I miss strong co-op/couch co-op games.

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Negatempest

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Listening to some Castle Crashers music the other day reminded me of the glory days of Co-op games. They more or less died during 6th generation. T^T God the idea of playing with someone else and actually having fun with them instead of because you beat him. Great games like Contra, Streets of Rage, X-men Arcade, Simpsons Arcade, Final Fight and my personal favorite in childhood because it was both ruthless and enjoyable at the same time;


There are co-op modes on a handful of games these days, but they are just implemented terribly. I mean REALLY terrible. The whole, "We share a life pool" was and still is stupid. Let the other guy run around on his own for a bit if i'm the one that messes up or has crappy luck. Hell considering the tech these days developers can improve co-op games by implementing multiple paths, different characters, different endings, tons of unique locations, and split-screen. Heck Contra Hardcorps was a 16bit game with multiple paths, multiple endings and multiple characters. That game was 3 generations ago. T^T

I have friends that live by and I have a big family. Considering how many people in the escapist could possible, *GASP* be part of a large family too. Maybe a new co-op game would be fun?

Edit: Let me clarify. This isn't so much "rose tinted glasses" and more of my own experience with modern day co-op compared to past generation co-op. If you think about the co-op of the past; Time-Crisis, Aero Fighters, Metal Slug, Streets of Rage, Contra, etc., regardless of either skill level of the players, both players would have nearly the same experience in fun. You would look forward to another player joining your for House of the Dead, even if they are a little kid of 7 years of age. The design of the game nearly kept the poor experience of the Newbie from ruining the fun of the veteran.

Now in modern co-op games a trail of thought comes to me often. (Thus why the title is named the way it is. :p) In short, the new guy better know how to play his role so we both can have fun. Meaning that newbies could and usually do ruin the gaming experience for the veteran. Same thing vice-versa, the veteran could walk the newbie through the game and ruin his fun, depending on the game. Borderlands comes to mind with that problem. Cause I was the newbie and the veterans more or less walked me through the game on the last half. Since hardly anyone else played it online that was at my level.
 

BQE

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Anthony Corrigan said:
what about fear 3 which destroyed a single player game to turn it into co-op or RE5
That's a shame, I thought FEAR 1 and 2 were relatively mediocre at best, but found the playing FEAR 3 alongside a friend was an absolute blast and well worth my money.
 

Negatempest

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Thus why I mention a strong co-op game that isn't implemented terribly. :p Point being where the game is designed to have fun with the person(s) next to you. It was a real big thing to have fun with the friends next to you in the past.
 

Aeshi

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Yeah I find it weird that Co-op has disappeared when we live in an era with massive TVs and fast internet.
 

Sectan

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Me and a friend both have fairly nice PCs, Xboxes and the like. Last time he came over to my place...we plugged in the old Gamecube. We spent hours playing Everything or Nothing and Chaos Theory Coop. They don't make em like they used to.
 

Tallim

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I'm rather partial to Dead Nation for co-op. Yeah it's another zombie game but as a twin stick shooter it's brilliant with 2 people.
 

josemlopes

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To be honest there are quite a lot of co-op games now, couch co-op are rarer for sure but online co-op is very much alive. The next gen seems heavily based on the concept of having a small group of friends and playing together against NPCs (Destiny, The Crew, The Division). Some could be called MMOs but their structure looks a lot closer to Dark Souls with groups.
 

Norithics

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I think that to some degree, it only seems like there aren't couch co-op games anymore because at one point during the SNES/Arcade era, that's practically all we had. There's still couch co-op, it's just not as featured anymore because arcades aren't as big a thing these days, and there are examples of games that could easily have done couch co-op but didn't for some inconceivable reason.
 

SolanumX2

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I need more couch co-op games. I'm hoping with the next generation of consoles developers will have an easier time getting it in. So many games are needlessly online co-op only.

I'm so desparate for a couch co-op game that I'm playing through LOTR: War in the North with my old man. It's a buggy, repetitive game, but it's better than nothing.

