God damn it video game developers, stop making game demos that are multiplayer only.

Let me preface the following rant by saying that I have nothing against games which are multi-player only, games which are multiplayer-centric or even games that just tack on a weak single player mode so they can say they had one.  What I hate are video game DEMOS for games that have a multiplayer mode only, without so much as a tutorial before you’re dropped in the action.

Transformers: War for Cybertron, I’m looking disapprovingly in your direction.

Multiplayer-only demos for games are a terrible idea.  A game demo is supposed to be a sales pitch.  It’s a chance to show someone why your product is worth their money.  The first few moments of interaction with a player are critical in influencing that purchasing decision.   You absolutely do not want a potential customer’s first few minutes with your game to be filled with frustration, confusion and controller-destroying rage.

But this is exactly what happens.  Your first interaction with the game, invariably, will be you popping into a game mid-match, probably onto the losing team.   As you stand there trying to figure out which button you use to kill things someone who has been playing 20 minutes longer than you and has already found said button will wander by and turn you into a smoldering pile of goo.

Developers please take note:  A demonstration of the game’s respawning mechanics is useful and necessary, but it’s not what I want to try out during my first 4 seconds of gameplay.  Let me feel like a badass who is armed to the teeth and ready to kill before reminding me that I am in fact a drooling moron whose most devastating attack is to deliver a massaging stream of ineffectual bullets at a stronger opponent.

Transformers: War For  Cyberton: A Case Study in Terrible Multiplayer-Only Demos: Attack of the Subtitles

Word had reached my ears about a new Transformers video game that was supposed to be pretty good.  The game is set before the Transformers came to earth as they’re warring over control of their home planet, Cybertron.  Awesome premise for a video game.  Normally that would be enough to convince me, but Transformers has a sordid history in the video game market.  I have NEVER played one that didn’t suck something awful.  To demonstrate my point I present to you, Exhibit A:

Yeah that’s not your eyes playing tricks on you….you play as Ultra Magnus, a character so badass that he dies in his very first on-screen fight and is voiced by the guy from Unsolved Mysteries.  Here’s a mystery I’d like solved: Why are you fighting a Decepticon logo instead of actual decepticons?

You can see why I might need a demo to convince me to buy this game.  The same is true of many games, especially ones that don’t have the benefit of a 26 year old brand attached to the name.

So I download the demo from Xbox Live.  If there was any indication that this  thing was multiplayer-only it was buried in the fine print.  I went in expecting a taste of the single player missions and was greeted with a screen that only offered me the choice to join a multiplayer game.  Strike one.

The only options available to me from the main menu are some basic configuration options and a Join Match button. Strike two.  Demos should be accessible.  Throwing me to the wolves in a multiplayer match is not an appropriate way to teach me how to play your stupid game.  I don’t know the controls, I don’t know the level layout, I don’t know the scoring rules, hell I don’t even know if this game is in first person or third person perspective yet.  Games need to give players a little time to figure things out.  Some accomplish this by having an explicit tutorial level where someone or something is directing you to perform certain actions like run, walk, crouch, shoot, jump, throw a grenade and, in this game’s case, presumably how to transform into a car or a jet or something.

Instead what we get are two available game modes.  Deathmatch and Conquest.   Neither of these appeals to me., but I pick conquest because based on the options I’ve seen and the ability to customize player classes I’ve made the assumption that this game must be a bit like Battlefield 1942 or Modern Warfare and I’m guessing that in Conquest mode I’ll spawn in some friendly territory where maybe I won’t be blown up in the first 5 seconds.

Hitting the “Find Match” button uncovers another major flaw in multiplayer-only demos.  Disconnects.  The very first time I tried to play this game I was immediately disconnected  and thrown back into the lobby.  The second time too.  It took me three tries to finally get connected.  Computer networks are finicky things.  People are finicky too.  Sometimes they rage-quit a game when they’re losing and disconnect everyone who was playing.  These are factors that the developer cannot control but can have a significant negative impact on a person’s experience.  Developers who do this are essentially entrusting the quality of their first impression to the legion of assclowns that inhabit the internet.  Madness.

I managed to stay in the game for about thirty seconds.  It was enough time to figure out how to move around and test out what a few of the buttons do.  I accidentally managed to transform once, but I died immediately afterwards, without ever seeing how or why it happened and was not able to repeat the process.

So now I’m waiting to respawn and the game freezes.  Hardlocks my xbox.  God. Damn it.  That’s it.  I’m out.  I could not not force myself to keep playing after that.

Maybe I should thank them.  I didn’t really want to  spend the sixty bucks anyway.  I can’t actually pass judgement on the game though.  My xbox red-ringed a couple days after this  I played this demo (I don’t blame the game, that one’s all Microsoft) so I never got to really see if the game was any fun.  First impressions aside it would have been nice to play the game for a few minutes and see how it worked, what the gameplay felt like, etc…  I might still buy the game if it’s good enough, but for now this demo has left a slimy, bullshit taste in my mouth and I’m not going to let them completely off the hook just because my Xbox might have been a little dodgy.  That doesn’t excuse their piss-poor choices for how to showcase a piece of entertainment software.

Mulitplayer  is usually only one aspect of a game.  I like multiplayer.  I’ve bought games solely for their multiplayer before.  But multiplayer is a singularly bad way to introduce a new player to a game and the people that keep doing this need to die in a fire.