We just got a Playstation 4, and have been a bit disappointed by the lack of good local multiplayer support in the games we’ve tried so far. I reckon every console game should support local multiplayer if it can: after all that’s the main thing that makes a console different from a PC.
(To be honest it pains me even having to write “local” multiplayer. I think of it as just multiplayer. The idea that players could exist elsewhere on the internet is flying in the face of nature.)
We got two games bundled with our PS4, Overwatch and Ratchet & Clank, both of which are neat games but neither of which supports local multiplayer at all. In both cases this is naively a bit of a letdown. Overwatch is a team game, exactly the sort of thing you want to play while sitting around with your friends (but you can’t! sorry), and Ratchet & Clank is a game with two protagonists that you might hope to be able to control independently in the style of the Lego adventures (but oops! sorry again).
It’s possible we just made a bad choice of bundled games, as there were other options. I don’t think any of the others were any better, but it’s not easy to tell from reading around, because summaries of the games online often don’t talk about this. (Does Uncharted 4 have local multiplayer? Does the PS4 version of DOOM? Though that’d be a bit wrong, DOOM is supposed to be played alone, jumpy and sweating and with the lights off.)
We’re on the lookout for possibilities. I’m sure there must be plenty; they’re just perhaps not the most promoted titles, maybe because their prime audience is not game journalists. So far we have Rocket League and the evergreen FIFA, both of which are pretty nice. I’m fairly clueless about the Playstation landscape, having a general affinity for Nintendo. Let me know if you have any more suggestions.
The Breakfast Post 