History Main / MisbegottenMultiplayerMode

* Playing ''QuakeII'' in co-op with two players is already fairly painful, but becomes almost impossible with three or more players, because the levels are so cramped and killing your friends is stupidly easy. Fortunately, the CompetitiveMultiplayer modes are much better.

* ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii''[='=]s main selling point is its multiplayer cooperative mode, which is liable to turn into a multiplayer off-screen fight mode if you and your teammates don't work together well. The Super Skills videos show off its potential to be awesome if your team is skilled and well-coordinated, but most players lack that kind of coordination and just end up impeding each other.
** And even worse, those videos only make up merely six of the 65 available videos.

* ''Game/DarkMessiah''[='=]s online multiplayer play more like a bad ''{{Half-Life}} 2'' mod than anything to do with ''Dark Messiah'', ignoring the singleplayer game's brilliant combat system, spells, classes and with far worse graphics. Of course, it was made by a different company altogether.

* ''SuperSmashBros Brawl'' has a lot of two-player action available in it. Some co-op options are well-done; Event Mode, for example, has events specifically tailored for two players, either by altering single-player events or just making new ones entirely. Some co-op features...[[{{Understatement}} don't work so well]]. In the adventure mode, "The Subspace Emissary", [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou the game ends if player 1 is knocked out]], while player 1 ''can'' go on without player 2 if need be. (Barely [[JustifiedTrope justified]] in that player 2 is just sort of...there, like [[SonicTheHedgehog Tails]], who is mentioned further down on this page.) It's still better than a lot of the other co-op modes, though, especially the NintendoHard [[BossRush Boss Battles mode]]; they end in defeat if ''either player'' is KO'd.

* The 2009 ''{{Wolfenstein}}''. While [[ReturnToCastleWolfenstein the previous entry in its series]] was known for its excellent multiplayer, the new game managed to completely ignore the majority (if not all) of the innovations RTCW brought. No wonder, just about every fan of RTCW's/''Enemy Territory's'' multiplayer consider the 2009 game to be a complete joke in this regard. Heck, the team responsible for the multiplayer component getting fired on release speaks volumes.

* ''PsiOps'' is primarily a first person shooter with PsychicPowers. It has a [=CoOp=] mode that allows player one to steer and shoot the weapons, and player two to control the psychic powers. Unless both players are on the same page on what to do, things can get very... strange. Considering the dev team had so much trouble assigning buttons they couldn't find a way to fit in rolling or dodging (and thus both are absent from the game), this would be an ideal solution to games with lots of powers... if you had four arms or really good teamwork with player two (but lets be honest, the first is likelier).

--'''Cranky Kong''', ''DonkeyKong64'' [[BoredOnBoard instruction manual]]

* ''NewSuperMarioBrosWii''[='=]s main selling point is its multiplayer cooperative mode, which is liable to turn into a multiplayer off-screen fight mode if you and your teammates don't work together well. The Super Skills videos show off its potential to be awesome if your team is skilled and well-coordinated, but most players lack that kind of coordination and just end up impeding each other.

* ''SuperMarioGalaxy''. The second player... can stop enemies! And bother Mario! [[SarcasmMode How awesome!]]

** In ''SuperMarioGalaxy2'', player 2 is completely broken. They can grab 1up/Extra life mushrooms, coins (regular and purple), and break crates and other obstacles in addition to grabbing star bits and freezing enemies.

** Later ''Battletoads'' games fixed this a little by offering an alternate two-player mode where the players can't hurt each other.

* ''Dark Messiah''[='=]s online multiplayer play more like a bad ''{{Half-Life}} 2'' mod than anything to do with ''Dark Messiah'', ignoring the singleplayer game's brilliant combat system, spells, classes and with far worse graphics. Of course, it was made by a different company altogether.

--'''Cranky Kong''', ''DonkeyKong64'' instruction manual

** Could be even worse, since although there are six playable characters, when 2-player mode is activated, the game doles out a pre-set selection of characters to a player ([[TheHero Berethor]], [[MagicKnight Hadhod]], and [[TheGenericGuy Eaoden]] to Player 1, [[SquishyWizard Idrial]], [[Trickster Morwen]], and [[TheArcher Elegost]] to Player 2). Thus, it's possible for a single person to be playing on 2-player mode because the other three characters (who are assigned to the other person) are useless for the scenario.

