NiroZ
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I've just come home for the summer (summer? In January? What heiracy is this!), and I was wondering what some good games would be for me and my brothers to play. We've been playing a lot of lux, and rainbow six vegas 2, but we're getting kind of bored of them.

Kwakstur
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Mule.
I'm kidding.
No, really. Mule.

Well, you know what I always have and always will think the ultimate multiplayer game is? Super Smash Bros.. Yes, not a very original suggestion, but who cares, SSB/M/B rules.

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Snacko
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Note that SSB, while fun, gets incredibly repetitive due to its simplicity.

Here's a list:
Any Unreal Tournament
Gears of War/2
Virtua Fighter 2/4/5
Garou: Mark of the Wolves (a must play)
Any post '95 KoF
Hot Shots Golf
Super Monkey Ball/2/Deluxe
Crimson Skies: The High Road to Revenge
WarCraft 3
Any real Battlefield game (not Modern Warfare)
Radiant Silvergun (another must if you can afford it)
Any Fire Pro Wrestling (do NOT write if off as another simple wrestler, this is a complex fighter that rewards skill, strategy and precise timing. Most installments are import only, but both GBA releases have made it to the US while the main series reached the West with the release of Fire Pro Wrestling Returns)
Any WipeOut
Guilty Gear XX Accent Core (the deepest, fastest fighter ever made)
Super Street Fighter II Turbo High Definition Remix (yes, I know but it is the best version of the best fighting game of all time)
Culdcept (a weird yet addictive combination of a trading card game and Monopoly)
Any Timesplitters (in this case, the later released the better. Every new installment has come with better map editors and boatloads of crap to do)
Power Stone/2 (they are quite different and are the games Super Smash Bros. ripped their concept and gameplay from)
Twisted Metal (either Black or either Head-On, Black is the best in the series and is amazing, but Head-On has online play. The PS2 Head-On has stages from the scrapped Black 2 in place of online play. They are so incredible that it is the better version)
Devil Dice (in this case, all you need is the last in the series, Bombastic. Not that DD and Xi Jumbo weren't great, but Bombastic includes the rulesets from those games, now compatible with the new modes of Bombastic. As for the actual Bombastic rules, think of it as a mixture of Devil Dice 1 and Bomberman making it a frantic and fun multiplayer game)
Street Fighter III: Third Strike/IV
Burnout III

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[Last edited by Snacko at 01-13-2009 01:37 PM]

BeefontheBone
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Two words, and a number.

Left. 4. Dead.

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Braindead's Mordor Site - Dungeon crawling having nothing whatsoever to do with LotR. Plus a freeware remake in-progress, featuring descriptive text written by yours truly!

Beef Row wrote: Actually, it doesn't really matter because the soap is a lye.

Nillo
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Snacko wrote:
WarCraft 3

Specifically, DotA Allstars, the most played custom map in Warcraft 3 and for good reason. There's no micromanagement (well, there is some for a few specific heroes but you can avoid it), you can recover from a loss (in standard WC3, the whole game is usually decided by the outcome of one battle), it's very balanced and it has a lot of teamwork and strategy.

For beginners, I would suggest downloading one of the AI maps and trying out the different items and heroes. You can play cooperatively with your friends against computer players. This way you won't be troubled by leavers, you won't get flamed if you play badly and you can pause the game whenever you want if dinner is ready or something like that. After you've figured out the basics, joining public games together with your friends is great fun.

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“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the 'Ellie May,' a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”

Dex Stewart
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I like DotA, but some similar maps which I like even more EotA and Champions of Durance. Also Zauron's Hero Arena, though that one's different.

The only good multiplayer game I can think of now that hasn't been suggested yet is Liero Xtreme.

Nuntar
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I'm a little surprised that in a forum devoted to a 2-D puzzle game, a topic like this should consist entirely of recent titles. (I assume they must be, as I haven't heard of any of them. Oh no, I'm wrong, Snacko mentions a version of SF2 but feels he has to apologise for it. What is the world coming to? Must we now apologise for enjoying the works of Bach, Shakespeare, Leonardo? The classics are classics for a reason!) But a topic like this would not be complete without mentioning Worms and Mario Kart. Indeed, I would have thought them too obvious to be worth mentioning until I saw Dex Stewart's post....

Also, if you have a mac, McSebi's clone of Bubble Bobble is worth checking out. Apparently the first version is no longer being sold, which is a pity, because I made a very nice set of levels for it. I don't know if the extra levels have been converted to the new version. I should contact McSebi about it as soon as I don't have quite so much Repton and DROD stuff on my hands....

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[Last edited by Nuntar at 01-12-2009 10:27 AM]

Snacko
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You have a point, and I would be remiss is I did not mention Bomberman. Stay away from Act Zero, but almost any other game in the series has fantastic multiplayer. The XBLA title is my personal favorite.

