Not now, honey...Mommy and Daddy are in a boss fight!
We are both parents (of the same child, coincidentally, which works out nicely). We play all three consoles systems as well as many card and board games. The only thing that keeps us from gaming more is work, family, work, and life in general (did we mention work?). As a working couple with limited time (and energy) our gaming interests are not the same as an adolescent cooped up in his bedroom or a twenty-something continuously online with his posse. Our social world is severely hampered by professional and familial commitments so that nights out alone are a rarity and in order to help us to stay connected with each other we have used digital adventure time as both mutual entertainment and a shared social experience. A co-op game (whether split-screen or same-screen) is an outlet for us to connect with, not escape from, one another.
Bottom-line is: we're after co-op games. Maybe they might have a competitive element to them, but were looking for something that doesn't have us being adversarial against each other (there’s enough of that in our real life, we don't need it as entertainment). This isn't to say we aren’t generally competitive or martially inclined, far from it. We have a fighting mindset or we wouldn’t be gaming in the first place.
When we game it’s something that we have nearly always done together. When we look to purchase a game we want something to share and have the experience bring us closer, whether as a couple, a family, or just friends in the same room. Whether it’s an RPG or FPS we intentionally seek out only games that allow us both to play together Our focus is entirely on games designed for local—offline—cooperative play. Single-player games or those that only allow play versus others are hardly an interest. Countless great titles end up being passed by. Even when we sometimes want a multi-player experience, it’s again one where we’re not exclusively fighting against one another. And we’re not talking lighthearted party games or silly-animal platformers on the Wii, here. We mean serious action adventure gaming and shooters.
As our child has gotten older we’ve tried to include her in the gaming experience as well. Research has underscored that kids grow up healthier and better adjusted when their parents spend time playing and interacting with them…and co-op gaming provides one outlet for that interaction. Yes, we will confess to many a guilt-ridden occasion of frantically pleading to our exasperated child to hold off her interruption for just a few more seconds; disappointment filling her sad little face as she stands by with taxed patience while mommy and daddy urgently button mash some level-ending menace. A stern lecture of why not to ever rush into the room when elders are down to 5% health will surely follow. (…Wo’ be it upon the impatient toddler who causes their parents to respawn.) Such angst is afterward soothed by playing something together as a family. In which case, any dysfunctional traumas that then arise will merely be over just who exactly caused whom to blow a high score.
But all this places us in a niche as gamers, one outside of the usual lone youth vicariously looking for online opponents or playing exclusively with a small cadre of friends. Unfortunately, for people like us, so many of the best games are made—quite understandably—as exclusively one-player experiences or, at the least, only offer online multiplayer co-op (i.e., not with another person in the same room on the same system). There are only very rare exceptions to this, such as Drake’s Fortune, which has such an unprecedented spectator component that we greedily traded the controller back and forth at different junctures like the witches sharing the eye in Clash of the Titans.
Lately however, our frustration level has maxed out over how games and gaming websites both neglect the interests of real couples, parents, and friends wanting to play in the same room together with other living beings. One of the most difficult elements to learn about for a newly announced title in discerning whether or not there will be a local co-op feature. It’s neglected by most news put out by developers and is an after thought for most reviewers (if given any thought at all). After years of having to hunt and dig for info on both existing and forthcoming titles that had full cooperative campaign play and in the process discovering countless of other couples just like us, we are here to say duos wanting local co-op are a significant market share. Thus, our battle cry: “Co-Op couples of the World Unite!”