Tomorrow morning sometime between 8am and Noon there is someone supposedly coming to look at our dishwasher. Hopefully after that time period we will once again have a functioning dishwasher. If it doesn’t work out, then there will probably be a new dish washer on its way, and I really want to avoid that. I want to have the dishwasher now. In fact, I wanted to have it a month ago, or however long ago it was that the old one finally died.
Tonight I’ll finally get to play Army of Two. I’ve been looking forward to this for quite a while and I’m totally stoked about it! My Brother-In-Law and I have what we call Friendly Fire Fridays where we get together on Xbox LIVE and game. We’ve already defeated Halo 3 on Legendary and annihilated those poor unsuspecting Locust in Gears of War on Insane. Now at long last we have Army of Two to progress through. It appears to be right out of a bad action movie, which can only be a good thing.
I’ve always got my eyes open looking for upcoming co-op games. Games such as the aforementioned Halo 3, Gears of War, and Army of Two. There are a few on the horizon such as Gears of War 2, Mercenaries 2 and maybe even Saints Row 2. I’m not really into the gangster/thug genre games, so the jury is still out on Saints Row 2.
We have tried a few other games that offer “co-op” and multi-player, but none of them really seem to get it right. I like to play co-operatively through games. There’s a sense of camaraderie to it. A sense of accomplishment. I prefer to work toward a common goal rather than directly compete against other players. I also enjoy a story when it comes to gaming, so multi-player death match doesn’t really cut it.
There are a lot of games that almost offer great co-op experiences out there. I know games like NHL 08 have what they call Online Team Play where you and some friends can get together and play against another team of friends. That’s cool and all, but I’d rather be able to go through a season or a dynasty with a friend over Xbox LIVE. Or be able to go through a season or dynasty where a friend can control one of the other teams in the league.
You can also look at racing games that feature things such as “racing teams”. Of course they tend to only offer them as players vs players. I would love to see a feature in a racing game where a group of friends can make a racing team and race co-operatively on a team and progress through an actual season of racing. After all, that’s what racing is really like. It isn’t a bunch of random people having one-time showdowns.
One of the reasons I do enjoy playing co-operatively primarily against computer opponents is that there is a realistic measurement of improvement. If you were playing online you always be playing against people way better than you, way worse than you, and equal to your level. In doing so, it’s hard to notice that you’re getting “better” at the game. It is harder to get that sense of satisfaction of improving as a team.
Also since, as I’ve covered in previous entries, I’m not on the bleeding edge of gaming these days, when I do finally make it online it tends to be after everyone else has perfected their craft. It’s like just jumping into any game at a difficulty level of Highest + 1. Halo 3 did a good job of getting around the entry point problem by making everyone play a few matches in a small level before being promoted out to play against the people who have played 2000+ matches. It has its flaws, but its a step in the write direction.
So as a final though: we need more games that have co-op story modes!