Friday's Top Ten Multiplayer Games

[Friday]

aka Friday makes another buzzfeed post and you click it because you are at work and are bored

so last time we did games it was single player focused (with the semi-exception of dark souls)

since then i've updated the list for anyone wondering by the way

10. Contra (down 1 from 9)
9. Bloodborne (replaces Dark Souls at 10) (thank god I'm not a weirdo who likes DS2 the best of the souls games anymore)
8. Tactics
7. RE4
6. Dragon Quest 11 (replaces DQ8)
5. Link to the Past
4. SotN
3. SH2
2. RDR2 (replaces RDR1)
1. Undertale

Anyway, this time we're gonna focus on multiplayer games only, which are an entirely different beast because they're less about story and more about SHOOTING or whatever.

They can be competitive, team based, co-op, whatever don't care. My criteria is "can you grab a friend or two or more and have some fun with them".

So again remember this is my -favorites- and I'm not trying to be, like, an objective critic describing THE BEST TEN MULTIPLAYER GAMES EVER MADE. Though I mean, quality does matter to me.

Lets get this self-indulgent show on the road then shall we

[Friday]

10. Guild Wars

This is the only MMO on this list for a reason and that reason is MMOs are not very good games. Sure, I've played a -FUCKTON- of WoW and I had a lot of good times with my friends, but I have fonder memories of Guild Wars, even if I have much less of them, honestly.

sei, norn, Loshi and I cut an unholy swath through the Team Arenas and my god that shit was so much fun. Before the dark times when skill duplication due to Factions and the other expansions allowed gimmicky, spammy team comps like Touch Rangers. Building a balanced team of sei on interrupt ranger, Loshi on Warrior, norn on Monk and me on Lightning Elementalist was just tops. I remember once we went 33 fucking wins a row.

I remember doing Forge runs for tips and getting caught by Trolls and having some dickhead laugh at me, only to eat his own shit when I cast holy symbol and made them all scatter and got through. Then he stiffed me, of course. All part of the MMO experience.

The core of the game was the pokemon-like 8 skill slots that defined your "build" along with a primary and secondary class. Such an elegant and refined system that I have never seen duplicated, much less refined on.

I know I'm speaking in gibberish to anyone who hasn't played the original Guild Wars, and that's okay. Suffice it to say Guild Wars is the only MMO I consider good enough to be on this list. It eventually devolved in flavor of the month team comps and bullshit as new skills broke the careful near perfect balance of the initial release, but man, it was fucking amazing while it lasted. Best MMO I've ever played.

[Friday]

9. DUCK GAME

WHY ARE YOU NOT PLAYING DUCK GAME

holy shit why is this game so good

Imagine super smash bros in a 4 player ffa but one hit kills and everyone is a duck

this game is actually number 1 ignore the rest of my list I'm kinda not joking jesus christ?

Duck Game best game

seriously grab three friends and I 100% promise you a time unlike any other time.

Quack.

[Friday]

8. Overwatch

do i really need to talk about Overwatch

okay fine

well mainly the reason I like this game is Tracer's butt

just kidding it's Widow's butt

just kidding it's Genji's butt

so Overwatch has problems and foremost among them is "holy shit this game isn't even a fucking fps anymore" because shields, shields everywhere, you cannot actually shoot anyone because DVa is eating any bullet that is not going into a shield oh a bullet actually landed on a person? instantly healed

isn't it cool to press Q? listen the whole game is going to be based around that okay and you might as well just farm until you have yours oops Zen pressed Q your push fails

whatever it's a good polished game with cool characters and sometimes cool shit happens and you get play of the game

it deserves to be on this list, just know that i am not elevating it beyond where it belongs, which is under:

[Friday]

7. Soldat



AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

I cannot think about this game without thinking about the following:

1. Geo screaming atop my corpse in victory, deagles above his head

2. Zara and I colliding in midair as we both fire point blank grenades from our m79s

3. That fucking amazing pic Mongrel drew

4. Disco sede doesn't advertise

5. Detonator flying around the stage using his minigun to force himself up

6. How godly the weapon balance was

(EDIT) 7. OH GOD ROMO REMINDED ME OF HIS WEAPON MOD MACHINE GUN M79

Anyway this free game is better than Overwatch

cool

[Friday]

6. Star Wars: Battlefront (2015)

ok i'm gonna be honest

everyone's complaints about this game (for the most part) were/are valid

EA's fucking idiotic price scheme (60 bucks for game, 50 for season pass), the lack of maps at launch, the fact that there was really only one game mode worth playing, why do i never get to play as the hero characters, etc

but I really loved it anyway

I had so much fun with this game it's sort of obscene

I don't know what made it click with me beyond the astounding visuals and sound design, I'm not even a Star Wars nerd so

I just really loved the fast paced laser gameplay I guess, who knows

If you're willing to sink the 30 or so hours into this game to get past the whole "I have no idea whats going on or what to do, oh i'm dead again" phase, then I uh

recommend it?

but yeah you're not because you're not an insane person so I don't

moving on

[Friday]

5. Left 4 Dead (1 and 2)

I'm cheating a bit here by having both games in one slot but they came out so close together and I hate and love them equally.

