Not now, honey...Mommy and Daddy are in a boss fight!
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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.