* ''LordOfTheRingsTheThirdAge'' had a 2-player mode that was just like the ''FinalFantasy'' examples above. Or worse, since your party is only 3 dudes in this game, while all the above examples have 4-man parties, so ''someone'' is only getting one character.

* Playing ''{{Quake}} 2'' in co-op with two players is already fairly painful, but becomes almost impossible with three or more players, because the levels are so cramped and killing your friends is stupidly easy. Fortunately, the CompetitiveMultiplayer modes are much better.

----
<<|VideogameTropes|>>
<<|AddedAlliterativeAppeal|>>

* ''TheLordOfTheRingsTheThirdAge'' had a 2-player mode that was just like the ''FinalFantasy'' examples above. Or worse, since your party is only 3 dude in this game, while all the above examples have 4-man parties, so ''someone'' is only getting one character.

* Troika, the makers of ''ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'', were [[ExecutiveMeddling forced to include a multiplayer mode by Sierra]]. They promptly hacked out a single module and an almost completely unplayable interface, which was promptly laughed at by the fan community.

* ''Dark Messiah''[='=]s online multiplayer play more like a bad ''{{Half-Life}} 2'' mod than anything to do with ''Dark Messiah'', ignoring the singleplayer game's brilliant combat system, spells, classes and with far worse graphics. Of course, it was made by a different company altogether.
* ''{{Glider}} PRO'' has a two-player mode where the first player to leave a room (''Glider PRO'' is a non-scrolling game) must wait for the second glider to follow, or hit "delete" if it can't. The second-player controls being non-configurable (locked to the modifier keys) is only a minor annoyance compared to this.
* Many people criticized the multiplayer modes of the two ''{{Metroid}}'' games so far that have had multiplayer (''MetroidPrime 2'', which was oriented more towards single-player anyway, and ''Hunters'', which was clearly built around multiplayer).
** Which led to an UnpleasableFanbase when ''MetroidPrime 3'' was criticized by some sites for '''not''' having Multiplayer.
* ''PsiOps'' is primarily a first person shooter with PsychicPowers. It has a [=CoOp=] mode that allows player one to steer and shoot the weapons, and player two to control the psychic powers. Unless both players are on the same page on what to do, things can get very... strange. Considering the dev team had so much trouble assigning buttons they couldn't find a way to fit in rolling or dodging (and thus both are absent from the game), this would be an ideal solution to games with lots of powers... if you had four arms or really good teamwork with player two (but lets be honest, the first is likelier).
** One game along these lines was the original ''MechWarrior'' on the SNES, in which one player did the steering and the other aimed the turret.
* ''SuperMarioGalaxy''. The second player... can stop enemies! And bother Mario! [[SarcasmMode How awesome!]]
*** In Spain, one of the TV ads for ''Galaxy'' actually treated this "awesome" multiplayer mode as a ''selling point''. Now, we know Nintendo is trying really hard to sell the Wii as the "play with your friends/family" console (What with near every ad showing off the multiplayer whenever possible), but isn't this pushing it a ''little'' too much? They did it again for the sequel, unsurprisingly...
** In ''SuperMarioGalaxy2'', player 2 is completely broken. They can grab 1up/Extra life mushrooms, coins (regular and purple), and break crates and other obstacles in addition to grabbing star bits and freezing enemies.
*** It was also possible to kill enemies by shaking the remote or smacking the enemy off the edge.
** This troper had his (then 7-year old) nephew take the role of the guy to could shoot enemies and hold them off. Best part was how he could stop the boulders for the secret star in the Freezeflame galaxy. That was in fact pretty damn awesome, both in that the made the game easier, and that he would actually be able to help out instead of just watching. Of course, before long now, I will probably be relegated to helping him out instead.
* ''SuperSmashBros Brawl'' has a lot of two-player action available in it. Some co-op options are well-done; Event Mode, for example, has events specifically tailored for two players, either by altering single-player events or just making new ones entirely. Some co-op features...[[{{Understatement}} don't work so well]]. In the adventure mode, "The Subspace Emissary", [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou the game ends if player 1 is knocked out]], while player 1 ''can'' go on without player 2 if need be. (Barely [[JustifiedTrope justifed]] in that player 2 is just sort of...there, like [[SonicTheHedgehog Tails]], who is mentioned further down on this page.) It's still better than a lot of the other co-op modes, though, especially the NintendoHard [[BossRush Boss Battles mode]]; they end in defeat if ''either player'' is KO'd.

