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Party Games

Yug throws a gaming party and along with a select crew put the latest (and some older) multiplayer games to the test to find out which ones work and which ones fail.

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Party Games

News from Yug - March 30th @ 10:42pm

Usually when my birthday rolls around, I tend to Van Wilder it up and organise some huge and excessive drinking and partying marathon to celebrate the fact I somehow made it through another year. This time however, just the thought of such an event made me feel tired – either I’m getting old or I need more of my beauty sleep ... probably both.

I still wanted to do ‘something’ though, so the seed was sown for a casual ‘video game night’ which was to be attended by a small and select group of my more hardcore gamer friends.

As the sun rose after our 12 hour gaming event, I felt it worthwhile to share our multiplayer experience with the rest of you, since we ran the gamut of games across all the systems (except for the PS3 ... we tried hard to find something for it though, really we did). Keep in mind, this isn’t a group of ‘casual’ gamers – there was no Wii Sports, Singstar or Guitar Hero to be found on this night.

The Machines

* Microsoft Xbox 360 with 4 wireless controllers
* Sony Playstation 3 with 2 wireless controllers
* Nintendo Wii with 4 Wiimotes and nunchucks + Wii Freeloader
* Nintendo Gamecube with 4 Wavebird wireless controllers
* Sony Playstation 2 with 2 controllers
* 4 x Nintendo DS Systems

The Players

Co-founder of AustralianGamer.com. Alcoholic chain smoking birthday boy and host of the evening	Co-founder of AustralianGamer.com. Generously allowed us to use the TV and trash his apartment.	Brisbane journalist for AustralianGamer.com. Extremely loud and obnoxious when winning.	Zero Punctuation creator. No, he doesn’t speak that fast in real life, get over it.

Game developer for THQ Studio Australia. Prone to deep discussions and winning games when you least expect it.	Game developer for Sega Creative Assembly. Guaranteed to try and spruik a shirt for his non-existing band 10 minutes after you meet him.	Contributor to XboxZone.com.au. Connoisseur of custom suits, fine spirits, and questionable gaming alter-egos.	Good friend of Yug’s from highschool. Takes every opportunity to remind Yug of how shit Australian Gamer is compared to Penny Arcade.

The Games

Dead or Alive 4 (Xbox 360)

As soon as the 360 was plugged in we needed a simple, straight forward and easy to button mash multiplayer game to kick things off – Dead or Alive fit the bill. None of us were by any means experts, Matt constantly citing the reason he was losing was because he couldn’t find the ‘block’ button, and Frith seeming unable to find any other button to press apart from ‘kick’. Nevertheless, the two player tag-team format worked enough to keep 4 people entertained while the spectators appreciated the ‘extreme’ physics of the female characters.

Verdict: Good fun

The Paris Hilton of multiplayer games – entertaining for awhile, easy for anyone to play, and anyone without a controller can enjoy the sex appeal.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl (Nintendo Wii)

Yahtzee graciously brought along Wii Freeloader and his copy of Super Smash Bros Brawl, and after what seemed like an excessive amount of effort to setup, we finally had the game ready and running with 4 gamecube wireless wavebird controllers.

Regardless of who was playing at any given time, the majority of expletives being yelled out were usually attributed to no-one knowing what the hell was going on. Frith found the chaos appealing, Yahtzee found it retarded. Most of us were not Smash Bros series connoisseurs by any means, but the pure random mess of the 4 player battles didn’t do much to win us over. Sure, there were moments of fun, but on the flip side you spend half the game trying to keep track of where your character is, let alone what it's actually doing.

Sorry fanboys, but with the exception of Frith and Phil, we all found the game too random and too chaotic. And yes, the levels are a nice nostalgic trip for a long time Nintendo franchise player like myself, but any positives in that respect are totally overshadowed by the fact that you can’t play as Sonic until you’ve played either 10 hours or 300 matches.

What. The. Fuck.

Forcing players to unlock characters, game types, levels or features that are ADVERTISED SELLING POINTS of a multiplayer game is about as popular and equally craptacular as Video Game disc jockeys and Quick time events.

