The Men in Black movies would seem like a natural fit for a good co-op shooter. Agents work in pairs, solving mysteries, getting into crazy shenanigans, and zapping more than their fair share of aliens, bug eyed or otherwise. This past May, to coincide with the third movie, a tie-in game was released for Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii. The best information we had at the time was that the game had split-screen co-op, and so we gave MIB: Alien Crisis a little coverage.
As is often unfortunately the case, a claim of co-op on the back of the box, or even on the game's Xbox.com overview, doesn't mean the game is truly cooperative. Part of our official definition reads as follows: "A co-op game is a game where two or more players work together to accomplish a goal against AI opponents." After some hands on time with the game, I can verify that Alien Crisis does not match this definition.
The game's campaign is for one player only, from start to finish. The only two player option is a game type called, believe it or not, "Competitive". This mode is the two-player split screen referred to in the marketing materials. Each player controls an agent on his or her own half of the screen, and they compete to get the highest score by zapping aliens more efficiently than their "partner". The entire point of this mode is obviously competitive. Only by the vaguest of standards could this game type be considered cooperative.
As a result, we've removed Men in Black: Alien Crisis from our game database. It isn't a true co-op experience in any way. Aside from this, the rest of the game is horrible, not even worth a look unless you are one of those people who likes games that are so bad they're good. The graphics are PS2 quality, load times are excessive, controls are extremely loose... I could go on and on. Even my eleven year old son knew this one was a stinker. Maybe someday, a good Men in Black game, with a decent two player campaign, will be released, but Alien Crisis is certainly not it.