1 has less bullshit but less cool stuff and worse maps. 2 has super cool items and maps but a lot more bullshitty infected and I don't like the finales where you have to get gas

Really good co op experiences both of them. Nothing quite like rounding a corner and then doubling back screaming TAAAANK!! into a mic to warn your team as the music starts up. And then Bill gets smoked and oh my god is that a horde I'm throwing a pipe someone save Bill SHIT THE TANK KNOCKED ME DOWN

Anyway if you ever wanted to shoot Zombies with your friends this is your game(s). Grab those pills and your AR and lets get to poppin' heads.

[Mongrel]

It also has a one-man cheeseburger apocalypse and "Gnome Chompsky".

[Friday]

4. Borderlands

I'm gonna be completely honest. Borderlands 2 is actually the better game but I'm putting 1 up here entirely because of my full playthrough I did with Brentai and Romo and various guests who rotated in sometimes.

Borderlands (both 1 and 2) has a lot of problems. But man, fuck if I don't remember having a god damn lot of fun playing through those games with my friends. I played Borderlands 2 with Brentai and Romo too, but we didn't do as much and some of the thrill and novelty had worn off since 2 is just a more refined version of 1. Borderlands 1 did and does have the most defined characters, with each having clear separate roles/weapons they could excel at. Personally I like this better than the later installments muddier archtypes.

I can't deny Borderlands 2 is better. I feel like multiplayer games (especially the co-ops) are more about your personal experiences than the actual quality of the game. That is, of course, the MMOs entire lifeblood and why people love them.

Anyway, Borderlands 1 was a great game, or at least a great game to play through with
1. a shotgun happy, always running forward directly into enemy lines dog and
2. the grumpy stalwart soldier-medic behind him who kept him alive by shooting him and yelling for him to get some cover or I swear to god I'm just gonna stop healing you do you hear me

In the end, Brentai rammed my rear area at over 100 mph, and that's what counts.

[nosimpleway]

I like that you went ahead and got the Guild Wars vote out of the way first thing

[Friday]

3. Perfect Dark



Describing PD and why you love it to a person who didn't have an N64 and a rotating cast of 3+ friends to play with you in the early 2000s is like trying to describe why you love Ice Cream to a person who's never had Ice Cream.

I can talk about other sweets but man it's Ice Cream, you know?

Made by the same people who made Goldeneye, which generally gets more recognition as -the- N64 local multiplayer king (and it WAS first so I don't mind) Perfect Dark was the LttP to Goldeneye's Zelda 1. Sure, Goldeneye did it first but it was cruder. PD was a refinement and improvement on the formula, so much so that they really don't compare in quality in my mind.

THINGS PD HAD THAT GOLDENEYE DIDN'T

-The ability to customize weapons line by line instead of just as a pre-set grouping (though PD had those too)
-N-Bombs
-Secondary Fire Modes on every. single. weapon.
-N-Bombs
-Computer AI Sims with the ability to control their difficulty, and their type (more on this later)
-N-Bombs, god I fucking hate
-N-Bombs
-Fully customizable teams, which meant you could have a 2 player v 2 player v 4 sim v 4 sim game or whatever the fuck you wanted
-No we are not going to play with N-Bombs again shut up
-Fully customizable body-head avatars
-A fuckload more maps including some of the old favorites from Goldeneye
-The Farsight
-Proximity Pinball Grenades
-Maulers
-No more weird invincibility frames after getting hit so fights no longer lasted 10 hours and then nobody dies because both players run to get more bodyarmor
-You could just take shields out, bodyarmor was unable to be toggled off/on
-Did I mention fully customizable Sims?
-god damn fucking N-Bombs

The Sims were great. I have lots of fond memories of setting up 8 Dark Peace Sims to run around disarming everyone while we struggled to get kills in a game mode we invented called "don't shoot the peace sims". (Doing so resulted in an instant loss and the next person waiting to play took your controller)

Speed Sims, Turtle Sims, and 20 more types I don't even remember. You could invent an infinite amount of fun for you and your friends or just simply do a good old fashioned 2v2 or 1v1v1v1. PD truly had it all.

The Single Player campaign was pretty great too but who fucking cares PD Multiplayer literally defined my early 20s

Later Halo came around and stole PD's throne as "best local multiplayer in everyone's memory" but fuck that. PD is and always will be the King of the Local Multiplayer.

[Mongrel]

But did it have Slappers Only and P-Mines?

[Friday]

2. Starcraft 2



What about Brood War Friday

yeah I played a ton of that but most of it was the custom maps. Which is fine but I don't really think of "sunken defense" or "bunker wars" when I think of engaging multiplayer experiences.

SC2 was the god damn shit. Never before could you build a bunch of Void Rays and then 1A them across the map while you went afk to make a sandwich.

Haha but no seriously I can remember doing Reaper Shenanigans with Smiler in 4v4s and blowing up entire bases before the enemy team could blink good times

Eventually Esper and I teamed up to do 2v2 toss/terran timing attacks and man was that shit fun. I also played a fuckton of solo ladder but honestly that's not really all that memorable to me. It was mostly just so I could get good at build orders and learn how to beat cheese.

