I was thinking the other day about the games that really formed the core of my gaming. Many of them are games with campaign co-op as an option. It goes back all the way to the 80s and arcade games. So here's a list of the five games that everything else revolved around over the years.
80s arcade years: 1943: The Battle of Midway: This vertically scrolling shooter was a favorite for the 2 player co-op and all the weapon powerups.
90s: Duke Nukem 3D: Mark and I played this in so many versions: PC, PS1, N64, Saturn, Xbox 360, and XBO (haven't played the Megaton edition on XBO quite yet, but I have it). You can play the whole campaign co-op and we did that in a competitive way so many times. We also played multiplayer maps with bots on the N64 a ton of times. Always fun.
00-2006: Halo: Combat Evolved (and Halo series): Mark and I played Halo: C.E. like some people play poker every week. It was campaign co-op again as the mode of choice. From the beach landing on The Silent Cartographer through Assault on the Control Room were the set of levels we played over and over. It was always different and always super fun. We continued playing the other Halo games all the way through Halo: Reach, but after that it tapered off. I still have to play Halo 5, which I just got to catch up.
2007-2009: Crackdown: Mark and I roamed the three cities of Crackdown, stealing cars and pounding gangs, for a long time. There's few games better in the open world co-op category.
2009- present: Borderlands: It took me a little while to get into the series but when I did it was lots of time spent in that world. FPS meets Diablo and open world exploration, what a delicious combo.
What's next? I don't know. A new series could come out of nowhere and be the next big thing in co-op gameplay for me. I'm open to all possibilities.
Shooters definitely lend themselves well to co-op, and I've enjoyed quite a few like that. It is nice, though, when another genre makes a strong appearance, like with Diablo III. Cloudberry Kingdom was a really fun, zany co-op platformer. And, naturally, I'm blanking on other examples now lol
Even going back to N64, Mark and I would bounce back and forth from FPS games to action RPGs like Gauntlet Legends. Sometimes, when a game doesn't have co-op but we both want to play it, we play it in tandem and then challenge each other to see who finishes it first. That's fun too.
I tried playing co-op Rayman Legends with my older brother, but mostly we just got in each other's way unintentionally.
That game looks so darn good.
It is a great platformer. Frustrating at times, but satisfying. In the PS4 version, you can unlock all the Rayman Origins stages as well.
I wish I could have it running on my wall in some demo mode so I could look at it like a painting.
Kirby Super Star is an awesome co-op game. :)
Sounds interesting. Got to play some more Kirby games.
During the 80s and 90s, my favorite co-op games with my friends were beat'em ups like Double Dragon, Bad Dudes, and Final Fight. My brother & I love playing Super Spike V'Ball (NES). We play that game together every year and still have loads of fun with it. We hadn't beat the World Tournament in years though.
I played a lot of Final Fight. Mark and I played a lot of NBA Jam too.
1943 that's the game right there. I still get a kick out of it all these years later.
I'm waiting to see if VR takes off, a game on that platform will be the next Co-Op but that would take some crazy setup...but could be amazing.
I still have the 1943 music running in my head almost every day.
I'm thinking the next big co-op thing will be a MMO. Destiny almost became that, but Mark's not into it right now, for whatever reason.
the original HAlo, despite its flaws, was still a co-op masterpiece. My brother and I played the hell out of that, and I'll always have those memories....
Those levels we played are burned into my brain after three years of weekends playing them.
Amen
I'm usually a solo gamer, gaming is my way to get away from people, but with that said -
I used to play a lot of games on my Genesis with my young cousins and even though most of them were solo games, we played "pass the controller" and everyone got a turn. I know that's not really what you meant, but it was still a kind of co-op.
I love racing games, whether they're serious or goofy, but only if I'm playing co-op. My brother and I spent a chunk of the 90s getting together at his house and gaming after Sunday dinner at our dad's. He and I also played a lot of games like Myst and Riven together because our brains look at things differently and between the two of us, we could usually figure out the puzzles.
The big co-op games for me have been on the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles, though. LBP and LBP 2, Sonic All-Stars, Modnation Racers with GH, Kevin West, Tex, and Jonathan from 1up, as well as couch co-op with my friend Michael from next door. Also a bunch of Lego couch co-op with Michael. And my nephew and I used to play a hack-and-slash PSN dungeon crawler on the PS3, I can't remember the name right now, it was ridiculously difficult, but we had a lot of fun with it.
If it wasn't for Mark, who I've known since I was ten, I'd be mostly a solo gamer too.
Passing the controller is co-op to me. You mentioning Myst reminded me of when my friend Sean and I played that game together. We'd just figure out the puzzles together. I forget who moved through the environment. That wasn't the point of it though. It was thinking together on a problem. Thanks for reminding me of that. It's a fond memory.
I totally remember moving from couch co-op games in the 90s, to lan and network co-op games on Xbox and PC in the early 2000s, to full online co-op from around the beginning of Xbox 360.
I just downloaded Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime on Xbox Live Games with Gold. That supports four player couch co-op, but I don't have anyone to play that kind of co-op game at the moment. I'll play it solo.
Couch Co-Op games are getting rare these days. I was kind of disappointed that Uncharted 4 didn't have that, I use to play with my niece and nephew in Uncharted 3's horde mode a lot.
I just downloaded Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime and that game is designed around couch co-op up to four players. So it's still around. Thing is, I'm all about online co-op, which is fairly common now, but it used to be rare. Mark and I used to play couch co-op games when that was all there was, but since LAN stuff and now online, we can both have our own TV and play co-op that way - way better.
Mark and I played Uncharted 1 co-op. He doesn't have a playstation 3 anymore, or a PS4.