Anyone who follows my Twitter has probably heard that I'm not terribly thrilled about my sister moving in with her boyfriend. Anyone who talks to me personally should know that I really don't care for her boyfriend, Matt, much at all. So it was in the spirit of co-op that I decided to play games with him, and that he decided to be my wingman even when he wasn't playing. Thus we played co-op, bonding enough to be able to live together.
First game on our "play nice" list was some Dash of Destruction - That would be a free Co-op Xbox LIVE arcade game created by Ninja Bee games, complete with dinosaurs and Doritos chips. The goal here is to race around a small town in a colored delivery truck and pick up as many Doritos packages as possible without being eaten by a cybernetic dinosaur. So, Matt and I raced around several of the multiplayer maps collecting Doritos and enjoying the race against dinosaurs. Eventually we worked up to the maps where we were the dinosaurs munching on the poor little A.I. delivery truck. That little green truck was the most delicious bit of co-op bonding I've experienced to date. The local co-op was more of a versus co-op, while the online was definitely cooperative.
As a couple of people who never spoke with one another without my sister as a mediator, playing together and joking about dinosaurs with a taste of Doritos Trucks was a huge step in a civilized direction. Now, my sister headed off to work after we played about 6-10 levels of Dash of Destruction, leaving Matt in my care for the remainder of the night. Not being terribly educated on the etiquette of babysitting a sisters boyfriend, I had a date with Nick to play 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, which I kept.
Nick and I were on our way to finish up the campaign for 50 Cent:BotS while Matt was playing with my computer. To my surprise, Matt was interested in the game enough to sit back and be my second pair of eyes on the screen. After a short time, he put down the laptop and started helping out without being an annoying back-seat-gamer. First asking questions to orient himself to the game and what I should be searching for, he was helping to point out targets and collectible posters to boost our score as well as other helpful tidbits ("There's a dude to your left, behind that other G-unit guy," allowing me to ride to the rescue to save our dear Nick from a not-quote certain death - we were bulletproof after all).
Thanks to the helpful eye of an outsider, Nick and I pulled off quite a few high scores for gold medals, and more silver medals than I was able to procure on my own even after playing through the campaign twice before. Matt then became an honorable G-unit co-op member, though I wasn't actually able to get him to say "Yo Fitty, shoot that target!" or "Grab that poster, Mr. Cent."
Though it wasn't the most traditional type of co-op, the three of us had a grand-old time with all the rap music, hilarious dialog, and target shooting. In the midst of all the fun, I do believe I've found a lasting local co-op partner for all those games that just don't allow me to play with my long distance homies (Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles here I come). Oh, and live comfortably with the people that are now in my house - I think that's another important lesson here.