Dear Future Gamer,

I've recently come back to PC gaming after needing a PC to type up my dissertation after an absence of about, oh, half a century or something (the last PC game I bought was Doom II) and I'm finding the whole thing rather elitist.

What's with all this multiplayer fever? In the review of Requiem and the reader review of Half-Life for example, it's "Oh my God, there's actually a single-player game!". Why should a game which focuses on the single-player be so surprising?

I reckon about two people outside of the computer game magazine offices have the kit to play online: super fast computer, Internet access at super whizz speed, and 7 Voodoo 2 cards linked together in a special bunker in the arctic. It just annoys me. I have Internet access here at work but at home I'd need a second phone line, I can't afford that and I doubt many people can. I can't remember what I'm on about now because I've got so worked up, so, er, well that's how annoyed I am at you PC elite types.

Rich

FG: We at Future Gamer are very aware of a game's need to appeal in single-player mode. We've actually been having protracted email discussions with DMA over our review of Wild Metal Country because we didn't mention the multiplayer aspects of the game - not that saying 'oh and you can play this in multiplayer mode too' would have raised its score - so we're on your team. You're wrong to think that only us computer mags get into multiplayer stuff though. The popularity of online (and therefore multiplayer) gaming is growing at a phenomenal rate and no, you don't need to own a ninja PC to do it (but admittedly, it helps). That doesn't mean a game shouldn't have a good single-player mode though (er, unless it's designed for multiplayer only) because it should. In fact, the best games have both.