I Miss Multiplayer

Growing up I lived in a pretty bad neighborhood. Most of the kids were out fighting, maybe earning some cash playing lookout for the drug dealers. I was a nerdy kid, my parents made me read books, one hour of TV a day (I'd usually watch the Simpsons) unless it was Monday or Friday when I would watch wrestling with my dad. I didn't have much time to bond with friends. Across the street there were two brothers. They were also nerdy kids, the three of us went to the same school.

One day they invited em to come over to play video games. I didn't know what video games were at the time. Regardless I went over. Now, let me be clear, I'm not that old, but sometimes it takes a while for the hood to catch up. Despite the fact that tit was the year 2000 we were playing on a NES. We played Final Fight and I was hooked. I went and asked my parents for a console and for my 8th birthday they scraped together enough to get me a Dreamcast. From that day forward we would just rotate between houses, so our parents could each get a break.

I told you that story to let you know how important multiplayer was to games. Not only for the aspect of fun but also the development of friendships and social skills. I miss multiplayer. I know now is a time when almost every game has multiplayer, but they rarely have real multiplayer. When was the last time a friend came and sat on your couch just to get dominated and claim your controller was broken, only to show up next week with his own? That rarely happens. Now, your friend could live 10 minutes away and you guys just play via the internet.

You know what else changed? You don't sit around eating junk food with your friends telling bad jokes and talking about who the hottest girl in school is. Instead, you're usually linked up with some random. A career criminal, or a lawyer who wants to tell you how he hates his boss. A 13 year old kid who shouldn't even be playing the game that apparently had sex with our moms. Yes, your mom, my mom, his mom, her mom, all of our moms. It's true he said it. The girl who has to trash talk twice as hard. It's all there. Don't get me wrong, there are some cool people playing online you can interact with, but let's be honest, you hate most of them. I don't blame you, I do too. I'd rather just chill and play single player most of the time than deal with most of the people online.

Don't get me wrong online multiplayer has it's benefits, but I miss that personal interaction. I don't even know why I own a second controller. It's rare that anyone picks it up. I miss that, just chilling with some friends and playing games. It was fun. Now you're dropped in a lobby with 31 other people you know nothing about. You mute their mic audio because some guy is rapping along to the newest Chief Keef song and there's a kid yelling about sleeping with your mom, but you know it's not true. There's a girl gamer telling you how girl gamers need more respect, I respect you're gaming skills, you've killed me 17 times, relax. You don't want to hear any of that. Eventually you realize you can just log off and play single player.

I miss multiplayer.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcast
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