E3 has come and gone and so has our coverage of the show. We're wrapping up our last few stories today, but there is one story we haven't covered - what games we nominated for Best Co-Op Game of E3 2012. It's a prestigious award that any game would love to keep in their trophy case - but only one can win it.
To be nominate we had a few requirements:
1) The game had to playable on the show floor, not just a hands off demo or video
2) The game had to have the co-op mode playable
3) We had to actually play it
With that out of the way - here's who we nominated and our winner.
Resident Evil 6
Three separate campaigns for co-op players with their own unique feel? Sounds like Resident Evil 6 could continue the co-op legacy left by RE5.
Capcom does, apparently. Locke and I managed to get our grubby little mitts on two Resident Evil 6 co-op missions. The first featured Chris Redfield and newcomer Piers Nivans, the other starred Leon Kennedy and Helena Harper. I can comfortably say these missions felt like we were playing two entirely different games, each geared toward a different fanbase. A third campaign follows the story of Jake Muller (Wesker’s son), and Sherry Birkin, but E3 time constraints kept us from indulging.
Our Full E3 2012 Co-Op Preview of Resident Evil 6
Far Cry 3
Far Cry 3's co-op mode was unveiled during the Sony Press conference. Sadly what was shown didn't nearly do the game justice, luckily for you, we went hands on and talked to the mode's creator.
We fought back throngs of enemies, including fast, vicious enemies who could kill us with one blow, a heavy soldier armed with a machine gun and body armor, and frick'n guard dogs! There were also multiple objectives to complete throughout each mission. In the mission I played we had to cover each other while repairing a train so we could dislodge it from a tunnel. Later we took turns placing explosives on a bridge, the whole time fighting back an army of soldiers.
Our Full E3 2012 Co-Op Preview of Far Cry 3 including Video Footage and Developer Interview
Halo 4
Many were disppapointed to hear Halo 4 was dropping Firefight, but its replacement is both ambitious and equally as addictive. We went hands on with Spartan Ops and learned that co-op was coming back to the campaign as well.
What I really enjoyed about the Spartan Ops mission we played was the way the game mixed up the objectives. Over the course of the level we had several waypoints to follow, switches to hit, as well as a defense objective. Perhaps the highlight of the level for me was picking up one of the Forerunner weapons. The one I found was a bit like a shotgun that simply disintegrated enemies on contact.
Our Full E3 2012 Hands on Preview of Halo 4
Torchlight 2
Torchlight 2 has had a long road to release and we're still not quite there. Mike and Locke chatted it up with Runic games and got the lowdown after playing a solid co-op session.
Max and Wonder from Runic sat us down in their booth and played along with us, and then we were able to pick their brains on what makes Torchlight 2 one of the most satisfying co-op experiences. I could tell by the way they played, and spoke of Torchlight 2 that they were passionate about their craft. It was really cool to be able to play through a game with the developer and the only limiting factor with the game was that we ran out of time to talk to them. We really could have sat there and played through Torchlight 2 for the duration of E3, but alas other appointments got in the way.
Our Full E3 2012 Hands on Preview with Torchlight 2 and Developer Interview
Borderlands 2
Choosing our game of show wasn't an easy choice, any one of the nominees could have easily taken the crown. Yet one game had something in common for us - as soon as we were done playing we wanted to play it again...imedidately. That game was Borderlands 2.
Zero's signature ability, called Deception, causes him to cloak & spawn four holographic versions of himself to distract enemies while you get yourself into a better position. Since I went down the melee tree, I'd fire it off then maneuver over to the most annoying target and strike from behind for a good damage boost. The debuff that gets applied allowed me and Nick to take down targets much quicker than we would normally. It's nice to see that the class abilities in Borderlands 2 seem to assist in co-op play a lot more than in the prior game.
Our Full Co-Op Impressions of Borderlands 2 from E3 2012
and
Our Video Interview with Randy Pitchford
All of our E3 2012 coverage can be found right here.