* The original version of ''FinalFantasyVI'' for the SNES allowed you to play in two player mode, which just meant that the second player could control a few of the characters in battle. If they happened to be bitter about being made second player, this person could, instead of attacking the monsters during battle, kill the characters assigned to first player, allowing them to take over control.
** ''FinalFantasyV'' also allowed to give control of some characters to player 2.
** ''FinalFantasyIX'' did it too, probably as a throwback.
* The arcade ShootingGallery series, ''Police Trainer''. Most of its 2-player minigames are the same as the 1-player variant, or even more difficult simply due to the distraction of shared screen space. Worse, one player may directly cause the other to fail a minigame (and losing precious coinage with it) by being greedy and shooting more targets than required, and a few minigames are directly competitive, ''requiring'' someone to fail. ''Police Trainer 2'' was slightly better and even had a cooperative minigame for each rank, but one of its 2-player minigames was outright {{Unwinnable}} due to lack of targets for ''both'' players, putting a quick stop to the fun.

* In amateur game design forums, frequently a new user will bring up the idea of making a multiplayer ''AdventureGame'', such as KingsQuest or SpaceQuest. None of them have, so far, been able to explain how exactly a linear non-replayable puzzle solving game is supposed to work with multiple players.

* Despite the story offering the perfect setup for 2 player coop, the only online multiplayer in ''KaneAndLynch'' is a 4-8 player bank robbery mode with no connection to the main story.

* Bethesda Softworks added gratuitous multiplayer mode to the first ''TheElderScrolls'' SpinOff, ''Battlespire''. They never did it again.

* Troika, the makers of ''ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'', were [[ExecutiveMeddling forced to include a multiplayer mode by Sierra]]. They promptly hacked out a single module and an almost completely unplayable interface, which was promptly laughed at by the fan community.

* Both ''SonicTheHedgehog2'' and ''Sonic3AndKnuckles'' feature two kinds of multiplayer. Playing proper two player puts you in a race against player two, but you could also play two player with player two, as Tails following player one, as Sonic. For the most part though, having a player two would serve to be useless during the levels (though it was useful against bosses, thanks to Tails having infinite lives), save for occasionally beating Badniks. Most the time Tails would disappear off screen, and to player two's frustration he'd have to sit and wait for the AI to return Tails, while Sonic just got on with the level.
* ''NewSuperMarioBrosWii''[='=]s main selling point is its multiplayer cooperative mode, which is liable to turn into a multiplayer off-screen fight mode if you and your teammates don't work together well. The Super Skills videos show off its potential to be awesome if your team is skilled and well-coordinated, but most players lack that kind of coordination and just end up impeding each other.
** And even worse, those videos only make up merely six of the 65 available videos.

* [[{{Bioshock}} Bioshock 2's]] Multiplayer was [[SoOkItsAverage Passable]] unlike some of the examples here, but was still an incredibly obvious afterthought.

* ''PunchOut'' for Wii has a head-to-head mode that is regarded as this by many people, though others will argue that this mode is actually a very deep and intense battle of the wits and people are only disappointed that they can't play as King Hippo or Super Macho Man.

*** In Spain, one of the TV ads for ''Galaxy'' actually treated this "awesome" multiplayer mode as a ''selling point''. Now, we know Nintendo is trying really hard to sell the Wii as the "play with your friends/family" console (What with near every ad showing off the multiplayer whenever possible), but isn't this pushing it a ''little'' too much?