We've seen more and more games integrate co-op. In fact, games like Army of Two and Conflict: Denied Ops have been built from the ground up to support a cooperative experience. I found this great little article over at Running the IT Race in which the author asks the question, Co-Op Games, Where are They?. The article talks specifically about Bioshock and System Shock 2. The latter game by the same developer as Bioshock had a Co-Op multiplayer patch added on to it after release. It was immensely popular. Yet when the sequel came out, co-op was mysteriously missing.
The game was a literary masterpiece with an incredibly original story. So it was with great surprise to find out that Bioshock, the spiritual successor to the System Shock universe was not going to include any form of multiplayer CO-OP component. You would think that the developers would have included it based on the critical success of System Shock 2. But alas they didn’t and we were forced to drudge through Rapture in a solo capacity. I read recently that Bioshock had just won 11 awards for various things, interesting but did it really deserve them, there’s practically zero re-playability in the game. System Shock 2 on the other hand has mountains of replayability. If they had made System Shock 3 or even re-made System Shock 2 I’m sure it would have been even more acclaimed.
There's another article over at popular blog Infendo in which a reader asks the same question.
what the hell happened to classic, simultaneous co-op adventure and platforming games? it’s not that i don’t have a problem with playing by myself, but it just seems like whenever i have a friend or a relative that i actually get along with comes over, i’m left dry of good 2 player games for us to play. usually i have to whip out Smash bros or some other racing/fighting/shooting game whenever they do.
This is one of the reasons why we exist at Co-Optimus. We need to make developers aware that we want cooperative gameplay as a standard in games. Just like online deathmatch and multiplayer became a standard years ago, cooperative play needs to be next!
editorial
co-op gaming
Yeah we should make more people aware of this site!
There are so much opportunities for a co-op gaming site, since this may be one of the very first! But there are also already co-op games out there. Just not enough, more games should be build around the co-op concept like Army of Two
I'm really trying to get this site boosted in the Google search rankings.
I really think that's key.
And how do you get it boosted in the almighty Google Search Rankings???
There's a few things I've been doing. Using meta data, site maps, and now I'm trying to rewrite the URLs to meaningful URLs. You can already see this with the news.
It takes time obviously, but I think eventually it'll pay off.
is there anything that we can do to help you get it boosted?
Search for this site on Google?
Total Comments: 7
Grand Theft Auto IV on Playstation 3
Super Smash Bros. Brawl on Wii
System Shock 2 on PC
N+ on Xbox Live Arcade
Pixel Junk Monsters on Playstation Network
View the top Co-Op Games on Each Platform including our family friendly list!
RIGHT ON! I'm wondering if we could/should email publications like Game Informer or other prominent gaming sites like TeamXbox.com and make them aware of this fine site? As I mentioned, I tried Googling for co-op lists but never found what I really wanted until I happened across an article about Co-Optimus.com on Joystiq.com.
Why don't we try to email a few sites and see if we can make them aware of our presence?