Verdict: Fanboys only

Maybe genuinely playable by kids with ADD drinking shots of redbull and vodka, but for our group of 20-something year old piss heads it just gave us a headache.

Yahtzee, Pras, Matt and Frith embrace the chaos and mash buttons in Smash Bros Brawl

Metroid Prime Hunters (Nintendo DS)

Frith and I took a time out to crank up the DS's and try a few of the games on offer. Unfortunately, out of all the titles we owned (or in Friths case, downloaded), the only one we had in common was Metroid Prime Hunters. By no means an unsatisfactory choice, after a few tappity-taps of the screen we were counting down to a quick and dirty deathmatch.

I've always found the DS uncomfortable to hold when using the stylus for precision aiming, and under pressure against a human opponent it wasn't any better. The game was fast and frantic though, and we were well matched enough for it to be a close enough game. Friths tactic of morph balling and successfully blowing me up with bombs was the type of humilating kill that made me curse in kaleidoscope of colourful words worthy of a Shane Black script. We stopped playing for two reasons: 1. Because we just got bored of the lack of weapons or variety and 2. lag. Sitting right next to each other, somehow we managed to get lag. So technically baffling that I'm actually impressed.

Verdict: Average

Not much point really when you've got 3 consoles and a screen 20 times bigger at the same party. Still a bit of harmless fun though.

Wario Ware Inc. Mega Party Game$ (Gamecube)

Lacking the updated Wii version, we were pleasantly surprised by how much random fun the original was. Featuring more game types than a 100-in-1 disc, everyone was in with a fair and even chance to be completely baffled during their 3 second mini game. The highlight was a mode that penalised players for failing a mini-game by giving them a turtle to mount. The more mini-games lost (or won by others), the higher your stack of turtles, until you reach the point where your balance falters, you topple over and become a turtle yourself, hopping around below the other stacks of turtles. No, I’m not making that up.

Verdict: Excellent Randomness

Obscure and wacky, brilliantly simple yet deceptively difficult at the same time.

Bomberman Generations (Gamecube)

Continuing to cruise along last generations highway, we popped in the gamecube version of Bomberman. Really though, it’s bomberman, we could have been playing the SNES version for all it mattered – the game mechanics are the same now as they were then. What I had forgotten though is the amount of dirty tactics you can employ – not just placing a bomb but being able to kick or throw it over obstacles towards the other players. The whole game almost becomes rhythmic , as everyone drops bombs before trying to postion themselves so they don’t get caught up in the epic combination of blasts. Add to the fact that fallen combatants can still fire bombs from the sidelines and we never had a game that ended due to the time running out.

We probably would have kept playing the game for longer if it weren’t for Phil acting like King Shit every time he won the game – which was frustratingly often. His golden plated tiny bomber man constantly thwarting the admittedly pathetic combined efforts of the other 3 players at any given point eventually pissing everyone off enough that in the end he had no-one left to play against.

Verdict: Great old school fun

Unless you’re playing against Phil

Matt B, Phil, Matt and Yug go head to head in Bomberman while Pras and Yahtzee spectate

Fusion Frenzy 2 (Xbox 360)

Winner of the most annoying and repetitive commentary in a video game. Ever. Any possibility of the mini-games themselves being even remotely enjoyable was completely ruined by the emcee booming such gems as:
“I’ve never seen a battle this crazy!”
“What’s going to happen this time?”
“Was that alot of damage player 1?”
“Was that alot of damage player 4?”
“Was that alot of damage player 3?”
“Was that alot of damage player 1?”
“Was that alot of damage player 1?”
You get the idea.

Verdict: Epic fail

Watching an all nude stage production of Murder She Wrote would be preferable to playing this game ever again.

Sega Superstars Tennis (Xbox 360)

The decision was made to move away from the violent fighting games and try some of the more sport related options, and although we had access to Virtual Tennis 3 the lack of a playable Sonic in Smash Bros meant Sega Superstars Tennis was the preferred choice.

