Modern games seem to neglect splitscreen a great deal. Transformers: War for Cybertron was a brilliant game however all multiplayer components could only be played online, including CoOp. Halo has never been quite that bad but there’s definitely room for improvement. In Reach’s Firefight you could only have 2 players in Splitscreen, increase that number to 4, same with Campaign. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be done. Splitscreen is an under-utilised feature in this generation of gaming, lets fix that.
Edit: Alright, as many of you have pointed out, one reason they don’t do it is because it requires more power. It’s been said a few time that they lower the graphical output of certain things when you add more players. Couldn’t they take this further? Lower the output even more for each player added? In Halo 3 they could do it in MM, why can’t they do it in Campaign and Firefight too? I’m actually genuinely curious by the way, not trying to force a point.
There’s a reason why there are only 2 players In campaign and firefight. When you play split screen your Xbox basically has to render the game twice or four times. The way they get around this is by removing detail so there is less to render. Campaign is deigned for one person and they want to squeeze as much power as they can from the Xbox to make the Campaign look better. In turn they can’t have four players without your Xbox catching on fire Or at the very minimum your FPS dropping very low. Firefight on the other hand is built with the Campaign engine. So they run into the same problem.
It all comes down to this. When making a single playing Campaign, the Developers would like it to look the best as it can. This comes at a sacrifice to split screen. We should be happy that they still allow split screen. It would be a lot easy just to cut it all together in terms of the Development.
Ask yourself. Would you like the Single player Campaign to look better run smoother have more stuff on screen, Or 4 player split screen that the majority of the players would rarely if at all get to enjoy?
> Yes, I agree…no 4 player fire fight and campaign split screen was very disappointing.
>
>
> Maybe it had something to do wit technical difficulties?
> have you noticed in split screen for halo reach the graphics are downgraded?
> but why?
Its because the engine has to make up new draw distances for both players. This can take twice the effort, despite the smaller screen. So in order to improve that, devlopers make the draw distances for objects, some details, and other physics down a notch. It’s not only Reach that does this, but Halo 3, Gears of War, and CoD have also done such.
If they have to lower the detail to allow it then I’d personally be fine with that. If there is a way to limit the detail more with each player so that playing solo looks perfect but 4 player looks outdated then I don’t see why not. It’s kinds sad that Microsoft sells a console that allows you to use four controllers but even their flagship title doesn’t allow it. I don’t really understand why they can do it in customs but not other parts of the game.
technically you were able to do 4 player co-op and firefight, but through a glitch. There’s a reason they don’t allow you to do that. You can risk -Yoinking!- up your xbox.
> technically you were able to do 4 player co-op and firefight, but through a glitch. There’s a reason they don’t allow you to do that. You can risk Yoink! up your xbox.
i couldn’t agree more, this is my major issue with the current generation consoles and games, people go on about how much more social gaming has become with xbox live - yet there seems to be less and less games that offer 4-player split-screen as standard (which is very anti-social in my opinion!). Furthermore i understand that technical limitations play their part in split-screen, however why is that in most halo games I can play 4-player split-screen matchmaking, but not 4-player co-op or firefight?
Not to sure why your worried about split screen in Halo?
I play 80% of the time in split screen and ok yes the game has to dumb down the details but its usually tiny things.
“Bushes/Plant around Boardwalk Red Sniper or the distance of view in large maps like Spire/Boneyard.”
Halo has always done a good job of making sure guests are well looked after and this in turn keeps the population figures healthy. They understand its required but in places needs to be controlled/monitored it insure an adequate level of gaming is experienced.
I don’t think i could cope with the screen being split 4 ways. Two is plenty for me.
My only pet peeve is since the dash update, whenever a friend comes online it steels alot of the bottom screen, And if you both have that particular friend o your friends list it pops up twice! Not to mention the whole cloud gaming notifications.
Its the tiny things like that for me that drives me crazy.
> Not to sure why your worried about split screen in Halo?
>
> I play 80% of the time in split screen and ok yes the game has to dumb down the details but its usually tiny things.
>
> “Bushes/Plant around Boardwalk Red Sniper or the distance of view in large maps like Spire/Boneyard.”
