What's with the hate on Rockstar Multiplayer this generation?

Listening to some old Bombcasts, I was reminded of how confused and frustrated I was by the staff's response to the multiplayer modes in GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption. I can understand not having a ton of fun in it, but they spoke about both like they did about Metal Gear Online. Which seems silly, because the multiplayer in both Red Dead Redemption and GTA IV seems to accomplish what it goes for, and is also a hell of a lot of fun, if you don't just get into a random match full of assholes randomly killing you.

Sure, they could have been better, there could have been more structure to make it more "cooperative" in an interesting way, or more structured deathmatch. But I loved the hell out of the multiplayer in both of those games, especially GTA IV, which I still play with buddies today. It's just fun to go in and dick around a bunch, getting in trouble with the cops, taking advantage of the swing set glitch, and blowing up each other's helicopters as we tried to take off. I don't think it's much fun to just go in for some deathmatch action, mostly just because the world is too big, and the combat not really interesting enough, and feels really awful on a gamepad (PC controls make the shooting way more tolerant, unsurprisingly). But if you just mess around with the "open world-ness" of the game, especially with at least a few guys in the game being buddies and on voice, it's pretty awesome.

How does the community weigh in on this? Are you for or against the multiplayer in those games?

I never got into GTA IV multiplayer, but that's mostly because I think the shooting mechanics in that game are shit.

I loved it in Red Dead Redemption though. I remember being similarly confused when I heard the staff being really dismissive of it in those Bombcasts back in the day.

Messing around in the airport in GTAIV is to this day one of my favourite things to do in multiplayer.

As said above just messing around in the free roam multiplayer with friends in GTA IV is so much fun especially the airport and swing set. Red dead I enjoyed the actual versus multiplayer much more played it for a good month or so and the free roam was still really fun to play with friends. I enjoy the Rockstar style of multiplayer and although Max Payne 3 was nothing like it I enjoyed that multiplayer too.

Don't remember what they may or may not have said about RDR multiplayer. I just know it was absolutely fantastic. Probably my best online multiplayer experience ever.

It's probably just a matter of taste. Personally when it comes to these kinds of things I really don't mind the seemingly cognitive dissonance between reviewers and your everyday gamer; people just yearn for a variety of different kinds of multiplayer experiences.

That being said, messing around with free roam multiplayer in GTAIV is indeed a beautiful trainwreck I personally love taking part in.

I'm not exactly a fan out of it, because I prefer to play open world games on my own.

But saying that, the few times I've played RDR with friends was fun. It feels like it takes nothing away from the single player games either, so over all in my opinion it's a good thing.

I always found the response to the multiplayer modes in both largely positive. I've had some fun messing around in them. One of those weird Giant Bomb stances, I guess?

I've never thought about it much, but i an say i think the multiplayer i tried out in Red Dead and Gta4 was on the whole not enjoyable, messing around with it for an hour or two was ok but it never made much of an impression of being fun enough that i would play a decent enough time playing them. RDR seemed like it could have been pretty fun if i got into it when it first came out with a bunch of friends, but i don't really have a awesome posse of duders to play with on there, something i should remedy sometime when my new mic comes.

Yeah, the game is pretty fun in multiplayer.

Quite simply I don't come to Rockstar games for multiplayer. I come for an engrossing single player experience. It just always seems so tacked on. Plus the gameplay mechanics to most of their games just don't translate well to a multiplayer experience.

However, I did enjoy the multiplayer for Max Payne 3 a lot more than I expected. It might not have had too much staying power, but I thought it had a nice feel to it. GTA4 and RDR felt too riddled with jank though.

I played a good deal of multiplayer for both, mainly freeroam in GTA with friends, and a lot of random games of freeroam by myself in Red Dead. While I had fun with both, neither games multiplayer is not something I would consider to be actually be good. The only reason they are fun is because of the open world. The actual shooting, controls, and game modes are trash. The fun comes from using your imagination and screwing around. My best moments of Red Deads multiplayer is finding groups of people doing missions, and then proceeding to kill as many as I can before I make an escape.

This kind of structure can be good, because you can have some really fun moments. But those games multiplayer would be much better if they had actual gameplay and shooting mechanics to back it up.

I never liked the multiplayer in GTAIV, but get a group of friends and do free roam in RDR was great.

Sometimes I remember wanting to review games for publications, and then I remember things like this and love that I didn't. Looking at things you really enjoy with a critical eye can be pretty fucking depressing. I just imagine someone going into each mode thinking, "Alright, here I am. Is there any fun here? Not seeing the fun here. This mode must not be that great. Oh well.".

I remember having a ton of fun just running around with people in GTA IV multiplayer. I remember jumping into matches with random people and immediately being chased around by military helicopters. I also remember defending myself with a RPG, and sometimes shooting them out of the sky and it being the most bestest fucking thing ever!!!

I remember Red Dead Redemption and having to defend myself from posses bent on ruining the experience for everyone. But I also remember joining posses and seeing how long we could last while shooting cops in that Blackwater town.

I like being able to give myself time to enjoy something. I like trying to like games. I'm not saying all reviewers are like this, but I'm just glad I don't always have to look at a game from a piece-by-piece sort of perspective and ask myself questions.

GTA4 multi was complete shit but I do disagree a little bit with RDR.

Messing around in the airport in GTAIV is to this day one of my favourite things to do in multiplayer.

They are all fun, especially GTAIV Free Play.

I haven't played the GTA 4 multiplayer, but have wasted lots of fun hours on Red Dead's multiplayer, especially when I'm playing with friends.

