Online Multiplayer vs. Split Screen vs. LAN

In college I started out playing the classics (Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3d, Descent, Heretic, Rise of the Triad, etc.) over a LAN with buddies every month or so. The computers were much harder to lug around (you try moving a full tower and a 19 inch CRT monitor across town to play games for a night) but there wasn't an option to play over the internet yet.

I truly miss all being in the same house and yelling across the room at each other when you want to talk trash. I can still talk trash with a headset, but it's just not the same. Talking trash with a headset feels like regular internet trolling, it just loses some of the good-naturedness that you recognize when you're together.

I've played very little FPS on consoles (I'll always be a mouse and keyboard guy) and from my experience with the split screen I just seem to be better at seeing everybody's screen than my friends are. This leads to a lot of me laying traps they have no chance of escaping which is fun for me for a little while and not very fun to my friends at all. Split screen will always be the red-headed stepchild because not knowing where your opponent is or what weapon they might have is a part of the game.

LAN is the way to go. We used to take all of our pc's to one of our homes for entire weekends and do nothing but shot the fuck out of each other, share porn and eat junk food.

Half Life, Doom 2, Quake, StarCraft, Warcraft, and many many more.
We still toy with the idea of getting one going today. Left for Dead, Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty 4 should be fun...

LAN > Online > splitscreen

Nothing beats being in the same room on different machines killing the fuck outta your buddies. But once the xbox came along, that slowly died for most of my friends. It's way easier to just load up a game on your couch then packing up our beast of computers.

Well, since I don't do a ton of VS. multiplayer I'm usually fine with online or split-screen. The nice thing about split screen obviously being that all you have to do is look at the other player's screen to know exactly where they are. In co-op this can help lead to a bit better coordination whereas in vs. it can help you figure out where to throw your grenades.

Obviously LAN or online multiplayer is nice because you get the increased screen resolution and dedicated sound effects making it easier to identify and locate potential enemies.

I'll gladly admit that in VS., it's hard to beat the joy of having the person you're killing sitting in near proximity to you. Back in the day, my friends and I used to head down to a local internet cafe that specialized in gaming that had giant monitors, the latest hardware setup, and any PC game you could imagine and then proceed to mercilessly destroy each.

I used to live in a shared house where all 5 of us had xbox's they were all connected together through a lot of cat5 cable and an old printer server I "aqquired" from work. We played a hell of a lot of Halo 2 sessions sometimes with 10 people or more ; good times.

And the main reason I prefer Burnout 3 over Paradise is the ability to have a mate round and challange him to a game. I think with the onset of online play we are loosing that social aspect of gaming.

Burnout 3 > Paradise for other reasons than that as well.

I'd disagree in some respects. I play and talk to my old friends who live hundreds of miles away significantly more now that they're on my PSN or XBL friends list. I've spent hours playing Army of Two, Left 4 Dead, GRAW, etc. and bulshitting with my friends that were it not for the online capability of the machines never would have happened.

I can easily see how if you had a group of friends in college you'd have a couple 360s and a couple TVs in a house and basically either system link or party up and play together locally and on XBL. Once college is over, thanks to online gaming you can keep having that experience when being in the same room or house isn't a realistic option anymore.

Very True



Also as much as I love online play not all of my mates have 360's some have ps3's and some have wii's. Some, still kick it old school so the only way I can play against them is split screen.

Split screen versus is best left to the Street Fighters and Mortal Kombats of the world. Split screen's other wonderful use is DLC co-operative games.

Aside from the unfortunate logistical nightmare that is LAN now, online console gaming certainly has the upper hand there.

When my brother-in-law lived with us he had built a dozen or so computers from scratch that we had set up in several rooms. Every weekend we had friends over for Duke Nukem frag fests. Oh, those were some good times.

My wife, son and have our own machines and play a little Quake Arena when we're the mood hits (Next stop: Family Quakelive night).