Who still enjoys local multiplayer?

[Everlong]

It seems like no games these days even bother trying to make their multiplayer modes fun for local play, which is a shame as for so many years that was a key selling point. Everything's about online now. Nintendo still does local well, but Playstation and Xbox don't even bother.

Who still enjoys local multiplayer here? What are some of the best local multiplayer games?

[Circled Square]

Late nights on my PSP playing Vice City Stories on the LAN shit. Had some fun game modes. The true GTA Online!

[CubsIn5]

Mario Kart 64!

[Kein]

Local is the best way to play. Especially in a real competitive game. I wanna be there in your face when I beat you fair and square in a game, we can shoot the shit, laugh, drink, and play some more. I just did this with a buddy of mine in Florida and it was amazing. Not to mention, you miss the whole lag aspect of online.

Being a younger brother, I was raised on this, I miss it so much and I wish companies would be more accommodating to it. The fact I need 2 consoles and 2 TV's for some games is atrocious, but it's better than nothing.

Split screen Goldeneye/Perfect Dark all the way.

[Hanley!]

I much prefer local multiplayer to online. It's just more fun to have friends around and play together at the same time in the same place. It's not the same as playing against friends online (which can also be harder to arrange), and it's infinitely preferable to playing against strangers online, who turn out to be assholes 99% of the time.

Smash Bros in its various incarnations is probably my favourite local multiplayer. It's just great chaotic fun and a great party game. Nintendo has a few other good ones, like Mario Kart and Mario Bros Wii.

A lot of my favourites though are probably on the PS1. Racing games like Speed Freaks, Wipeout and Cool Boarders. Fighting games like MK Trilogy, Tekken and Smackdown 2.

Then there's a few Sega Genesis two player co-op games that I still return to. I'll likely play some of them with my brother this week while I'm off recovering from surgery. Zombies Ate My Neighbours, Toejam & Earl, Wiz and LIz. We don't get enough great local multi-player experiences like this anymore.

[Locke]

The only games that get played local in my little group of friends is Smash Brothers on Wii U, and Towerfall: Ascent on Steam (we just use 360 controllers and Ouya controllers to play on a TV).

Gone are the days of Goldeneye but fellas let me tell you I miss those days dearly.

[JPG619]

I love local multiplayer games since with all the this game hacking shit that goes online these days makes online games boring if you have people having to cheat to win. There was one game this one guy was using a glitch in an NHL hockey game I play and he was running up the score like 5-0 after one period. So I caught on this and was defending this by blocking the shots from getting through. I ended up winning the game since i used skill to win and not resulting in cheating. The funny thing is he reported me for cheating even though he was the one cheating LOL.

Ever since then I only play people I know like friends on family if it online but I do love playing with someone that sitting next to me on the couch.

[GNR]

2K, Madden, and FIFA are 1000000x more fun with local multiplayer than online, there's nothing more satisfying than destroying your buddy and rubbing it in their face.

[SlightlyJames]

Local Multiplayer, in situations where the split screen isn't obnoxious, is usually the more fun experience because latency isn't an issue and having your friends there with you is always going to be better than having them on Skype.

At the same time, it's easy to see why Online Multiplayer is favoured, at least by the bigger developers. For the most part it is immensely more convenient. Without Online Multiplayer I would play far, far less games with my friends. If I had to pick one or the other to include in a game, I'd choose Online rather than Local.

With that in mind, there's quite a large amount of indie titles that have come out in the last few years that don't offer Online Multiplayer as it would cost them too much to include it. A lot of those games really suffer from the absence of Online, Spelunky for example.

Like I said, Local is generally more of a hassle to arrange and the way Spelunky handles two players on-screen is rather poor. That's a problem that would be solved by having individual screens for each player (this can actually be done by using a PS Vita with a PS3 for the additional screen but for Xbox and PC users it's not an option).

[Everlong]

I guess I was looking for more suggestions on games with current local multiplayer games rather than ones from past systems, though I definitely love those too

One I've played that's an absolute blast is Mount Your Friends. It was available for a buck on the Xbox 360 marketplace and it was SO FUCKING WORTH IT. Tons of laughs to be had and you can play it with a huge group of people.