>
> Halo has always done a good job of making sure guests are well looked after and this in turn keeps the population figures healthy. They understand its required but in places needs to be controlled/monitored it insure an adequate level of gaming is experienced.
I’m more talking about Campaign and Firefight. Even if it means a drastic drop in detail, I’d personally love to see 4 player splitscreen for that. Unless bots are added, Customs with 3 or 4 people can get tedious after a while so it would be nice to be able to play FF or campaign with your friends in the same room.
> Yes, I agree…no 4 player fire fight and campaign split screen was very disappointing.
>
>
> Maybe it had something to do wit technical difficulties?
> have you noticed in split screen for halo reach the graphics are downgraded?
> but why?
Yeah, the same detail downgrading in splitscreen was also present in Halo 3. Most noticeably, the water effects weren’t fully realized in splitscreen. As someone has said above, much of this has to do with multiple rendering done by the game engine.
> > Not to sure why your worried about split screen in Halo?
> >
> > I play 80% of the time in split screen and ok yes the game has to dumb down the details but its usually tiny things.
> >
> > “Bushes/Plant around Boardwalk Red Sniper or the distance of view in large maps like Spire/Boneyard.”
> >
> > Halo has always done a good job of making sure guests are well looked after and this in turn keeps the population figures healthy. They understand its required but in places needs to be controlled/monitored it insure an adequate level of gaming is experienced.
>
> I’m more talking about Campaign and Firefight. Even if it means a drastic drop in detail, I’d personally love to see 4 player splitscreen for that. Unless bots are added, Customs with 3 or 4 people can get tedious after a while so it would be nice to be able to play FF or campaign with your friends in the same room.
get ofer it.
get a second 360 or ur friends should buy one and play over live or systemlink.
Splitscreen is dead.
> > Yes, I agree…no 4 player fire fight and campaign split screen was very disappointing.
> >
> >
> > Maybe it had something to do wit technical difficulties?
> > have you noticed in split screen for halo reach the graphics are downgraded?
> > but why?
>
> Yeah, the same detail downgrading in splitscreen was also present in Halo 3. Most noticeably, the water effects weren’t fully realized in splitscreen. As someone has said above, much of this has to do with multiple rendering done by the game engine.
This is the thing I want to sort out. Could they intentionally downgrade the graphics further for each player present when playing splitscreen?
> > > Not to sure why your worried about split screen in Halo?
> > >
> > > I play 80% of the time in split screen and ok yes the game has to dumb down the details but its usually tiny things.
> > >
> > > “Bushes/Plant around Boardwalk Red Sniper or the distance of view in large maps like Spire/Boneyard.”
> > >
> > > Halo has always done a good job of making sure guests are well looked after and this in turn keeps the population figures healthy. They understand its required but in places needs to be controlled/monitored it insure an adequate level of gaming is experienced.
> >
> > I’m more talking about Campaign and Firefight. Even if it means a drastic drop in detail, I’d personally love to see 4 player splitscreen for that. Unless bots are added, Customs with 3 or 4 people can get tedious after a while so it would be nice to be able to play FF or campaign with your friends in the same room.
>
> get ofer it.
> get a second 360 or ur friends should buy one and play over live or systemlink.
> Splitscreen is dead.
Well aren’t you a constructive member of the community? Seriously though, buy another 360? Make my friends by one? Do you think before you talk or do you just bash your head against a keyboard and hope something semi-coherant comes out?
> Split screen is sooooo 10 years ago…
>
> Drop all split screen support.
>
> Am I wrong?
If you don’t like it, don’t use it. Splitscreen has it’s place. Playing with your friends on the same tv creates a different kind of atmosphere. It extends beyond just the game, there’s an immediacy that online doesn’t replicate.
How often do you guys socialize by having a couple buddies come over to the dorm (or to your mom’s house for you kiddies) to have some fun playing Halo? I do it all the time, yet we are limited from Campaign and firefight. I don’t totally care for firefight, so I don’t care too much on that point. But we love campaign.
The last thing I would want to do is get another XBox, another TV, another game, and then set it up right next to each other. I would rather just not play than go through the worthless effort. I understand things used to be done that way, but things also used to have 4-player split screen.