, but I do enjoy getting the added features they often come with.[/QUOTE]

Except for the exception of Time Pilot on the 360, my DS is the only way I've enjoyed online gaming so far.  I like console updates too, but online gaming on consoles hasn't been compelling to me yet.

[feilong801]

To answer the question regarding the Advance Wars 2 single cart multi:

It's an action game, a sort of beefed up version of a simplistic single screen tank combat game. It's shallow fun for a bit but not anywhere near the excellence of the single player tactical game.

-Rob

[john-boy]

I think on-line gaming is a wonderful idea.

I'm what some would call a "casual" gamer. I don't know any other people that play games regularly, or fancy a game of such and such at the same time (and place) as me: so being able to go online to play is good for me.

I have Mario Kart DS and playing against humans is much, much more rewarding than playing against the computer. (though snakers really piss me off, it's not fun - the next version needs some sort of mechansim that you can only boost out of corners, or some tyre wear that limits the amount of sliding you can do in any one race).

Now, 1080 Snowboarding (a decent remake of the N64 version) for the DS, with online play. That's what I want. Ripping through the beautiful sunset forest level with four other players. Wave Race from the Gamecube was tops too. That would be great!

So for this lone gamer: yes, more online gaming!

[Blah]

"Now, 1080 Snowboarding (a decent remake of the N64 version) for the DS, with online play. That's what I want. Ripping through the beautiful sunset forest level with four other players. Wave Race from the Gamecube was tops too. That would be great!"

Don't forget watching that black screen saying "connection has been lost" every five minutes!
But hey, at least it's free.

[andrew]

[QUOTE=bluemonkey]4 player split screen = rendering the scene 4 times over.  Plus there is added overhead from trying to get all 4 v-synced at the same time.  So when doing 4 player split screen on Motorstorm it is putting 4 times the workload on the PS3.

Why do you think Gears was only 2 player split screen?  Because the engine was not optimised enough for the system to be able to render it that many times over.
[/QUOTE]

This is a lousy argument. The majority of n64 games could handle 4 player split screen. N64 multiplayer games lowered the resolution and dropped some effects to accomodate the increased rendering. And many of these games pushed the system such as turok 2, perfect dark, starfox. Even starcraft had two player split screen The game companies honestly believe split screen is dead (idiots!!) and that is all about online plus there lazy. Personally  nothing beats playing your friends head to head in the same room. This is why I won't buy socom because split screen multiplay could have been amazing.

[john-boy]

[QUOTE=Blah]"Don't forget watching that black screen saying "connection has been lost" every five minutes! But hey, at least it's free. [/QUOTE]

I never understand why people disconnect when they are losing!

But there were some decent web sites to get to know other players and swap codes and arrange games. These people tended to be cool.