[SlightlyJames]

I guess I was looking for more suggestions on games with current local multiplayer games rather than ones from past systems, though I definitely love those too

One I've played that's an absolute blast is Mount Your Friends. It was available for a buck on the Xbox 360 marketplace and it was SO FUCKING WORTH IT. Tons of laughs to be had and you can play it with a huge group of people.

@Everlong Alright, here's a few newish Local Multiplayer games I can think of off the top of my head.

If you have a Playstation 3/4 or PC, Sportsfriends is a pretty good game. It's a collection of a few really simple but fun mini-games that are perfect for a few laughs every now and then. My favourite in particular is Super Pole Riders, that game is really addictive.

Duck Game is a game people are pretty high on atm on PC. 2-4 players, competitive 2D platform game where you are all out to be the last Duck standing using a wide array of weapons, it's a blast to play. The game has a quack button.

Speedrunners is a game for PC and (I believe) Xbox One ,where 2-4 players play through looping platformer levels with the camera following the front runner. The objective is to get far enough ahead of the other players that they get off-screened and die. There's Mario Kart style pickups that can flip the game on its head like drills that give you a speed boost, hooks that you can use to yank other players back and get ahead of them, etc.

Toybox Turbos is a game for PC, 360 and PS3 in a very similar fashion to Speedrunners with a strong flavour of Micro Machines. It's a top down racing game with some really nicely designed levels and a wide variety of different cars to play with. The objective is essentially the same as Speedrunners though I believe it is possible in this game to destroy your opponents as well as simply outrunning them.

Screencheat is a 2-4 player split screen FPS game for PC where all of the characters are invisible. The objective is to determine where the other players are by looking at their screen and seeing where they are on the map and of course, try to shoot them. It's a really clever concept and it's one that's definitely good for some laughs and slight mindfuckery.

Those are all of the ones I immediately thought of, anyway. Except for the one that I'm shoving into its own post as my explanation for it ended up being really bloated.

[SlightlyJames]

@Everlong There was another game I was writing about for my post above that wound up taking a lot of time to explain so I figured in order not to draw focus away from the other games I'd give it its own post. I'm conscious that this may sound incredibly convoluted but believe me, once you're actually playing the game it makes perfect sense.

The Jackbox Party Pack is another game that is a collection of smaller games. I'm a really big fan of this one. As far as I know it is PC only but pretty much any machine could run it. One of my favourite games in the collection is Drawful, a super interesting take on Pictionary that is really simple but quite difficult to explain .

The game supports (I believe) up to 8 players who each play the game via their smartphone/tablet over wifi. When the game begins. everyone will be sent a phrase/prompt to their device that they will have a certain amount of time to draw. Once that time is up, one submission at a time will be shown on the TV and each player will submit a guess as to what the picture is supposed to be.

Once all the submissions are in, they will all appear on the screen along with the actual answer. At this point, you will have to select which one of the entries on screen you think was the original prompt. If someone picks the phrase you entered, you get points. If you pick the correct answer, you get points (as does the artist of the picture of course).

This is repeated for each person's entry and, surprisingly enough, the person with the highest score at the end wins. I really like the way the game plays out as you not only need to try to find the original answer yourself, you also need to come up with a convincing option to trick people into giving you some extra points.

I hope I've managed to do this game justice, it is super fun to play with friends and barely requires any kind of gaming setup, all that you need is a wifi connection and friends with smartphones. Keep in mind, like I said that's only one of the games in the collection. Another one that I'm fond of is Fibbage, a very similar concept but with trivia questions rather than pictionary prompts.

[Locke]

GET TOWER FALL: ASCENSION

It is the best multiplayer party game around. Even people who don't game often hop into that and hold their own. It's basically a mix of Smash Brothers, with SNES/Atari "screen-wrapping" levels (if you fall thru the floor you come out the ceiling, if you go off the left you come back on the right), with ranged items only, with "one shot kill" ala Golden Gun from Goldeneye. Four players at once.

Infinite fun. Several game modes (best of 3/5/etc, deathmatch top # of kills, last man standing, etc).

I can't believe no one else has mentioned this. The quintessential "local MP game" of this decade.

[flock u]

I still love local multiplayer :) it's the main reason I still have a Gamecube and a Nintendo 64 me and buddies still love getting on those and playing things like WWF No Mercy, Goldeneye,Super Smash Brothers Melee,Mario Kart and Mario Tennis Soccer,and Golf :)