” You know its me and you, and you for me”


Role-playing survival game is willing to take risks

In the recent issue of EGM, the main story is on the revival of the co-op mode in games. Developers have learned a simple truth; co-op makes things infinitely more awesome/chaotic.

Arcade games had some of the best co-op moments, from TMNT, to the excellent X-Men game and let’s not forget Gauntlet, it was great teaming up to kick ass. There was also this amazing arcade shooter called Lucky and Wild, in which one person drives a car while the other mans the light gun. The first modern use of co-op if I remember right was Halo. I had a great time with my friend as we blasted the covenant while going on suicide runs on the hardest difficulty. Since then there has been a steady re surge of co-op, from Gears of War to the upcoming House of the Dead Wii title and more. However reading the preview of Resistance 2’s co-op mode, gives me hope for the future of the mode.

First it is being designed from the ground up as its own unique story; it will not piggyback off of the regular single player mode. The game will allow you to select different classes and of course combine forces with your friends. According to the article the development team looked at the class based team work of Team Fortress 2 and the teamwork of taking down a larger force ala the World of Warcraft raids, and that just makes me start to drool. There are two ways I would love to see co-op games developed. One being the above mentioned, as in a team based combined arms method of one for all and all for one approach. The other I believed I mentioned in this blog some time ago. Being an open world approach as two or more players can explore a huge area teaming up or splitting up as needed to work on global objectives.

Resident Evil 5’s announced co-op mode is going to be interesting. The last time we saw co-op meets survival horror, was in the ill fated Resident Evil spin off. However co-op meets Resident Evil 4’s combat system has me very excited. Then there is Left 4 Dead, which looks to be a blast to play. RTS titles are even getting a shot at it with co-op mode in Red Alert 3. Fable 2 is also having a co-op mode which hopefully will be available right after launch. In this paragraph I just mentioned survival horror, RTS, and RPG with co-op modes proving that there is no genre that cannot be liven up by a co-op mode (maybe co-op crossword puzzles, I’m not sure).

Co-op games are one of the best forms of multiplayer; I think the reason why we don’t see as many of them is due to the complexity of having multiple players in the game space at the same time. I think as there are games that are multiplayer only, we should have games that are designed from the ground up as co-op experiences (you could argue that is how team based FPS titles are, but I’m talking about on a bigger scope). With online access now for consoles as well as PCs, co-op games should really take off. I like this quote from Peter Molyneux in the latest EGM the best about the future of co-op games: “I think we could be looking at something where, if you reviewed a game five years from now that doesn’t have co-op, it would be like a first-person shooter not having deathmatch”. At this point I was going to end this entry with a lyric from “Get Together” but I couldn’t think of a way of doing it without it being too weird :).

Josh