Top 5 Multiplayer Game Modes

I bet a lot of you are as tired as we are of the standard deathmatches and team deathmatches most gamers stick to, and refuse to budge. This article is to show them that there’s a world outside those modes. Here are five really awesome multiplayer modes all of you should try…

Titan – Battlefield 2142
The Battlefield series was always known for its Conquest mode where two sides would collide and fight for control of the map. To introduce a bit of variety to the series, Battlefield 2142 added a brand new Titan Mode. In this mode both sides had a mothership called the ‘Titan’ that they had to protect, while laying siege on the enemy team. The first team to destroy the other team’s Titan would win the game.

The most awesome part about this mode was that you could either fight on the ground for control of the silos (that would bombard the other team’s Titan with missiles) or, once the shields were down, board the enemy Titan to destroy it from the inside. The squad-based system worked marvelously in this mode, since you’d have some squads attacking, some defending, while yet others go around sabotaging enemy equipment.

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Headquarters – Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Calling the CoD 4 multiplayer experience ‘intense’ would be an understatement. If you like intense, chaotic multiplayer gameplay, CoD4’s Headquarters is for you. I know most of you are probably too hooked onto Team Deathmatch to even bother with the other modes, but if you don’t play at least one game of Headquarters in every one of your CoD4 multiplayer sessions, consider it incomplete.

Headquarters is completely like the ‘King of the Hill’ mode you’ve seen in other multiplayers like Halo. The way this mode works is that every few seconds a location on the map becomes the ‘Headquarters’. The team that gains control of this location starts stacking up points; the first team to reach the score limit wins. What sets it apart is the awesome gameplay mechanics that go hand-in-hand with this mode. The intensity of the ‘hot-zone’ is multiplied by the airstrikes and choppers that get called in constantly. Add the fact that you have the entire team running around the map constantly while bullets fly in from every corner – and you have a win-win situation!

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Classic Game Mode – Natural Selection
I’m sure that a lot of you aren’t familiar with the Half-Life mod called Natural Selection. It basically uses the Half-Life engine to let you play an Aliens-vs-Marines type game. The Classic mode of NS pits the two teams against each other; the goal is to destroy the other’s primary structure. The Aliens have to destroy the Marines’ Command Center, while the Marines have to devastate the Aliens’ Hive.

Sounds routine, right? Well it’s anything but… the fact that both sides play vastly different from one another changes things completely. The marine forces have a commander who can lay structures down that can be constructed by the players under him. The aliens on the other hand have no commander; each and every alien can evolve into different kinds of units – one of which can construct structures. To construct structures, both sides have to fight for and protect resource nodes, making the game revolve around laying siege on each other’s bases, flanking the enemy team, and so much more than your average multiplayer game. The short time I spent with NS was undoubtedly the most memorable of my multiplayer experiences.

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Payload – Team Fortress 2
With its unique visual style and extremely intuitive gameplay, Valve’s cel-shaded online shooter is undoubtedly amongst the best multiplayer games of last year. To add to the two game modes (Control Point and Capture the Flag), Payload was introduced in the latest Team Fortress 2 patch, with a map called Gold Rush. This mode is like an escort mission, only you don’t have to escort a V.I.P. Here, you escort a bomb (which, as you might have guessed, is the Payload)!

The defending team ensures that the offense doesn’t get the bomb to their base. The way to do this is by killing the enemies near the cart carrying the bomb, which makes it halt dead in its tracks. I love the way each class comes in handy while doing this – you’ll have engineers set up turrets to hold up choke points, you’ll have a demo man lob grenades at the escorts, and you’ll see a heavy gunner upfront, with a medic healing his ass as they punch through the enemy defense.

Gold rush is just the first map of this gametype, and it owns. I can’t imagine how awesome upcoming maps for this game mod will play out. Let’s hope they turn out equally good, if not better; I have my fingers crossed (only when it’s not on my cel-shaded trigger).

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Slow-mo Deathmatch – F.E.A.R. Combat
Before playing F.E.A.R. Combat, I never thought slow-motion was possible in a multiplayer game. This game changed that misconception completely, by the means of such an awesome slow-motion deathmatch mode that I got hooked to the game instantly. They way they implemented this is via the use of an in-game item – the injection.

Whoever holds the item for a certain amount of time gains the ability to set time in slow-motion for everyone but himself. This gives him an incredible advantage, allowing him to plant headshots with ease while his enemies struggle to move. Although this seems game-breaking, the amazing thing was the way they balanced it out – the slow motion doesn’t last long enough for the yielder to run around constantly in slow-motion; only a few seconds. This ensures that everyone would pounce on the yielder once the slow-mo was over, so that the injection would be passed around quite a bit.