I have come to where multiplayer is where it is at for me. Heck even Halo 2 has not been enough to get me to do single player. However I am doing some Morrowind GOTY right now. ..that is the most recent offline game I have bought. I do not remember the last offline only game I have bought before that. But I have found that online gaming is too fun. I am lucky that I have been part of a great gaming forum of like-minded gamers of my age or thereabouts(32). I have played with these guys since the beta days and know them by voice without pause. Though we have not met I consider them more than acquaintances.

As for split screen. I cannot tell you how much I hate being able to see other player's screens or them mine. It does take away from being able to sneak up to them and clunk them. My buddy and I used a sheet back in the day to not see each other's side of the screen with playstation Doom.

As for sports games...I haven't played basketball, baseball and hockey in a long while but I get the football game every year and I hate being able to see what my opponent is picking. I try not to look but I tend to wait for the formation before I pick my play(on defense). That is one reason why I loved the Dreamcast ..with the vmu me and my buddies called our plays off the controller screen and allowed for the mind games of playcalling.

I started Halo 2 on Xmas night, Heroic setting. Played it (and only it) for exactly one week, finishing on New Year's eve. I worked nights Mon-Thur and if I hadn't I would've finished it even sooner. Total time to beat it - approx. 25 hours counting restarts. And I have no doubt that while I'm good at it, there are players on Live who would quickly make me their bitch, so I'm no "superstar" :).

I loved what was there, but the ending has me thinking that it was originally planned to be much longer. Where are the other vehicles that were hinted at ? Why does the advertising tease that much of the game is on Earth, when really only the start is ? Somewhere along the line I believe they decided to divide the campaign in half, throw in enough multiplayer goodness to divert attention away from its brevity, and save the other stuff that was talked about for Halo 3.

And wouldn't that make a perfect launch title for the NextBox, due out just in time for Xmas '05 ;) ?

To be honest I would consider 25 hours to be pretty good value for a play through single player action game. Any more than that and I would likely become frustrated. Of course good thing you were on heroic as it would probably have taken you 15+ on normal :) (it took me about 20 hrs on normal but I am finding heroic tough).

You're spot on, I'm sure MS realised that the only possible way they would halo 3 ready for xbox2 launch (which is not far away!) is to use content that was originally planned for Halo 2. I'm not too fussed because I've had a fair few hours of enjoyment out of the game and one day I might get live just to play the multi. However I can understand why some would feel a bit ripped off particularly if they don't have access to the apparently glorius live play.

I've had a lot of fun playing split screen games on the n64, but this is primarily racing games like fzero and mario kart. These are an absolute blast to play and the ability to watch your opponents and see them stuff up is great for taunts.

I'd rather play games with others in person as well. But its pretty hard to see when you're playing a first person shooter with only a 1/4 of the screen.

1/4 of the screen is not so bad when you play on a 52inch Widescreen,
and it is especially satisfying with The Offline Cardboard Screen Splitter ;)



wlj

I'm really not all that upset by the shortness of Halo 2's campaign. It was excellent, but I played it right after spending about 175 hours over 6+ weeks enjoying every minute of GTA:SA, so it probably couldn't be helped that Halo 2 seemed short in comparison. Plus, I paid for both of them by trading in some old DVDs at Blockbuster during their October "trade any DVD, get $8" promotion. 13 crappy DVDs = nice new Halo 2 & GTA:SA any day :) .

I'm more concerned about the general trend of publishers thinking online options make up for a sloppy single-player game. MOH:RS was a huge disappointment in this regard, and if EA continues buying developers I can see this problem getting much worse. I don't want to start spending "real" money on expensive games that only last a few days.

It's even better when you combine the cardboard screen splitter, with the screen magnifying power of THE BIG WOODY!

Yep, no need for a splitter here, 57" widscreen. That is around a 27" screen each. I would need a lot of cardboard.

So my question is how do you keep people on the same half of the screen from seeing each other? Top/bottom. Do you make players 3 & 4 sit uncomfortably on the floor? I think we all really need to see some photos.

More cardboard....we make some perpendicular cardboard on the large flat piece of cardboard....the cardboard had a shape like + . It makes it where you can only see your screen. Yes 2 gamers that play on the bottom do have to get on the floor. But even when we play games without the splitter there are two gamers that are always on the floor anyway. If I had a digital camera I would take some pics.

wlj