As Nick pointed out in his “2008 Co-Op Year in Review” article, there were certainly a lot of co-op titles released last year. Some of these captured the essence of what a co-op game is all about, and some could have taken a page from those games’ design doc. While we’ve gone over the general gameplay experiences and specific pluses/minuses for all of these titles in our reviews, it’s worth taking a look back over the successes and failures of 2008’s co-op releases to identify exactly what distinguished a “must play” from a “bargain bin” title.
There’s No ‘I’ In Team (But There is One in Meatpie)
One of the basic principles of a co-operative game is that you and a friend/acquaintance/stranger-on-the-Internet are working together as a team to achieve some goal. That’s not at all a profound statement or concept, but somehow it is the very same concept that not all co-op games manage to achieve. Take, for instance, Bionic Commando: Rearmed. This was one of my favorite games growing up and when I heard it had co-op (even if it was local play only) I was excited. Being able to swing and grapple with a friend seemed like it would be the best thing since sliced bread. What happened, however, was more akin to sliced bread that’s been left under the refrigerator for a week. It’s not that it wasn’t fun to play with a friend, it’s that it just wasn’t co-op. If my friend swung out too far from a ledge, I couldn’t shoot out my bionic arm to reel him back into safety. If he decided to go wander off on his own, there was nothing that really forced us to group back up again to tackle the Badd troops. We were both there playing the game, but it didn’t feel like we were a team. While these may seem like small details to harp on, they’re exactly the kind of details that made other co-op games good.
Left 4 Dead took the fantasy of teaming up with a group of friends to fight your way through the zombie apocalypse and made it a reality. But more than that, it expertly recreated the look and feel of those classic zombie flicks, like Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, where the only way you and your friends can survive is by sticking together and covering each other’s backs. While the big events, such as the A.I. Director unleashing a horde of zombies, a hunter, and a smoker at you, help to set the mood and gives your group a pretty compelling reason to work together, it is the little things, like the characters shouting “reloading!” to let others know they’re vulnerable to an attack, that really make it a great co-op game. There are quite a few co-op games that provide you with the opportunity to tackle a horde of bad guys with some friends, but the truly great ones make you feel like you actually are a team fighting to survive/defeat the alien menace/win the war on drugs. It’s not just about a shared experience; it’s about working together to share the glory.
It’s All Fun and Games
Another simple truth about video games is that they are meant to be fun. Even the more difficult games that make you wonder why you bought it in the first place have, at times, their own certain degree of fun, albeit in a slightly masochistic way. Grouping up with friends should, therefore, increase that fun, right? Unfortunately, it turns out that that’s not the case for all the co-op games that were released last year.
The Rock Bands and Guitar Heroes are, by far, some of the biggest selling co-op titles out there. It’s not really a secret why, either. Who could say no to putting together a rock band with a few friends and taking the world by storm as you play along to your favorite songs? It doesn’t matter how musically talented you are, it’s not about that. It’s simply about hitting the correct buttons at the right time and more or less carrying a bit of the tune to get you through the song. Whether or not you can play through a song on hard or expert has little to do with being able to just play the song and have fun. Of course, this experience could easily go another way if the co-op part of the game makes it more frustrating or needlessly difficult to play than playing it solo.
While it may seem a bit odd to be saying that co-op can ruin a game on a site devoted to co-op gaming, it is an unfortunate truth. Playing through a game like PixelJunk Eden with a friend, you might just find yourself asking your friend if he wouldn’t mind putting down the controller and stepping away from the video game. It’s not necessarily the fault of your friend, or even the fact that there is a co-op mode, but a combination of all the mechanics of the game. A game that is great and fun to play alone doesn’t mean it will be the same with a friend. All the elements that make the solo play fun may very well be the same elements that make it frustrating to play with a friend. Camera movement, control schemes, interesting physics, and other gameplay mechanics don’t always translate well into adding a “Player 2 Press Start” at the top of the screen. Games are meant to be fun and playing with others is meant to be fun, but if a game is primarily designed around a solo play experience, it should think twice before adding a “co-op with friends” line to the back of the box.
Here's to 2009
The co-op releases for 2008 have, for the most part, been great. Since Co-Optimus was started a year ago, we’ve seen a relative surge of great co-op games, with one game in particular receiving high praise from many enthusiast press outlets. While not every game could be a real winner, for every instance where the co-op experience was lacking (Fable II) or lead to more frustration than cooperation (Resistance 2), there were those games (Gears of War 2) that showed co-op gaming is still a desired game mechanic for many gamers. With 2009’s first big co-op release right around the corner, here’s hoping that this year’s co-op games will continue with the great trends of last year’s hottest co-op games and be even better.