splits creen plus online games

Alkohallick

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Is there any reason why Halo 3 is one of the only if not the only game this gen with 4 player split screen +online at the same time? is there a technical reason or just dev choice
 
Is there any reason why Halo 3 is one of the only if not the only game this gen with 4 player split screen +online at the same time? is there a technical reason or just dev choice

Technical. You need a specific rendering style for it, and you basically need to do almost a complete redesign of the game for the smaller screens, optimise the polygons (use way less), textures and so on to minimise memory etc. You also need to either make sure you can do with very little bandwidth or do some optimisation to handle four times the network information bandwidth (probably most important for upload rather than download). That's just what I'm guessing though - you also probably need some additional work on how to handle who's hosting the match etc.

Obviously, any effort on this will be balanced on the value that people place on this feature - how many people play like that? (yes, they definitely exist, but it's certainly a small percentage of actual gamers)

Warhawk has 4 player split screen + online at the same time too by the way. Don't think there are too many others though. It's certainly a cool feature in Halo.
 
When I played 4P in one of the earlier Halo games. The small maps are fun for 4 players.

The big maps are for more players. e.g., Warhawk maps.
 
SARPBC is another that lets 4 player split screen online. I think it's the only UE powered PS3 exclusive. It's also really weird that these guys worked on Gears with Epic, then released a UE3 powered game on PSN. Mind-bottling.
 
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I kind of wonder a lot if Bungie could do better visuals if they'd drop the 4 player split mode that like 1% of people use. Hell, a lot of games (KZ2) dont even do two player split let alone four.
 
Hell, a lot of games (KZ2) dont even do two player split let alone four.
And they are the worse for it. :( Same console coop is the best gaming experience possible IMO, but it's utterly underrepresented. I had more fun with Mario Kart on N64 with its 160x120 resolution quarter-of-a-screen than I ever had with KZ2. Same with Hired Guns, way way more fun than Resistance or MAG or other shooters. ModNation Racers has added split-screen from demand, and because of that it may well see an additional sale.
 
Best gaming experience possible? That would be local LAN multiplayer. ;) I've done a tonne of that all the way back to the 16bit era with Midi Maze on the Atari ST. ;)

Same screen multiplayer highlights for me have been games like Soccer64 and Zarchon on the C64, though even a turn-by-turn game like Beach Head was a lot of fun, and of course games of the Super Sprint ilk (including Ironman Off-Road, BMX Simulator for the Atari 800, etc.). Gauntlet 2 was fun also.

A game I also really, really liked and one of the few games I've ever played with 6 and even 8 players on the same screen (using controller sharing!) was Micro Machines V3 on the Playstation. God I loved that game, and I can't believe how disappointing it is that they never managed to do a good next-gen update for this. Some great physics effects could have been added (the water racing was already pretty amazingly awesome back then). Micro Maniacs, its sequel, also showed some good promise, with something like the Bee race through the garden being a prettty awesome effect - would be great with motion controls and planes or helicopters, etc.


So actually, multiplayer on same screen has been a much better mutli-player experience for me come to think of it. The first-personness of modern games have somewhat ruined this aspect of gaming.
 
I kind of wonder a lot if Bungie could do better visuals if they'd drop the 4 player split mode that like 1% of people use. Hell, a lot of games (KZ2) dont even do two player split let alone four.

KZ2 didn't even have time to implement a party system or co-op. ^_^
Uncharted 2 and Resistance 2 developers were able to implement co-op + competitive modes on top of the SP game about 2 years after the first one. So I expect KZ3 to make similar progress.
 
Is there any reason why Halo 3 is one of the only if not the only game this gen with 4 player split screen +online at the same time? is there a technical reason or just dev choice

Rendering 4 split screens is more taxing than 1 screen. So you will need to reduce graphic quality.


GRAW,CoD3,Warhawk, has 4player split screen online btw.


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You also need to either make sure you can do with very little bandwidth or do some optimisation to handle four times the network information bandwidth

You do not need 4x network information. Same info is recieved for all players, all you need is slightly more upload traffic (4x more however these packages are very small) but that is non problematic unless the netcode is strict peer-2-peer (no player acting as server). Anybody with a half decent upload (any broadband) would hardly notice any difference.

p2p solutions are terrible and require far more traffic. (You need to send the same piece of information to every single player, instead of just to the server who will distrubute, so a 16 player game this requires 16x more traffic than a serverside netcode would do)
 
Best gaming experience possible? That would be local LAN multiplayer. ;) I've done a tonne of that all the way back to the 16bit era with Midi Maze on the Atari ST. ;)

Same screen multiplayer highlights for me have been games like Soccer64 and Zarchon on the C64, though even a turn-by-turn game like Beach Head was a lot of fun, and of course games of the Super Sprint ilk (including Ironman Off-Road, BMX Simulator for the Atari 800, etc.). Gauntlet 2 was fun also.

A game I also really, really liked and one of the few games I've ever played with 6 and even 8 players on the same screen (using controller sharing!) was Micro Machines V3 on the Playstation. God I loved that game, and I can't believe how disappointing it is that they never managed to do a good next-gen update for this. Some great physics effects could have been added (the water racing was already pretty amazingly awesome back then). Micro Maniacs, its sequel, also showed some good promise, with something like the Bee race through the garden being a prettty awesome effect - would be great with motion controls and planes or helicopters, etc.


So actually, multiplayer on same screen has been a much better mutli-player experience for me come to think of it. The first-personness of modern games have somewhat ruined this aspect of gaming.

I fully agree wholeheartedly with this sentiment!!!!

I grew up playing micromachines V3 and a whole load of other 2-7 player games with my three brothers and army of friends every night. I rmember the times when we'd borrow 2 PS multi-taps off my friend to sit and all play NBA Live 9(somthing) together.

Local multiplayer was my bread and butter of gaming and what made gaming fun for me in my younger years. Even when i used to play single player games, i would play in my room surrounded by all my brothers who just loved to watch me play (and i them too).

Local MP is one of the most criminally neglected features this generation, and i've just been waiting for the time when a pub or developer realises this with one of their big franchises.

I'd personally rather take local co-op or splitscreen competitive play on any game than online MP, where all of my camaraderie and trash talking is done through a poor quality headset.

P.S. God bless Insomniac Games and WarHawk!!!!! Also, may StarHawk continue this tradition i pray ;-)
 
I speculate that in the future we'll get more split screen games -- assuming these games have an easier time to transit to stereoscopic 3D.
 
I kind of wonder a lot if Bungie could do better visuals if they'd drop the 4 player split mode that like 1% of people use. Hell, a lot of games (KZ2) dont even do two player split let alone four.
Go on a social playlist and you'll see tons of guests. Splitscreen+LAN are definitely features that my friends and I make a lot of use of in Halo.
 
I kind of wonder a lot if Bungie could do better visuals if they'd drop the 4 player split mode that like 1% of people use. Hell, a lot of games (KZ2) dont even do two player split let alone four.

i just re-read this, where is the "1% of people use" figure coming from? surely if more games had that option more than 1% of the gaming population would use it.
 
My bro's and my most played games are Halo 3, Gears 1 and Gears 2....And they all have one thing in common: Splitscreen

Such a shame that splitscreen has taken a step back this generation...Also kinda bad that only Halo3 and Gears 1 allow you to play with a guest:p (they should really have Live console-bound instead of gamertag-bound)
 
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