When the news came out of CES about Xbox Live's new Game Room service, we were quite excited. Visions of playing 6-player X-Men, Dungeons & Dragons, and Aliens vs. Predator filled our minds with nostalgic glee. Unfortunately, these games, and many other co-op classics, will be absent when Game Room launches later this spring.
GameInformer has a hands-on preview of Game Room, and among the retro titles they played, not a one features co-op. (To my knowledge, at least; many of the games are Intellivision titles, and I never owned that system.) In fact, the games skew very highly towards the early Golden Age of the arcades, from about '79 to '82. Co-Op was rare during this time. It appears that recreating this particular period is what Microsoft intends, so the lack of co-op isn't surprising, but it is disappointing. With the promise of seven new games a week, though, surely it won't be long before a genuine co-op game makes its way to Game Room.
Here's a list of the titles GameInformer saw in Game Room.
Adventure- Intellivision
Armor Battle- Intellivision
Asteroids Deluxe- Arcade
Astrosmash- Intellivision
Batlantis- Arcade
Centipede- Arcade
Combat- Atari 2600
Crystal Castles- Arcade
Finalizer- Arcade
Football- Intellivision
Gravitar- Arcade
Jungler- Arcade
Lunar Lander- Arcade
Millipede- Arcade
Outlaw- Arcade
Pitfall- Atari 2600
RealSports Tennis- Atari 2600
Red Baron- Arcade
River Raid- Atari 2600
Road Fighter- Arcade
Scramble- Arcade
Sea Battle- Intellivision
Skiing- Intellivision
Space Armada- Intellivision
Space Hawk- Intellivision
Spider Fighter- Atari 2600
Star Raiders- Atari 2600
Sub Hunt- Intellivision
Tempest- Arcade
Tutankham- Arcade
Yars' Revenge- Atari 2600