Throughout my many years of gaming, one of the major highlights for me has to be multiplayer gaming with friends and I’m not talking about this online paying to play against a stranger multiplayer. I’m talking your best friends throwing their controller at you as your perform your Mario kart victory dance right in front of their face. Grown men hiding their control pads from your view as he steps up to take a penalty in FIFA, or your loving girlfriend telling everyone you meet that she beat you at Wii tennis despite you thinking she definitely crossed onto your side of the living room and interrupted your flow. When writing this list it seems as though my nostalgia took over and had a huge impact on my gaming memories. This collection of my top 10 favourite multiplayers often reflect the good times I’ve had playing these games over the general quality of the games. So no judging!

10. Wii Sports

Now a lot will be thinking a Wii game? This list is terrible! How could you possibly pick a Wii game? I’ll answer that with another question how many games can you play against your brother, Nan and 6-yr old niece all at the same time? None I bet, unless you have the coolest family ever. Wii Sports has a great involvement factor in that anyone can play this game, it has no real learning curve and it can get super competitive between your friends and family. It’s a gaming highlight when my Mum swears at me because I returned her serve in a heated Wii tennis match. Great game for a family and friends gaming night although you may need to make apologies in the morning, if not for breaking an ornament while playing baseball but for your choice of language when your niece beat you at bowling.

9. Worms

If someone had told me as a young child that one day I would be controlling a team of strangely named worms heavily armed with a large array of fun and weird weapons, I’d have immediately headed to the garden to begin training for future battles. In multiplayer mode you battle against a friend’s team of worms in a last man standing competition using punches, karate chops, baseball bats, guns, missiles, dynamite and an exploding sheep.  Fairly recently a version was released for iPhone and it got me and a friend through many boring lectures at University. Handing the phone backwards and forwards, discovering more of your worms had been blown to pieces. A strange but incredibly fun little game that brings most enjoyment when (after wasting turn after turn) you finally use an exploding sheep to kill your friend’s last worm and win the battle, sorry Jon.

8. Tekken 2

Last fight to win the round, you have your opponent on where you want him and perform a devastating combo to finish him off. Furious, your opponent drops his controller stands up and shouts “how did you even do that” you try and think quickly, do I tell him or try and think of a genius lie but you think of nothing clever enough and admit the truth “I just bashed the buttons mate”. Everyone had that friend that was great at Tekken but when asked how they performed any move they always responded with the same responses “I dunno”, “bashed the buttons” or the worst “I can’t tell you that” when you know it was a lucky coincidence and you challenge them to another fight.

7. Halo Original

As well as having a brilliant co-op mode allowing you to take on the campaign mode with a friend, this game had an excellent split screen multiplayer mode and was the reason I purchased an XBOX. I fell in love with the split screen multiplayer after playing all night at a house party featuring the best Halo multiplayer setup I have ever witnessed, plus there was plenty of beer. Two teams of four playing head to head on two Xbox consoles joined together via system link network cables connected to two TVs placed back to back. The two teams battled all night with players changing frequently due to death (in the game), needing more beer or snacks or spotting members of the opposite sex and leaving your team defenceless during an ambush because you spotted the lovely Becky and had rehearsed a cool thing to say should this moment arise. If anyone wants to know Becky didn’t think it was cool, she was better than me at Halo and left with a guy called Chris. Fuck you Chris!

6.  Advance Wars

One of the best games to be released for the Game Boy Advance and in arguably for any handheld console. A turn based strategy game not dissimilar to chess but instead using tanks, fighter jets and submarines to destroy your opponent’s vehicles or infantry capture their base. The best feature of the game was the ability to build a map then play against a friend and the beauty of the turn based strategy is that one game boy can be repeatedly passed between you. Now games can get a bit extreme, in the sense that if you and your friend are both good at the game and competitive then a game can go on for longer than planned. Plus frustration can take over when your opponent is taking absolutely ages over his turn and you are just sat losing patience because “how can it possibly taking this long, you have one tank!”.

5. Pokémon

Ok so to explain this one briefly I’m a big nerd and I also grew up in the 90s, when Pokémon was in full world domination mode. During this time a great gadget was released called the game link cable, I believe that was its name anyway. What this allowed you to do was connect your GameBoy to another and this meant that you could have real life Pokémon battles with friends, family and a random kid at school you’ve decided is your rival. It sounds silly to say this now but It was such a great gaming gadget, simple but brilliant. Using the cable also allowed you to swap Pokémon with other players, helping some gamers to achieve the goal of catching all 151.

4. Super Smash Bros: Melee

That’s right another game on the list that is for the bigger kids amongst us and made for one of my favourite game consoles the Nintendo GameCube. I was always a Nintendo kid growing up, I test anyone to play Super Smash bros with three friends and not have the time of their life. Using your favourite Nintendo characters to beat the living daylights out of your friend’s favourite characters is gaming perfection! This game is so good and so much fun that I still have my GameCube and host regular Smash Bros nights with friends.

3. Time Splitters 2

I know people who would have this in their number one spot and on occasions you will find it really hard to disagree with them. I have spent countless hours playing this game against friends and not one of them was wasted (my girlfriend would probably disagree). Another game that I still own and play regularly because they just don’t make them as entertaining or as fun as this anymore. When I re-bought this game for my GameCube I stayed up all night completing the campaign mode, just so I’d have all the characters and levels unlocked for when my friends came over to play.

2. Mario Kart

“I’m winning! I’m winning! GREEN SHELL!! Who was it?? Own up! Oh no I’m last, no I lost”. The many emotions that one person has to go through during a race on Mario Kart can be quite tough on the heart, the head and the body. But would any of us change that? All gamers and non-gaming family members alike have experienced the dizzying heights and crushing lows of racing against friends and family on Mario Kart. If you ask around everyone will have a favourite character they like to race as and will often sulk or refuse to race if this character has already been chosen. Well or so I’ve heard anyway.

Some honourable mentions

FIFA series

Probably the most marmite of games you either love FIFA or you hate FIFA, alternatively like me you have friends that love FIFA so play it with them but are sick of paying for the same game every year.

Gran Turismo series

The realism of this game makes it more difficult and can sometimes take the fun away but this makes it more of a challenge to beat your opponent. If you’re looking to up the fun factor grab two steering wheels for your console and really test your racing ability against your friends.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

This has just been introduced to me as what looks like it could be a great party game but could also be responsible for the ending of marriages and friendships. One person has a virtual bomb they need to disarm and the other has to talk them through it while reading through a big manual. All this is done to a timer making it a very tense looking game. The game is also compatible with the Oculus Rift VR headset.

1. Goldeneye

What can I say about a game that is referred to by most gamers as the greatest multiplayer ever? It is just pure split screen, first person shooter magic starring everyone’s favourite characters from the James Bond series. When asked to name their favourite part of this game 90% of gamers will recall the various cheats and unlockables from the game that made this so much fun. Paintball mode and big head mode just to name a few of the fun aspects to this games multiplayer mode.  A fun fact announced many years after the games creation was that the multiplayer mode was an afterthought by creators and developed in just six weeks. Not bad considering it’s such a memorable gaming moment from not just my youth but many others. The game has been remade since for the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 but nothing can compare to putting that cartridge into the N64 (probably after blowing it several times) and playing split screen Vs three of your friends.

About the Author

Stuart Purcell

Meanwhile, deep underground somewhere in Manchester, terrifyingly sinister plots are being schemed. But back in reality I’m usually just playing video games, reading comics and watching cartoons.