This week marks the 15th anniversary of the Playstation. The first console from Sony, the original Playstation was released in America on September 9, 1995. Competing against the Sega Saturn and later, the Nintendo 64, the PS1 was an immense success, eventually selling over 100 million units through its lifetime. Followed by the even more successful Playstation 2, various iterations of handhelds Playstation Portables, and the Blu-ray equipped Playstation 3 in the modern console generation.
As we like to do for Co-Op Classics, we thought a look back at some of the co-op games that were available on the original Playstation would be in order. Unfortunately, we don't have very many games for the PS1 in our database; not content to let the slim pickings get in the way of celebrating the Playstation's anniversary, I asked other staff members for their input, since I myself didn't own a Playstation until late in the lifespan of the PS2. For most of my colleagues, PC gaming was order of the day during the mid to late 90s, but a few titles did come to mind.
When most people think of Diablo, the PC version pops into mind first. But there was a port of Blizzard's genre defining action/rpg hybrid for the Playstation. Released in 1998, a year after the PC version, Diablo for PS1 was a generally well done version, though it was lacking graphically when compared to its PC elder. Two players could co-op their way through Tristram and the hellish dungeons below.
As you'd expect, Driver 2 is a sequel to one of the earliest examples of open world, "sandbox" style games. One feature absent from the first Driver was any form of co-op; Driver 2 fixed this by adding a split screen two player mode. Untethered to one another, both players could roam around at will to complete missions or just explore the city.