Most of my multiplayer experience with SC2 was the first game released, Wings of Liberty. I probably would have played more but Esper's body betrayed him and left me without my Terran Buddy to pilot a banshee around so I could see the high ground with my stalkers while backing me up with tanks. I did play through the HotS and LotV campaigns but single player SC is not really what SC is about.

Starcraft is like the gold standard for no rng multiplayer. I'll always have fond memories of turning massive Zerg armies to ash with my Colossi. And I will always hate you for nab, Idra, you weren't loss.

[Friday]

But did it have Slappers Only and P-Mines?

Both of those things could be created in the custom menus, yeah. Though they upgraded the basic unarmed attack to a semi-decent punch so the silliness of slapping in slow motion was lost. The basic punch's alternate "fire" was a disarm that could be used to steal your opponents gun. (Which is useless in a boxer only match but actually came in handy if you got caught before you could find a weapon.)

[Mongrel]

The basic punch's alternate "fire" was a disarm that could be used to steal your opponents gun. (Which is useless in a boxer only match but actually came in handy if you got caught before you could find a weapon.)

Oh, that's actually pretty cool.

[Friday]

1. Team Fortress 2



Truthfully, TF2 stands so far above and beyond all of my other multiplayer experiences that it still boggles my mind, to this day.

Imagine Overwatch without the myriad balance problems. TF2 is better than that. TF2 had some balance problems but compared to the usual shit they were minor. Each class was fun. Each class was useful. The game was, as Yahtzee put it, polished to a mirror-shine.

I played a good amount of TF2 on my own, I played a ton of TF2 with you guys. TF2 isn't just the gold standard of Multiplayer mayhem for me, it's the fucking platinum standard. The diamond standard. It's really some sort of miracle game that was sent by god to reward us for being pretty okay humans.

I think the game can be best described in terms of quality by just how much FUN each class was and how just when you started to get bored of playing you could switch to a class you hadn't played much and bam, the whole game feels fresh and new. That's something Overwatch really doesn't do, for whatever reason.

I think my absolute favorite multiplayer experience, ever, was when this board went up against Talking Time (and traitor Bongo) and just totally ruined them. I remember so many moments from this game, it's insane. More than WoW even. Ubering Huntsman Niku right after Cait did because there were no other targets and killing everyone off the point. Kritzing Bal scout and watching him one shot three people in a row. Playing Arena with Kazz and Lady Duke and hopping around as Silly Pyro. Reflecting crit rockets right into the center of the enemy group and watching them all cease to exist.

And that's not even getting into the Spy. Man. The fucking mind games you could pull off.

TF2 will always be top dog for me probably just because it represents the old Glory Days of these boards and community while also being one of the best designed and balanced multiplayer experiences ever made. It's truly better than all the other games on this list.

Except Duck Game.

Quack.

[atog]

I still have nightmares about Patito flying across half the map on a rocket to find our glitched-up rooftop exit in Egypt, and quiet engies who turned out to be Friday slow-rolling the sap n' stab until everyone had come through the porter, and Smiler triple-jumping off the walls, and Malikial shotgunning people under the water after being blown off the rig on Thunder Mountain.

I was useless as tits on a ski most days, but I did try.

[Mongrel]

Honestly, I can't even remotely disagree. TF2 is the only FPS Starr and I ever played together, had the best servers and people playing it by far, and was pretty much as close to perfection as you can ever get in a multiplayer FPS. It was fun like no other multiplayer game I've ever played, and it's not even fucking close.

To this day TF2 remains the game I miss playing most, but without anyone else I know playing it's just not the same. I miss playing with you guys, I miss the nutjobs on the furry server (who played amazing games - the matches were so good there!), I miss the Rocket Quebec crowd who were all extremely close-knit until the day the server finally closed and they scattered to the four winds, I miss the server I can't recall where there was another regular called FDR I endless banter going with (my Steam name was/is Smedley D. Butler, so the first time we met he started off with "Hey thanks for saving me!").

That's really what led to the end of my TF2 days, was when every last server I knew I could go to for a good game, with a good map rotation, closed down (I think the furry server might still be going, actually, but that's one among dozens). Especially the ones which added in good custom maps to mix things up (GARBAGE DAY?!).

Every now and then I stare forlornly at the desktop icon, which will always remain on my desktop, hoping against hope that maybe one gang or another will get back together. I've played a couple times since all the communities died, joining random games on random servers (hideously out of practice, but luckily I can always return to Engie), but it's not the same. It's still a great game, but the maps are the same as ever and it seems like it's all just randoms playing on Valve 24/7 map servers.

It's basically Morgan Freeman near the end of Shawshank saying "I guess I just miss my friend[s]".

Ubering Huntsman Niku

[Friday]

I was useless as tits on a ski most days

did you just make this up or is this a canadian thing

either way it's amazing

[atog]

I was useless as tits on a ski most days

did you just make this up or is this a canadian thing

either way it's amazing

I stole it from a book I read when I was in HS, cannot recall which one but it was set in WWII