I personally took a liking to it, if only because of the repetitive Roger Sanchez style music looped over and over in the chosen level. The two Matts couldn’t get the hang of the controls though, the ‘hold the button and let go to swing’ being a concept beyond their capabilities. Even though, Pras and Matt B managed to win most matches, thankfully ending Phils habit of yelling his victories in everyone’s faces.

While competent as a multiplayer game – it lacked the Wii swinging gimmick and the advanced controls of a ‘serious’ tennis sim, adding to the fact that apart from Sonic there are no Sega ‘superstars’, just cell-shaded troubled teens, hovering purple ninjas and hallucinating monkeys.

Verdict: Short term fun

It pains me to say it, but Wii Tennis is still the undisputed king of multiplayer tennis games

Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 (Xbox 360)

Italy (Mr Shoosh and Matt) vs England (Phil and Pras) was the match up for a multiplayer game genre that was guaranteed to make an appearance in one franchise or another. Myself, Yahtzee and Matt B weren’t all that interested outselves, but managed to become engrossed in the match anyway when we created a drinking game based around who scored goals. I couldn’t decide if I wanted the player I’d bet on to score or not though – frankly I’d end up taking a shot eventually anyway – but it was more to the point that the spectators were truly getting into the game, to the point of chanting and throwing bottles at the players.

Just like a real soccer match there would be long periods of almost silence occasionally broken up by a crescendo of yelling and screaming ‘pass it to me!’ before ending in either shouts of frustration or celebration. There were some genuinely great goals followed closely by some pants on head retarded ones (I believe it was Italy who let the ball gently roll between the goal keepers legs before turning around and kicking it in himself), but frankly by that point I was too distracted by the fact that we were sucking on limes instead of lemons after our vodka shots.

Verdict: Sports game winner

You don’t have to be a soccer nut to get into the fun, but it sure helps. Best paced game for drinking games as well.

Halo 3 (Xbox 360)

With the exception of Mr Shoosh, none of us were particularly impressed with our experiences on the latest gen offering of Master Chiefs latest adventures. I was particularly determined to crank it up and give it a go though, mainly because I remember two player co-op on the original Halo being awesome. I assumed you would be able to do 4 player Halo 3 split screen, but I assumed wrong, so we ended up playing a few rounds of deathmatch on the maps Snowbound and The Pit.

Maybe because our expectations were fairly low, maybe because we were as drunk as a bunch of schoolies, or perhaps it was just because we hadn’t played an game with guns yet – but it was a surprising amount of fun. Halo veteran Mr Shoosh dominated the scores of course, Yahtzee constantly let us know that if it were Team Fortress 2 he’d have kicked our asses, Matt managed to blow himself up more often than he killed anyone else, and I managed to find the vehicle on Snowbound and proceed to drive it into an underground cavern that I couldn’t figure out how to get out of.

For all our mishaps and FPS inadequacies though, the fact was there – it was fun, even on split screen.

Verdict: Surprise winner

Great fun for a group of seasoned gamers, multiplayer Halo 3 is indisputably better than single player.

Matt B, Mr Shoosh, Yahtzee's hat and Matt discovering how Halo 3 multiplayer almost redeems the game

N + (Xbox 360 Arcade)

All the games of the evening so far had one thing painfully in common – they all got boring after a short period of time. It didn’t take long for the voice of the minority (and by that I don’t mean Pras) turning into everyone deciding to change to a different game. Maybe it’s because after decades of gaming we were desensitised, or that not many multiplayer games hold much substance.

Regardless of these facts, N+ was hands down the best multiplayer game of the entire event.

4 player co-op mode with specially custom designed levels put our wealth of old school gaming reflexes to the test. The genius with this game is that in any level we were always able to see how to solve the puzzles – but doing that involved precise 2d platform gaming movements and co-operation from all 4 players.

We played N+ co-op non-stop until the sun came up, and even then only really stopped when our brains were incapable of solving another level.

Verdict: Best co-op multiplayer game available

As addictive as a Playboy subscription, play it with skilled gamers and you won’t stop until you’ve completed every level on offer.

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