And KoF '96 was released in 1996.

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[Last edited by Snacko at 01-12-2009 01:31 PM]

b0rsuk
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Nuntar wrote:
I'm a little surprised that in a forum devoted to a 2-D puzzle game, a topic like this should consist entirely of recent titles.

The trouble with multiplayer games is that they, unfortunately, don't actually stay fresh and fun. Oh, technically they do, but there's no multiplayer game without other people. And people lose interest over time. Even very good games are going to have fewer people.
Being stuck in a stale community is not nice. New people bring new ideas and just plain more fun.

Otherwise I'd subscribe to Laser Squad Nemezis. It's a mostly multiplayer tactical game by the designer of X-COM / UFO serries. It's from 2003 and it's quite a lot to demand from people to play it in 2008. The community is in decline, as is the case with any other old game.
LSN has some amazing features, including simultaneous turns. I've tried many turn-based multiplayer games, and playing those with alternating turns has always been a major exercise in faith. This is much more the case with more than 2 players. HOMM games are basically unplayable with high number of players, not to mention early leavers. In LSN, you give orders to each unit _before_ action. Each turn lasts 10 seconds. You can tell your guys to hold, retreat or continue walking when they see an enemy. You can order them to attack specific targets or targets you expect to find in specific direction. Line of sight, stealth and spotting plays a large part in tactics. Judging by players' opinions, the game is very deep, well balanced and hard to master. There are 4 races: human marines, machina, the spawn and greys (stereotypical aliens with big heads and saucers), each with completely different units and no equivalents. Well, _some_ units are similar, but not much. Grenadier and Warper are both artillery, but grenadier can bounce grenades off walls, while warper can can plan the specific path his rocket will take. Hunter and Buzzer fly, but one of them is ranged and the other melee only. Aside from individual units being very different, there are race-wide abilities to further distinguish them. The spawn has queens who can eat corpses and lay eggs to produce more units. This has significant tactical implications - you get more units if you can escort your queen to enemy corpses, and you can recycle your own units too. The spawn have the worst vision, greys have the best. Greys also have shields which automatically recharge, but they're linked to their ammo supply so they have to conserve power. Machina are very good at short range, but quite slow and not so good at detection.
Playing LSN for a short time, even against AI, shows you how primitive (tactics-wise) RTS games are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Squad_Nemesis

I used to play Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory a lot. But the community has degenerated. They no longer care about mission objectives, 90% of them plays only for headshots and k/d ratio. 70% of population plays as a medic so they can self-heal.

b0rsuk

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[Last edited by b0rsuk at 01-15-2009 06:29 PM]

Syntax
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That's probably because 160%

Banjooie
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This thread doesn't have very much heroes of might and magic 3 in it.

I don't see any Team Fortress 2 anywhere.

I keep seeing Warcraft 3 in here but people are inexplicably talking about DotA, maybe because they hate good custom games or something I don't know, there are perfectly good tower defenses everywhere.

This thread does have sufficient levels of smash brothers but it seems to be dangerously low in Mario Kart.

Nillo
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Banjooie wrote:
This thread doesn't have very much heroes of might and magic 3 in it.

I keep seeing Warcraft 3 in here but people are inexplicably talking about DotA, maybe because they hate good custom games or something I don't know, there are perfectly good tower defenses everywhere.

As b0rsuk said, while HoMaM is very entertaining with one or two players, it's annoying with a higher number of players because more than half of the time will be spent waiting for your turn.

I used to like tower defense maps for Warcraft III, but I've grown tired of them. Many of them are basically single player except there are other people also playing single player in other corners of the map that you can chat with. Sure, cooperative maze defense can be fun, I'll give you that... but how can you not like DotA?

I have a few friends who refuse to play DotA simply because it is popular and they want to be "indie". At least, that's what I think the reason is.

____________________________
“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the 'Ellie May,' a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”

Banjooie
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Have you ever tried to look up DotA strategies?

'Okay, you need an LA, BA, MD, PHD within ten minutes, so take your BA to the TL and..'

So you're like

'okay what's an LA, BA..okay, they're items.'

'well, to get these items, you get a BMF-'

basically you have to know exactly what you're doing or you're wasting your time

but to actually uncover what you're supposed to do is more research time than actually playing the game, it is stupid

failure to do so not only makes you lose, but your entire team because you're 'feeding' the enemy.

Nillo
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What strategies are you reading that use these abbreviations so profusely? Because the strategy guides I've read all use full names for all skills and items. This guide to Pudge for example. True, there is a learning process before you can discuss the items with others and know that BoT = Boots of Travel and so on, but you only need to learn this once. You will be called a newb or something less pleasant for asking what a BoT is, but after that you'll know.