Hopefully Dragon's Crown is good and will keep us busy for a while.
 

Tom_green_day

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I used to think this, but then I found Call of Duty. Splitscreen multiplayer is great fun, but the ultimate gaming experience for me is splitscreen (or just co-op online) zombies. Playing with a friend on the WaW/BlOps 1 maps is just such a blast, you don't need huge knowledge of the mechanics other than 'shoot der zombies'. It doesn't have any storyline or required knowledge of characters to play- you can just jump in and shoot. Black Ops 2 maps kinda lost the ball a bit, the maps are just bloated with gimmicky features you need to use. Kino/Ascension/CotD is the highlight for me.
 

Negatempest

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TheKasp said:
But there are plenty of coop games... I started to replay Orcs must Die 2 recently with a friend, going through all campaigns on Nightmare difficulty (just one example).
I'm more partial to the variety of Co-ops that existed in the past. :p Side-scrollers, schmups, beat-em-ups, exploration. It wasn't all just shooters doing co-op.
 

InfinityX

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Doesn't most new Nintendo games have this? Though I would like to see more split-screen games aside from FPSs
 

Vigormortis

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Just off the top of my head, here are some current, very co-op friendly games/series:

Left 4 Dead
Borderlands
Torchlight 2
Diablo 3
Call of Duty
Dungeon Defenders
Monaco
Portal 2
Terraria
Minecraft
Worms
Sanctum
Magic: The Gathering (PC games)
Payday: The Heist
Warframe


I could probably find dozens more with a simple search. And that's not even counting older titles that still have active communities, like one of my favorites: Sven Co-op.

Seriously, I laugh uncontrollably every time someone laments "I hate gaming today! Co-op is dead!"

No. No it's not. They're just ignoring the wealth of good co-op titles available to them. Whether it's from willful ignorance or some absurd sense of nostalgia over the games of old, I don't know. But co-op is most assuredly not dead.
 

WolfCross

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Vigormortis said:
Just off the top of my head, here are some current, very co-op friendly games/series:

Left 4 Dead
Borderlands
Torchlight 2
Diablo 3
Call of Duty
Dungeon Defenders
Monaco
Portal 2
Terraria
Minecraft
Worms
Sanctum
Magic: The Gathering (PC games)
Payday: The Heist
Warframe


I could probably find dozens more with a simple search. And that's not even counting older titles that still have active communities, like one of my favorites: Sven Co-op.

Seriously, I laugh uncontrollably every time someone laments "I hate gaming today! Co-op is dead!"

No. No it's not. They're just ignoring the wealth of good co-op titles available to them. Whether it's from willful ignorance or some absurd sense of nostalgia over the games of old, I don't know. But co-op is most assuredly not dead.
yes. the games mentioned in the original post are pretty old, and there's been a good few since then and they seem to be more common than ever tbh.
 

GonzoGamer

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Stephen Harland said:
Borderlands.
Argument invalid.
That's what I was going to say after just reading the thread title; the Borderlands games have the most enjoyable co-op I've ever played.

I always think of Golden Ax when I think of the kind of co-op games OP is talking about. I also remember playing them in the arcade rather than on the couch. Thing is, I'm kind of old and I feel like I played those games to death in the 90s. However if they came out with a really good one, I'd give it a shot.
There was a new D&D themed game like that which came out recently. Anyone here try it yet? How is that one?
 

Vigormortis

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Negatempest said:
I'm more partial to the variety of Co-ops that existed in the past. :p Side-scrollers, schmups, beat-em-ups, exploration. It wasn't all just shooters doing co-op.
Look at the list in my previous post.

Only 5 of those are shooters. The rest are comprised of RPGs, exploration, building, tower-defense, strategy, puzzle, and other such non-shooter-type genres.

vashthblackseed said:
Co-Op died cause they like the idea of each player buying a copy instead of just one
You should do the same. Look at the list above.

I honestly fail to see how anyone can possibly claim that co-op is "dead" today.

I mean...seriously?