MP/Modes of games you swear only you played and more people should have given a shot.

[Skel1ingt0n]

I was explaining to a friend about all the crazy good times my younger sister and I had with Banjo Tooie multiplayer, and he completely blank-stared me. Not only did he never even know BT had multi-player modes, he was blown away that I actually truly and sincerely enjoyed it - and thought it was a legitimately great experience.

Let me be clear - BT multi has all the traits of N64 split-screen - abysmal framerate and all.



Don't get me wrong, both Perfect Dark and Goldeneye are better games - but this was a great time with a 3rd grade sister; more appropriate, and easier level design but with a fun twist on things.

Another that I often like to talk about is the GameBoy Advance integration with Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc on Gamecube. I'm struggling to find footage - but basically, one player is on the TV playing with a Gamecube controller, and has to race to an endpoint... meanwhile, on the GameBoy Advance's screen, your cooperative partner is basically playing a variation of Tetris + Dungeon Master to help build you a path and avoid enemies to reach your goal. With the cousins over, it was a great way to play together for a solid couple hours... and I've never once met someone else who gave this a shot.

I'm sure there are lots of gems out there - games we all have in our collections, sitting on a shelf - with experiences we never even bothered to start up. What are the good ones we should go to and give a real chance to... or even if they don't hold up today... what'd we miss out on in their heyday?

 

[Theswweet]

I know that it actually had a pretty healthy MP population, but Uncharted 2's multiplayer is unironically the best part of the game.

 

[Deleted member 14377]

DK64 GOAT

Matrix PS2

Anarchy Reigns. I had convinced like 4-5 friends to grab it with me and we had a blast. The MP was pretty alright for the first 3 months or so? What an amazing game in a league of it's own :'c

 

[lilty]

It had a small but loyal following, but I really wish Shadowrun 2007 was more popular.

 

[Mars]

It had a small but loyal following, but I really wish Shadowrun 2007 was more popular.

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It was almost like a precursor to hero shooters today. I had a hard time committing any time to play it because of other, much more mainstream shooters but I did like the idea of the game.

I can't think of any of the more obscure MPs I've played but I was a big fan of Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow MP and more recent one I also had a ton of fun with is Watch_dogs 1 MP — something about playing hide and seek with guns.

 

[BioDigital Jazzman]

Sunset overdrive MP- it was cool and a way to show off your character

Breakout in Halo 5- I thought it was a good change of pace

 

[KillstealWolf]

Team Sonic Racing perhaps. Boost Races were insane if you had a partner knowing to use 2 then pass.
Shame about the long lobby and results thoough.

 

[CannonFodder52]

It had a small but loyal following, but I really wish Shadowrun 2007 was more popular.

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For a Counter Strike clone, I feel like this game was more experimental and interesting than Valorant.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Star Fox: Assault's multiplayer would save the SF series if it got rereleased with online and higher player counts

 

[HanzSnubSnub]

Resistance 3 multi was pretty fun actually

 

[frugaljoker8]

Star wars battlefront 2015 was honestly more fun to me then 2017. idk why

 

[Lant_War]

Gravity Rush 2. I enjoyed challenging the ghosts of other players and the treasure hunts more than I'd like to admit. Sucks a lot that Sony closed the servers so soon after release.

Team Sonic Racing perhaps. Boost Races were insane if you had a partner knowing to use 2 then pass.
Shame about the long lobby and results thoough.

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Yeah, TSR's online was pretty much dead on day 1. Which sucks because it has a lot of modes and options, some even online-only

 

[TeraDax]

Spent lots of evening playing Star Fox: Assault multiplayer. Had so much fun with friend, but it seem, like the rest of the game, people were not really fond of it.

 

[trevofour]

Anarchy Reigns. I had convinced like 4-5 friends to grab it with me and we had a blast. The MP was pretty alright for the first 3 months or so? What an amazing game in a league of it's own :'c

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I loved playing Deathball.

 

[Hours Left]

Chameleon Twist multiplayer.

 

[oneils]

I think mass effect 3 multiplayer ended up being decently popular on all platforms. Im pretty sure you can find lobbies to this day. I played probably 300 hours on pc and maybe 100 hours on console.

The multiplayer in andromeda was cool but they never realeased new maps or weapons and it was balanced for bronze, from what i rememeber. I wonder if people are still playing.

 

[Mr. Keith]

Syndicate 2012 Multiplayer

Shout out to Jeff Gerstmann for spreading the good word because I don't think I would have found games on the PC version otherwise.

 

[Dance Inferno]

Splinter Cell Blacklist - Spies vs Mercs.

Really fun but could also devolve into total curb stomps. Still a fun asymmetrical multiplayer mode though. I kinda view it as a precursor to Rainbow Six Siege in a way.

 

[Deleted member 13015]

The Tomorrow Children on PS4.

Charming online game where you gathered resources for your town by going out into these beautiful structures and digging/axing/building.

The theme was Soviet Union, and it was unique. Died on November 2017. People found it confusing, but it wasn't at all. The tutorial was so small, yet learning what to do was so easy... Still blaffles me people were very confused.

 

[Clive]

Bioshock 2 and Singularity had two of my favorite multiplayer modes last gen. The classes were unbalanced but very distinct from one another and the modes were fun. Feels like neither game is remembered from the MP.

Sunset Overdrive's MP was also super fun and was well implemented into the campaign. You could keep playing while match making. Too bad the DLC's MP died so fast. Once I got around to it, it was dead.

