Prologue: Single Player Gamers, A Dying Breed?

Almost the end of the seventh console generation. Gaming has come a long way since its humble beginnings with the likes of Pong and PacMan. Especially PC gaming, with titles like Battlefield 3 offering almost life-like graphics to enjoy if one has a powerful PC. But is that where the evolution ends?

Not really. Gaming began as a social affair. Taking the examples mentioned earlier, Pong could originally be played as a game between two players, and PacMan was basically about beating everyone else's high scores. Not just those, but most arcade games were stationed as two machines next to each other so that two players could play with or against each other.

So when did this change? And did it really change? For some time, it sure did. With the advent of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) (or Nintendo Famicom in Japan), games that could be enjoyed fully by oneself started appearing. Classics like Mario Bros (though it had a two player mode, that mode was pretty much tacked on) and Final Fantasy are good examples.

Single player focused games gave a player an entirely different experience to those that were multiplayer focused. When competition was no longer a requirement, games became all about what I call "the journey to the end" of that particular game. It was about experiencing all that the game had to offer, and not about beating someone else at it.

As a little kid, I remember beating Mario Bros for the first time and feeling like a total badass. To me, that was way more fun than beating someone else's high score at PacMan. And lucky for people like me, this trend continued, and single player games continued to coexist with multiplayer games, and a big majority incorporated both modes. It is important to note that even mostly multiplayer oriented games like StarCraft had a solid single player section.

Fast forward several years, and we find ourselves in 2011. With the introduction of high speed internet connections, the world of video games has changed forever. Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) dominate the PC gaming market, and are slowly creeping into the console market as well. Gone are the days when one could choose from a hefty selection of single player only games. Multiplayer has taken over, with even originally single player oriented franchises such as Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect adding multiplayer modes to their later entries.

Why is this? Are single player only gamers slowly dying out? Are we really going the way of the dinosaur? Only time will tell. But what this blog attempts to do is review the latest PC and multiplatform (and maybe a few handheld games thrown in there in between) games in a single player perspective.

First up, Battlefield 3. My PC is downloading Battlefield 3 as I type this. The multiplayer beta was okay, but of course isn't what I'm looking for in a game. Many critics have given negative opinions on the single player campaign of Battlefield 3, but in their hurry to check out all the multiplayer options for their reviews, did they really pay attention to the single player campaign? I intend to find out the answer.