A Disturbing Trend

As far as racing games goes, in the past I had always been a huge Gran Turismo fan, getting heavily involved in the last three iterations of the franchise (not including Gran Turismo 5: Prologue). Lately though, with a full version of Gran Turismo 5 in limbo somewhere, I've turned my attention to other, more arcade-style racers for high-speed thrills.

I really loved Burnout Paradise. I love it so much, in fact, that I want to purchase it again for the Xbox 360 (and get rid of it on my PS3). Its cheap and its definitely worth it. Only problem - no two-player split-screen. That's a huge issue for me, even though the game has great solo and online experiences.

While Burnout Paradise does what it sets out to do very well, I've always been a fan of customization. This is why the Midnight Club series has been one of my favorites since the original game. My friends and I would sit and play for hours just chasing each other across the city, forming races every so often. We explored, we tested shortcuts, we had a great time. Midnight Club: Los Angeles, the latest in that series, seems to continue many of the things I've come to love about the series. Excellent customization options, a nice variety of cars, thrilling high-speed races through crowded downtown streets - the entire experience seems to be here. Except, once more, no two-player split-screen.

I find it hard to give these two games a full thumbs-up approval without this most important feature. Too many games these days are getting away from the face-to-face aspect of playing games. Do these developers not realize that, many times, that is what made the game fun? You can sit and trash-talk and have a good ol' time with buddies in the same room. Its so much more fun than playing against random (usually rude) people online. It seems these days first-person shooters are the only games that allow split-screen co-op play.

This brings me to another argument against split-screen that I've seen many people bring up - the graphics are so intense these days that the systems just can't handle rendering two copies of the same game at the same time. This is a false assumption. Like I mentioned, FPS titles are still going strong with two- to four-player co-op and many of these are some of the most graphically stunning games available. Why can an FPS do it and not a racing game? My theory is that the developers are just plain lazy or don't care. Either that, or the publisher rushes them and doesn't care about split-screen so it doesn't get included in the final product.

Either way it sucks. I will never pay full price for a racing game that lacks this feature. Never. Twenty bucks or less for Burnout Paradise is great, but there's no way I would have paid $60 for it a year ago when it first came out simply for this fact.