It's funny how you claim the time required to learn DotA is longer than the time you actually play the game, because I learned the basics of DotA in a month or so and have played it for 2+ years now. Its replay value is just ridiculous.

If you jump into a public game without knowing anything, you will feed, yes. That's what the AI maps are for. Get a friend and play co-op until you both are good enough to play with other humans.

____________________________
“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the 'Ellie May,' a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”

Maurog
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I've seen people playing DotA and it really looks like the game plays itself. Like, it doesn't really NEED any human players, it just tolerates them for some unknown reason, know what I mean.

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Tim
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Offtopic: Do I need to finish Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne before playing this? Or are those the same game? (I think I've got the CDs somewhere in my stack of unused games...)

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b0rsuk
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Maurog wrote:
I've seen people playing DotA and it really looks like the game plays itself. Like, it doesn't really NEED any human players, it just tolerates them for some unknown reason, know what I mean.

Good description. I think DotA is a procedurally generated grind.

b0rsuk

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Nillo
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I don't think DotA is grindy at all. That is, not in any serious game where all players are aggressively trying to win. Staying in one place and farming is dangerous because enemies roam the map looking for easy targets. This is why teamwork and map awareness is important.

A normal game of DotA has three stages: The laning stage, the ganking stage and the pushing stage.
In the laning stage, heroes are quite weak and most of the strategy lies in harassing (dealing damage to) the opponents in your lane and getting the last hit on creeps. In non-Easy Mode games it is very important to last hit. The hero who last-hits the best will have the most resources available later.
The ganking stage generally starts around level 7. At this point, heroes' skills are powerful and it is easy to kill others. Most DotA games are decided in this stage, because the team who performs the most successful ganks (gang kills - that is, ambushing enemies) will have a great advantage both technically (they will have more gold and experience) and psychologically (the opponents will despair and be reluctant to do anything).
In the final pushing stage, players will try to destroy the opponents' towers and barracks. However this is difficult because of the advantage the defending team has; Teams who defend will have both quick access to their fountain and line of sight on their side. Therefore the aggressive team will try to lure the defenders out of their base and pick them off in another place. When one or two of the defending players are dead it is much easier to get to the barracks. When the barracks are destroyed their creeps will become weaker and the game is usually over after that.

There is active play in each one of these stages. The only stage that even resembles a grind is the laning stage, and even then you can't just autoattack because this will push the lane closer to the enemy tower and make it easier for opponents to ambush you. Last-hitting is an exercise of reflexes and there are always opportunities to score a kill. And finally, stay away from lategame heroes like Troll Warlord, Mortred and Terrorblade. They are quite boring to play, especially if you jungle (kill neutral creeps in the forest). Mirana, Pudge, Puck and Akasha are examples of strong ganking heroes that can be played aggressively very early in the game, require a lot of skill and generally make the game more intense and enjoyable.

Sorry about the long-winded post! If anyone has other suggestions on good multiplayer games I'd love to read about it.

Tim wrote: Offtopic: Do I need to finish Reign of Chaos and Frozen Throne before playing this? Or are those the same game? (I think I've got the CDs somewhere in my stack of unused games...)

The user-made maps like DotA and Tower Defense are separate from the official campaign, so it is not necessary to finish the game before playing them.

____________________________
“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the 'Ellie May,' a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”

Banjooie
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Where? I was on dotastrategy.com but it's under renovations right now.

If you jump into a public game without knowing anything, you will feed, yes. That's what the AI maps are for. Get a friend and play co-op until you both are good enough to play with other humans.

> If you actually play the multiplayer game multiplayer to start with you're an idiot
> You should be practicing on AI maps before daring to play real multiplayer

yeah no, DotA sucks, needs more anything else.

Nillo
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How is playing DotA co-op with friends against bots any different from, for example, a tower defense? In a TD all the enemies are controlled by the computer. Playing an AI map in such a way is still by definition playing multiplayer, because your friends are humans, even if the opponents are computer-controlled.

____________________________
“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the 'Ellie May,' a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”

Snacko
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I'd like to suggest Multiwinia. It isn't as good as Darwinia, but it distills the RTS genre down to include only what makes it fun. If you have a 360, I'd wait for Darwinia+ which will include both Darwinia and Multiwinia.

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Nillo
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Battle for Wesnoth is worth a mention, though I'm fairly sure most people have heard of it by now. It's a turn-based strategy game in a fantasy setting with a few RPG elements. Most notably, the gameplay is very simple and newbie-friendly, and games tend to be quick because you don't have to build a base.

____________________________
“Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the 'Ellie May,' a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests.”

Banjooie
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What I'm saying is that playing against the AI in DotA is, by your own admission, a necessity.

Now, uh, I'm still not sure why you consider TDs to be singleplayer, I've seen many wherein the mobs pass all eight people, and everyone has to do their part or you lose, but okay sure.