Once again, Nintendo’s amazing adeptness with the interwebs has left me speechless. Like most gamers, I recall being quite disappointed back when the Gamecube had essentially zero online play. But I cut them a little bit of slack … and pretended to understand, at least a bit. Online gaming was popular by then, sure, but not entirely essential. And if I’m being perfectly honest here, I’m not actually a huge fan of online gaming. Or to clarify, I don’t like to do a tremendous amount of online gaming personally. I’m a big fan of it actually existing for people who do enjoy it. I’d even go so far as to say it is nearly a necessity for certain types of games.

And if I were to start a list of games in which online play was an essential feature, it would probably look very, very much like this:

1. Sports  games
2. Worms titles
3. PvP games

While your list may not look exactly like mine, I’m willing to bet you agree with me on the types of games I’ve mentioned, if not the order. Surely everyone can see the value in competitive online game play for Worms titles. Everyone, it would seem, except for THQ, the game’s producer. Although early press releases indicated it would involve online play, THQ has now backed away from that claim, saying they feel their Wii game, Worms: A Space Oddity, is best suited for in person party play. Which means, of course, if you want some multi-player action you’ll need multiple players in your living room.

While I personally may agree with THQ insofar as suggesting that playing with actual friends who you can actually see is probably more fun than playing against online opponents, that doesn’t mean that playing against online opponents is not fun. In fact, both of these things are fun, and there is no reason why both should not be possible. After all, sometimes you don’t feel like hosting a party just to throw down on some multi-player action.

[via Spong]