2010 was an amazing year for co-op gamers with over 150 games and plenty of news to boot. But amongst the masses of titles a few stood out as not only excellent cooperative but as excellent games. Here's our list of the best co-op titles of 2010.
Best PC Co-Op Title: Alien Swarm
They say the best things in life are those that come for free, and with 2010’s PC co-op title of the year we couldn’t agree more. Alien Swarm was an Unreal mod turned full release available for free via Valve’s Steam service. The game not only featured some intense four player co-op top down shooter action set in an alien world, but featured its own mod tools to add extensibility.
While Alien Swarm's game play was top notch, bringing even non traditional PC gamers in like our own Jim McLaughlin who said he "really enjoyed his time with the game," the game excelled in other areas as well. Most notably was its graphics, running on a version of the Source engine, the game immediately catches your eye.
There was some tough competition out there, most notably Star Craft 2, but with the lack of true campaign co-op Co-Optimus gives the 2010 PC Co-Op Game of the year to Alien Swarm.
Best Console Co-Op Title: Halo Reach
In Bungie’s final Halo game, the team pulled out all the stops in terms of co-op options. Not only does the game feature a full 4 player co-op campaign, split screen, and split-screen with online support - it also finally added the much needed matchmaking options to both campaign and Firefight. Firefight itself got revamped with nearly infinite play options thanks to an in depth customization tool. There’s a lot of legs here and nearly 5 months after release its a game many of us still fire up.
Halo Reach seems to fall closer to a formula that was found in the earlier Halo games as well, making the action simpler, more intense, and better with a buddy. Perhaps its because of this we found ourselves so addicted to it - Nick managed to put in a solid 75 hours into the game - the vast majority in Firefight and campaign.
The consoles saw some really great releases this year like Red Dead Redemption, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Fable 3 and many other big co-op titles - but hands down everyone on the staff mentioned Halo in their ballots, and thats why it gets our 2010 Console Co-Op Game of the Year.