 

[Mendoza]

My group of friends and I are in our 30s and we've played a lot of multiplayer games since we all had so many consoles collectively. There were many night we found our fun with some random game or mode that we just tried on a whim. For the VS ones, make up some drinking games or bet money to maximize the excitement.

Atari 2600: Maze Craze - Fun find-the-exit VS multiplayer game that is pretty hype. Finding the exit is only half the strategy as the game requires very precise timing when turining corners to maximize speed (think pac-man or Rally-X). Play some first to 10's and take turns.

NES: Donkey Kong Jr. Math - Vs. math platforming — game gives you a positive and negative number and you have to platform and climb to numbers and operations to add or subtract to those numbers. It's awesome.

SNES(on Switch!): Kirbys Super Star - Megaton Punch. A quick VS timing based game that gets hype. Easy to take turns with a group. Super Star is popular, but Megaton Punch has never been remade in future Kirbys so I feel like this multiplayer has been forgotten. Music is aersome

PlayStation: Bushido Blade - Squaresofts realistic 3D fighter. The game is easy enough to play without too much explanation, as there isn't special input combos to memorize, but the game has a lot of fun depth with how many characters and weapons there are — the only thing is you have to unlock them. Grab a group and play first-to-5s or 10s. It's a riot.

Genesis: General Chaos - 2 Player Co-op top down military action game, like a cross between Ikari Warriors and Gain Ground. Single player is like a military RTS with like 4 different classes on the battlefield, but the multiplayer mode allows you to physically control the characters. Pretty rare on cart these days though.

Nintendo 64: Kirby 64 - Checker Board Chase. 4 Player VS tile combat game—simple to play but hard to explain — so good though. 64 has so many good 4-player games like this such as Bomberman 64 and Pokémon Stadium, I feel people sleep on this one.

Nintendo DS: Yoshis Touch & Go - Dexterity based stylus game — really deep VS multiplayer system and I feel no-one gave it a shot. My friends and I played this incessantly in the early days of the DS.

EDIT: Forgot Yoshis Touch & Go.

 

[Pbae]

Killzone Mercenary.

 

[Mass Effect]

Star Fox: Assault's multiplayer would save the SF series if it got rereleased with online and higher player counts

Click to shrink...

Holy shit, this so much. Assault's multiplayer is some of the best that generation. It's like a proto-Warhawk.

I'll even go one further: A straight up Star Fox Assault 2 would save the franchise. Expand the on-foot/sandbox areas, improve the controls, and ignore the story of literally every Star Fox that released after Assault. Boom, instant million seller.

 

[skeezx]

probably doesn't count as it's a recognized "online" game but Dark Zone in the Division 1 was quite the fun little experiment back in the day.

it predictably ended up with kids/basement dwellers ganging up on 'casuals' and screaming homophobic and racial slurs but when it worked it really worked

 

[B1ggRandall]

Max Payne 3 online was sooo damn good! I had great times with that!
Hey is the PC online still populated? Probably not :(

It had a small but loyal following, but I really wish Shadowrun 2007 was more popular.

Click to shrink...

I remember playing the Hell outta that beta! Good times!

 

[Catalix]

Don't know how popular it actually was, but Rachet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal's multiplayer was my shit back on PS2!

 

[Stopdoor]

I'm pretty fond of Puyo Puyo Tetris' Fusion mode. I don't really see anyone talk about it. I find something about the mixture extremely fascinating and the way you can extend combos just by reacting quickly kind of defuses some of the complications of Puyo Puyo. It's still a giant pain to explain to people, though.

 

[bananab]

SNES Mario Kart battle mode is more fun than the main game and is more fun than the battle modes in any other Mario kart.

 

[Spring-Loaded]

Holy shit, this so much. Assault's multiplayer is some of the best that generation. It's like a proto-Warhawk.

I'll even go one further: A straight up Star Fox Assault 2 would save the franchise. Expand the on-foot/sandbox areas, improve the controls, and ignore the story of literally every Star Fox that released after Assault. Boom, instant million seller.

Click to shrink...

Someday Nintendo will realise the truth

 

[rpm]

A lot of the stuff I came in here to mention (Anarchy Reigns (why the fuck didn't you buy Anarchy Reigns), Max Payne 3, Shadowrun '07) was already said, so I'm gonna jump straight into my multiplayer hot take:

Aliens: Colonial Marines.

No, I'm not joking.

The campaign is absolutely as boring and as buggy as you've seen/heard. There's no defending that. I quit after the first level.
The multiplayer, though, was really enjoyable. I bought it for $10 like a month after it came out with some friends, and I greatly got my money's worth. I actually even bought multiplayer skins for the game, that's how much I enjoyed and played it. There's actually still some active Steam groups for this game. The general gaming community never gave this game a deeper look than it's shitty campaign, but most people who dove into the multiplayer seemed to have enjoyed their time with it as I have.

Crysis 2 & 3 also had some pretty fun multiplayer, especially 3's Hunter mode

 

[Bane]

Glad to see others like Shadowrun and Anarchy Reigns. Shadowrun in particular was fucking legit.

One I'll add to the conversation is Chromehounds. It was a great mech game that let you make some really creative designs for your ride but ultimately From was terrible at balancing it and I think it eventually drove the already small playerbase away.

 

[Inugami]

Assassin's Creed pre-unity. Had an amazing and unique multiplayer. Biggest disappointment of the remakes was the removal of it.