2005 Game of the Year: Multiplayer by Game Tunnel

2005 Game of the Year: Multiplayer

Playing alone certainly has its place, but playing together is typically just more fun, especially if you are working together with other people in a team effort.

With the big N showing everyone just how easy multiplayer gaming can be online with their wi-fi service, more and more people are taking their game online. This year's best multiplayer games, for the most part, offer great online options as well. In fact, one of the games is only available through the internet.

5th Place - Zombie Smashers X2

Developer: Totally Screwed	Players: 1-2 (Co-Operative)
Website		Purchase
System Requirements: 450 MHz, 64 MB RAM, 16MB video card, DirectX 8+

What is better than one player beating up a Zombie, killing it(?), and then grabbing one of its body parts to beat up another Zombie while fantastic punk rock plays in the background? Two people beating up Zombies and then using the left over body parts as weapons!

Zombie Smashers X2 has been in the spotlight more than once in this year's awards after taking the Action game of the year and being among the top 5 in the Game of the Year Sound awards, and there are still plenty of great things to talk about with this amazing game.

As far as multiplayer goes, there is a lot to be said for versus play, but there is something far more rewarding and just plain fun about playing as a team. Zombie Smashers X2 gives players the chance to take on those pesky never-ending hordes as a duo, choosing from the many characters in the game. Of course, if you get bored you can always take a few swings at each other, just remember that you're supposed to be killing Zombies!

4th Place - Tribal Trouble

Developer: Oddlabs		Players: 1-6
Website	Download		Purchase
System Requirements: MacOS X / Linux /Windows NT/2000/XP, Java, 700MHz CPU, GeForce 2 MX or better, 128 MB of RAM

Tribal Trouble guts out the Real-Time-Strategy genre down to its bare essentials and creates a game that is so simple that anyone can play it. The approachability of the game really is an asset when it comes to the multiplayer battles as you can quickly get a handle on what you are doing and go forward. It also leads to much shorter games than your typical RTS, with a very heavy focus on the units and how you use them.

In Tribal Trouble you have only a handful of unit types at your disposal and there are only three building types. While this could be seen as a drawback, it is really a big piece of what leads to the game's charm. Instead of working through a technology tree to get to specific units before starting an assault, Tribal Trouble is really about running a non-stop assault with lots of units instead of really powerful ones.

This leads to a a lot of parity between players, and the addition of tremendous amounts of humor in the units themselves leaves players more focused on how much fun they are having than on trying to be the ultimate champion. If you do lose, there is always another game, and at 20 minutes or less for the average game, Tribal Trouble is something you can play during your lunch break every day without feeling guilty about wasting your time. The game is certainly a strong enough multiplayer experience to make you enjoy playing so much that you won't even think about where the few minutes went.

3rd Place - Dark Horizons: Lore Invasion

Developer: Max Gaming Technologies		Players: 1-32
Website	Download		Purchase
System Requirements: P3 733 MHZ, Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, Open GL Video Card (also on Mac and Linux)

The DH:LI universe involves a world war fought by two factions: the Federated States and the Eastern Confederation. In this war, your battles are fought in Mechanized Assault Vehicles, or MAVs. Each faction has similar MAV types, such as Scouts or Tanks, with similar weaponry, but there are special weapons for each side as well.

A key feature in the game is the use of Comcent, which allows individual battles to have an actual effect on the war. You can see as parts of North America switch hands between the two factions from one battle to the next. One day you may see the Federated States control everything but the East Coast, only to login the next day to find that they not only lost ground but had a second front open up on the West Coast. Teams are very important in this game and you can join any faction or clan. You can also play on your own, choosing sides as you deem appropriate.

Dark Horizons: Lore Invasion provides hours of mech-based, online fun. It isn't a simulation so much as an arcade game, so die-hard fans might be turned off at first, but there are plenty of options to tweak to make it more or less realistic. It is a competitive and fun game where every battle you fight in is part of a greater conflict, which makes players feel truly engaged in the game.

2nd Place - Battalion

Developer: Urbansquall		Players: 1-4
Website
System Requirements: Macromedia Flash enabled web browser, screen resolution of 1024x786 or higher

Battalion looks like a natural extension of the game Advance Wars (which itself looks like a natural extension of the game Military Madness/Neo Nectarous). The graphics are built to be cartoony in nature, but actually look a step better than what you see in Advance Wars with larger more detailed units.

The main focus of the game is turn-based strategy, but the big thing that Battalion brings to the table (other than some original units, lots of variety in the maps and a heaping helping of strategy) is the multiplayer aspect that lets up to 4 people play together (or if you happen to be a player short you can use the AI to fill out your game).

Just the opportunity to play Advance Wars multiplayer with a great matchmaking service would be enough to get most people excited, but Battalion definitely doesn't stop there. The way most of the maps are built, minor errors don�€™t factor in as decisively as they often do in other strategy games. Lots of cover makes defending your terrain a viable strategy until you have enough strength for a counterattack, and innovative or sneaky tactics are often rewarded with a glorious victory.

One of Battalion�€™s strongest assets is that it provides multiplayer and ranked games for the enthusiasts, while the casual gamers can have just as much fun in unranked games with or without an arbitrary number of AI opponents. It boils down to endless hours of great multiplayer game play.

2005 Game of the Year: Multiplayer - Trash

Developer: Inhuman Games		Players: 1-24
Website	Download		Purchase
System Requirements: Windows 98/ME/XP/NT/2000, MacOS X(10.1+), DX 8+, 500mhz CPU, 128 mb RAM

Twenty-four player lag-free online RTS gaming. The words are like candy to the soul and they are just the beginning of what makes the Trash experience so amazing.

Trash sides players to one of two groups, the Humans or Mutants. Where a big key of the magic comes in, and the main reason that this game shines so well as a multiplayer is that alliances in multi-player are not only possible, but can prove to be very beneficial.

Like many RTS games, Trash has a fairly extensive tech tree that players can use to improve the future units that are created. What is unlike most RTS games is that future units are the only ones that immediately take advantage of new upgrades. Older units must be upgraded individually in order to use the new abilities. However, upgrading is not limited to your own units. Players can also upgrade allied units, creating a very singular RTS experience, but that still is just a piece of the magic.

In Trash, as in most RTS games, players use the resources around them. In Trash, however, in order to keep your different buildings running they need to be connected together; this is done through a series of pipes. Players aren't limited though to connecting their own buildings, they can also connect to their allies. This allows players to share resources as well as technologies.

Unlike most Real Time Strategy games where teamwork is really based on a collection of individuals, succeeding in Trash requires working together to create new weapons and technologies through the combined assets of all players on the team. (All 12 of them!) This leads to a strategy game experience that has had players clambering for more, and who can blame them?

The sharing feature stands out as not just innovative, but a heck of a lot of fun and helps lead Trash to a place where no garbage could possibly go, winning it the Game of the Year award for the best Multiplayer game.

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By: Russell Carroll
Posted: Tuesday December 27, 2005