Don't Hate the [Single] Playa [Mode]

I've been playing console video games since the late 80's, and the most significant change to the  gaming landscape since then HAS TO BE the complexity of modern multi-player modes.  Multi-player today is, quite literally, a gaming landscape!  When I first started out, "multi-player" meant my friends and I taking turns between playing as Mario and Luigi; today, gamers across the country can race each other as Mario and Luigi in Mario Kart Wii.  In Madden, players can oppose each other as the Seahawks and the Buccaneers...in Seattle and Tampa, respectively.  And in MMORPGs (if you don't know the acronym, look it up, Noob) like World of Warcraft, thousands of players can simultaneously interact with each other and the world of the game.  Because online multi-player modes are based on ever-changing human skill level instead of ever-lasting (and at times, predictable) computer AI, the replay value in such video games has increased exponentially; there are a limitless number of challenges awaiting gamers every time they connect to the online community.  This is the trend towards which the industry has gravitated; a game cannot be considered "cool" unless it has an awesome multi-player mode.  Unfortunately, this trend has been unkind to what should be the foundation of any video game; the single player mode.

A couple of years ago, my brother purchased an Xbox 360.  Naturally, I asked my trusted gamer friends for a short list of can't-live-without games for the system, and there was one title on everyone's list: Gears of War.  I bought the game shortly thereafter, and while I was impressed with how fresh its approach to the "shoot 'em up" genre felt, I felt short-changed by how...short...the game was.  There are only 5 levels in the game, and though each one is stuffed with battles that might kill you 10 or 15 times before you finally break through, the game can be completed in 10 hours. 10 hours!  And that's being generous! That's 5 days if you're playing at 2 hours a day, and what serious gamer only plays for 2 hours a day?  What high school or college kid, who's on winter or summer break, is only playing a game that they're engrossed by for only 2 hours a day?  No serious gamer that I know!

That was the problem with Gears of War.  I loved it, but it was over so fast.  And although I have never played it myself, critics have complained that Call of Duty's single player mode suffers from the same brevity.  Halo 3, another game that's widely accepted as one of the marquee games of the Xbox 360, has been criticized by GameSpot for being too short.  This is a disturbing trend that is poisoning the quality of video gaming, and making people pay more money for less game.  Simply put, it is style over substance.

Game developers and companies know what they're doing, and it doesn't seem as if Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 sales will suffer if it has a brief single-player mode.  But it worries me that the gamer who doesn't care about multi-player, who doesn't want to worry about anything else except the controller in his hand and the Doritos by his side, is being left with a one-dimensional afterthought which should be the meat of the game.  Multi-player is now the meat of the most popular games, and that strikes me as being unfair and almost lazy by the game developers.  Hell, the soon-to-be-released Super Mario Bros. Wii is being marketed by Nintendo as the first simultaneous multi-player experience by a Mario adventure game ever.  Well, that's cool, but did we Mario need or ask for that?

To be a serious gamer, a person has to be somewhat of a loner.  This person first started playing video games BECAUSE he fell in love with a game's single player mode.  Sure, they might have also fallen in love with the multi-player action in a game like Goldeneye for Nintendo 64, but what Goldeneye has that the aforementioned games are lacking is a richly rewarding, multi-faceted, and LENGTHY single-player quest.  This is a person who doesn't mind spending the occasional Saturday holed up in his room for a good, solid play-a-thon.  He doesn't know if he his friends will be available to take part in this play-a-thon, nor does he care.  He doesn't want to worry about his Internet connection failing, or if the competition in the gaming community is competent that day.  All he wants to do is to turn on his console and play.