I always thought that they were terrible myself. To wide open and nothing to do in them.

Online multiplayer communities in general leave a lot to be desired but Rockstar seems to attract a special breed of online asshole. No fault of the games, they're a blast to play with friends.

Well if you think the best part of the GTA multiplayer was dicking around with your friends, then shouldn't you be more critical of it? They could have made an amazing fleshed out co-op mode instead of giving you a fun multiplayer lobby then some boring competitive game modes.

It just didn't live up to the potential which is why I thought it wasn't a great multiplayer mode on a whole, regardless of the fun I had in the lobby.

I loved Red Dead's multiplayer. Dicking around in free roam was very fun.

I tried the RDR multiplayer once or twice with some friends and found it enjoyable. Although, it didn't really keep me hooked.

Although, I'm really curious to see what Rockstar does with GTAV and it's multiplayer.

@MikkaQ said:

Well if you think the best part of the GTA multiplayer was dicking around with your friends, then shouldn't you be more critical of it? They could have made an amazing fleshed out co-op mode instead of giving you a fun multiplayer lobby then some boring competitive game modes.

It just didn't live up to the potential which is why I thought it wasn't a great multiplayer mode on a whole, regardless of the fun I had in the lobby.

I don't agree with this line of logic. Rockstar realizes that the strength of its games are the open worlds and the systems that make them run. Pushing the boundaries of those systems with a group of friends is a ton of fun and best with only minimal guidelines. I think Rockstar should go the opposite direction you suggest and give more control/ability to modify the world to the players and deemphasize a developer-guided multiplayer. They're sandbox games, not hedge-maze games.

I though the only fun part of GTA IV's multiplayer was the free roam create chaos with no real goal side. All the racing and whatever else felt not especially fun to me.

As for Red Dead, I loved playing co-op and taking down the enemy strongholds along with just griefing each other. But I absolutely hated the deathmatch games because I don't feel like the games Rockstar makes are well suited for that.

What's the deal with parking lots?

Max payne 3, Red dead and GTA4 all have fun as hell multiplayer modes to fuck around in.

I don't get the hate myself. It's a community problem, not the game. RDR had one of the absolute best fucking multiplayers of all time.

RS MP Design is awful

The Max Payne 3 multiplayer is absolutely brilliant in some parts. Gang Wars might be one of the coolest multiplayer modes I've played in a LONG time.

I really enjoyed all the Rockstar multiplayer I played the few times I was able to connect (my bad, not R*).

GTA IV and RDR free roam is some of the most fun I've ever had playing multiplayer.

GTAIV and RDR multiplayer was fantastic

I thought GTAIV's multiplayer was a hoot. I didn't enjoy the competitive modes, but the free roam was goofy-ass fun. 

Red Dead Redemption's online was amazing if you had friends. Alone it's pretty boring.
 
As for why people would hate Rockstar's online don't their games usually launch with tons of hackers? I remember lots of people bitching about that stuff when RDR and Max Payne 3 launched.

I've had many memorable late night gaming sessions with friends in GTA IV free mode. Fooling around in the airport, getting into long standoffs with 6 star police in an office building, doing makeshift races, the swingset glitch... it's all great.

@BRNK said:

@MikkaQ said:

Well if you think the best part of the GTA multiplayer was dicking around with your friends, then shouldn't you be more critical of it? They could have made an amazing fleshed out co-op mode instead of giving you a fun multiplayer lobby then some boring competitive game modes.

It just didn't live up to the potential which is why I thought it wasn't a great multiplayer mode on a whole, regardless of the fun I had in the lobby.

I don't agree with this line of logic. Rockstar realizes that the strength of its games are the open worlds and the systems that make them run. Pushing the boundaries of those systems with a group of friends is a ton of fun and best with only minimal guidelines. I think Rockstar should go the opposite direction you suggest and give more control/ability to modify the world to the players and deemphasize a developer-guided multiplayer. They're sandbox games, not hedge-maze games.

I dunno, I think they could have given you interesting things to do in coop. Multiplayer specific activities could have added something to it. Be able to go to a place, hit a button, and suddenly you're being chased by a bunch of bad dude cars, or instantly make the cops hate you, stuff like that. I don't need stuff like that, but fun coop activities would be nice.

Because all the money we gave them for III and it's brothers went to buy review scores for IV rather than make an actual quality game that didn't suck.

@BRNK said:

@MikkaQ said:

Well if you think the best part of the GTA multiplayer was dicking around with your friends, then shouldn't you be more critical of it? They could have made an amazing fleshed out co-op mode instead of giving you a fun multiplayer lobby then some boring competitive game modes.

It just didn't live up to the potential which is why I thought it wasn't a great multiplayer mode on a whole, regardless of the fun I had in the lobby.

I don't agree with this line of logic. Rockstar realizes that the strength of its games are the open worlds and the systems that make them run. Pushing the boundaries of those systems with a group of friends is a ton of fun and best with only minimal guidelines. I think Rockstar should go the opposite direction you suggest and give more control/ability to modify the world to the players and deemphasize a developer-guided multiplayer. They're sandbox games, not hedge-maze games.

I dunno, I think they could have given you interesting things to do in coop. Multiplayer specific activities could have added something to it. Be able to go to a place, hit a button, and suddenly you're being chased by a bunch of bad dude cars, or instantly make the cops hate you, stuff like that. I don't need stuff like that, but fun coop activities would be nice.

Why do so many people feel the need to get their opinion validated by forum goers because the staff have the temerity to hold a different opinion?