Competitive Multiplayer

There are several distinct types of Multiplayer modes in Video Games. This trope is a Sister Trope of Meta Multiplayer, Co-Op Multiplayer and Massively Multiplayer.

Competitive
Players directly competing against each other (Player Versus Player) and possibly characters controlled by the CPU. May organize players into teams. Usually the main feature of Fighting Games, sports games, Racing Games, party games, puzzle games, and anything online, though a single-player (or co-op) "main game" may be available as well.

2 Player
When the game is only designed for one player against another. Modes may be provided where additional players can play alongside a comrade, but if one person plays against another it would not be considered two teams of one.

Examples:
 * Pong
 * Pokémon
 * Guitar Hero
 * Most Fighting Games:
 * Street Fighter
 * Capcom vs. Whatever
 * Mortal Kombat
 * Soul Series
 * Most sports games:
 * Madden NFL
 * Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Red Versus Blue
2 equivalent teams with the same capabilities and objective play against one another. These teams may be comprised of only one player, but teams scale naturally. Teams are often (but not necessarily) distinguished by looking identical except for being colored either Red and Blue (although note different, asymmetric types of 2-team multiplayer may use these to distinguish teams as well).

Examples:
 * Bloodline Champions
 * Wii Sports
 * Rock Band (Battle of the Bands)
 * NHL 09 (Online Team Play mode)
 * First-Person Shooters:
 * Team Fortress 2 (Payload Race)
 * Team Arena/Deathmatch/Slayer:
 * Quake III Arena and Quake Live
 * Unreal Tournament
 * Halo series
 * Shadowrun
 * Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
 * Kill The Other Team (no respawning):
 * Gears of War series
 * Team Fortress 2 (Arena, Sudden Death)
 * Counter-Strike (all games)
 * Shadowrun
 * Some player made gametypes in Halo 3.
 * Capture the Flag:
 * Both teams have a flag:
 * Halo (being the source of the Web Original comedy of this name.)
 * Team Fortress 2
 * Half-Life 2: CTF
 * Quake - This gametype originated here.
 * One flag for both teams to capture:
 * Halo 2 and 3
 * Shadowrun
 * Control The Points:
 * Halo 3 has Territories, which is this.
 * Team Fortress 2 (symmetric CP maps, tc_hydro (middle 4 points))
 * Day Of Defeat
 * Metroid Prime Hunters
 * Battlefield series
 * King of the Hill:
 * Team Fortress 2
 * Halo series
 * Metroid Prime Hunters
 * Real-Time Strategy
 * In RHDE, each of two players controls a team of up to three units, and it currently has no single-player campaign. The developer has hinted on forums that a single-player tutorial is planned.

Attack and Defense
Two teams have different objectives.

Examples:
 * First Person Shooters:
 * Escort The VIP(s):
 * VIP in Halo.
 * Counter-Strike (cs_ hostage maps)
 * Team Fortress Classic
 * Left 4 Dead (Versus mode), where the Survivor team are the VIPs
 * Grand Theft Auto IV (Cops n' Crooks, Witness Protection)
 * Dystopia (dys_cybernetic)
 * Assault with the Bomb (The opposing team has to get an object into the other team's base (and possibly arm it) after which time the other team may or may not have time to stop it before it explodes):
 * Team Fortress 2 (Payload)
 * Halo 2 and 3 (Assault)
 * Counter-Strike (de_ maps)
 * Day Of Defeat Source
 * Capture Their Flag:
 * 1 Flag in Halo.
 * Shadowrun
 * Capture Their Points:
 * Team Fortress 2 (asymmetric CP, tc_hydro (final base))
 * Halo 2 and 3
 * Grand Theft Auto IV (Turf War)
 * Dystopia (all maps)

Commander and Fighters
One player on a team interacts in the game in a diferent fashion from the rest, eg. a Commander with a Real Time Strategy view of the battlefield while the rest of the team fights in a First-Person Shooter view.

Examples:
 * The Half-Life mod Natural Selection.
 * One of the earlier ideas kicked around for Team Fortress 2.
 * Battlefield, though the Commander can also fight him/herself.
 * Battlezone 1998.

4-Square
The playfield is set up for no more than 4 players, eg. each player gets a corner of the playfield. Most commonly seen in the days of the N64 when systems could have no more than 4 players at any one time. If there are three players/teams, one team is visibly absent.

Examples:
 * Some minigames in Pokémon Stadium
 * Some Mario Party minigames
 * Common in Real Time Strategy games.
 * Battle Hunter, sans the "visibly absent" part
 * Warlords, one of the earliest games of this kind

1 vs. 3
One player/team must fight another team of 2 or 3 other teams/players. The game is balanced so the single player is in a position of power.

Examples:
 * some Mario Party minigames
 * Much rarer, but also appears in Real Time Strategy.

Pirates, Vikings and Knights
There are 3 distinct and different classes/teams. Difficult to balance and rarely seen outside the Half-Life mod Pirates, Vikings and Knights.


 * Aliens vs. Predator (vs. Human Marines)

Free-For-All
The game has as many competing groups as the player count permits.

Player Versus Everyone
Every player plays against every other player.

Examples:
 * Mario Party
 * Bomberman
 * Super Smash Bros.
 * Armor Games' Web Game Stick Arena Ballistick
 * First-Person Shooter games (sans the word "Team"):
 * Deathmatch/Slayer/Arena (the most common gametype, where everybody just tries to kill everybody else as much as possible):
 * Doom
 * Halo
 * Quake
 * Half-Life
 * Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
 * Metroid Prime Hunters
 * Unreal
 * Gears of War 2 does this with teams of 2.
 * Grand Theft Auto IV
 * King of the Hill:
 * Halo series
 * Metroid Prime Hunters
 * Be A Man, Beat The Man:
 * Halo series (Juggernaut)
 * Metroid Prime Hunters (Prime Hunter)

Multi-Team
Players can cooperate in their own sets of groups in any permutation allowed by the player limit.

Examples:
 * Mario Kart Double Dash!!
 * Halo 2 and 3
 * Super Smash Bros.
 * Grand Theft Auto IV (Car Jack City, Mafiya Work)