For this entry I’m taking a look at Co-op style of gameplay while I’m not a fan of competitive multiplayer, co-op is right up my alley. There are many variations on co-op gameplay, but the basic rules stay constant. Two or more players play against the AI or in Splinter Cell’s case another team of players to complete objectives or beat a level. I have good memories of 4 player co-op in Serious Sam and the craziness that is 4 against 100 fights. Great co-op can be an amazing experience and a great way to introduce a new comer to a game. Another factor is the more skilled player helping out their partner and taking one for the team. Yet if Co-Op was so great then why doesn’t every game have it?
Co-op is a tricky thing to balance, recently with Trauma Center New Blood and the Halo franchise co-op mode was replaying the single player mode with an extra set of hands. The importance of this is that these two games modes were not designed first and foremost as multiplayer, which limited how interesting they can be by doing the same thing over again. Granted having a second player adds a certain level of expertise or insanity to the mix to each level which makes thing a bit different on a second play thru. In Halo enemies became stronger and more numerous to compensate , I don’t know if Trauma Center changed anything in multiplayer. There are examples however are games made for the co-op crowd.
Finding games specifically made for co-op play is a bit trickier . Lately EA attempted this with Army of Two but from what I’ve seen and read about it, the game didn’t succeed too well which I will be going into detail about the pitfalls of co-op design later. Resident Evil OutBreak was an interesting case, playing thru the world of Resident Evil as civilians teaming up to fight the undead. Splinter Cell which I mentioned earlier was the first I’ve seen to do co-op vs co-op and was a great idea. With the new GTA 4 game, there is a similar idea with Cops and Robbers mode which I bet is a blast.
Recently the game Crackdown allowed two players to exist in a huge open world city and let them go nuts. I think this is a fantastic start and would like to see this type of thinking developed further. One idea I had in a game was to allow 2-4 players inside a city GTA style, and allow them to split up or team up at will. Lets say that 3 players rob a bank on the west side of town drawing the police to that area, while the fourth player will hit the now lightly defended target on the east side. Or while two players rob the bank, the others can provide cover and suppression a building away to attack the cops from two fronts. I also want to get away from infinite magically appearing cops which will make things alot more tense.
With all the praise I have for co-op games, there are certain pitfalls that need to be avoided. One is the complete separation of players, basically making it so that neither player will ever come in contact with the other in a level is a bad idea. Since it turns the game into single player since there will be no interaction between the gamers. Next are the done into the ground co-op “puzzles”. Such as the exciting two players have to turn a key at the same time, or one player has to help another over a box to proceed. While Army of Two didn’t exactly succeed at co-op gaming there is a game that tried it first and failed even more at it.
Mark of Kri was one of my favorite titles on the PS2, a combination of Disney style visuals with over the top action. Which is why it’s sequel Rise of the Kasai was such a huge disappointment. The sequel had the player and an AI partner go thru each level. Each one going a different way, the problem is that the AI was not at the level needed for this game, and sometimes got stuck or even lost in a level. One time the AI partner would not step onto the the goal marker and I was unable to continue. The level design was also very basic, there was very little difference in being one character as opposed to the other and the game really just lack the charm of the first one. They basically bet the farm on the whole co-op mechanic and lost, but there are many ways of designing co-op levels.
When it comes to designing co-op levels from what I’ve seen falls into a few categories. One idea is to design a level almost in perfect symmetry , player A goes left player B goes right maybe they’ll come together for an important fight or one will help the other at certain spots. Eventually they’ll meet up and finish the level, which I believe is what Gears of War did. Next is two players together, similar to the Syphon Filter series. Both players need to stay close to each other and certain areas require both players or neither can proceed. This is based on the classic co-op style seen in Contra as both players need to be near each other to continue. What I want to see in the future is a more open world level design. Give me a huge area to explore, sprinkle in 3 or 4 objectives with multiple ways to solve them and let me and a partner go nuts. If we want to stay together and complete them slower but easier that’s fine, if we want to split up and go our own way that’s ok as well. Recently Halo 3 did up to 4 player co-op which in my opinion is great, the more players the better.
I believe the future for co-op games is in the open world genre, we already had a small taste of it in CrackDown and it sure beats dieing because my idiot partner kept the screen from scrolling causing me to fall into a pit 🙂
Josh
