Co-Op Life Experiences

My first co-op game...Halo 1. I loved the 2 player campaign co-op. From then on I was a Halo freak. Co-op was in my blood!

I loved Blades of Steel...especially that awesome MIDI that made it sound more like "BLDZZ UV STLLL" at the title screen. Before that I was dropping bombs on the Atari 2600's Canyon Bomber. Although cooperation was a word that scarcely made it into mine or my brother's respective dictionaries at the time, it has since become my favorite way to play, starting with helping friends out in Operation Wolf, Midnight Resistance, Crime City, TMNT The Arcade Game, and X-Men The Arcade Game. Competitive multiplayer can be fun with your friends, but since millions of people now have access and WAY more time on their hands to play, it makes it tougher for those of us with full-time employment to enjoy the competitive experience...especially since my friends and I all work different schedules. Enter some of this gen's most recent co-op behemoths like Gears 1 & 2 and Halo 3, along with some decent buddy co-op games like Army of Two. It's nice to unwind with buddies at the end of a long day (or week) to some head-bashing in Gears of War 2's Horde mode or to play through some Halo 3 campaign co-op (again) and help friends to collect skulls or just stick 'nades to Grunts for the lulz. Nowadays if a game doesn't have a compelling single-player experience, then having no co-op equals a no-buy.

everything i wrote on here screams co-op, it's in my blood and has been ever since...hm... Golden axe and Altered beats is what made me love co-op, i had played co-op games before that but they never really clicked with me until i played those two, and I been co-oping it ever since.

Golden Axe and Streets of Rage - they were the first co-op games I played where I was really fully aware that I was playing co-op!

Of all the co-op games I've played, I think Saints Row 2 has to be the most fun.

Contra for nes was my first; me and my brothers wore out our nes when we were kids with double dragon, contra, super c, mario bros. and a bunch of others.

--- Replying to husky trooper -----

Yea Contra, and Double Dragon are the ones I really remember.

Just about anything on the Genesis was my first true consistent co-op experiences Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Hogan's Alley, Sonic 2 - heck we even used to play Phantasy Star 2 in hot swap co-op.

Gauntlet at the arcade, with me and my high school band buddies! That was true co-op in my days. "Elf needs food badly!" was our lunch cry, and people had no clue what we meant by it.

Going for the highest score was just part of it. If a game allowed you to continue where you left off if dropped your quarter in before time ran out, we'd keep it going, taking turns by whomever had quarters left.

Gauntlet at the arcade, with me and my high school band buddies! That was true co-op in my days. "Elf needs food badly!" was our lunch cry, and people had no clue what we meant by it.

Going for the highest score was just part of it. If a game allowed you to continue where you left off if dropped your quarter in before time ran out, we'd keep it going, taking turns by whomever had quarters left.

Oh, and to add to previous list - Contra Hard Corps.

Also, an Uncharted (not part 2) co-op moment - A buddy of mine was in a motorcycle accident last September, and although he's recovering nicely, his coordination with twitch-shooting has yet to return, so the other night he was playing Uncharted (finally borrowed my copy) and when he'd get to an intense shooting segment he'd hand me the controller...hot-swap co-op at its finest, good times. =)

These responses are great! Keep 'em Comin'!

I have to say my original co-op experiences were spent at the arcade - I'd ditch the family to play the Simpsons Game while at Pizza Hut, or play the Capcom game that I can't recall the name of with my friends growing up when at the local mall. Blades of Steel was a common game with my friends, as well as Super Mario Bros (though, most of the time we'd boot it up, steal all of Marios lives, and just play through as Luigi passing the controller after every death.)

After that, the Gameboy link system had me trading Pokemon with my friends at lunch (I'd call that co-op, since you needed to trade up to "catch 'em all" and we never really did the battles.) Also, loads of N64 games either by pass-the-controller co-op, or actually playing together.

Now common staples with my friends are the shooters like Halo and Left 4 Dead - online is 3rd person shooters like Gears of War and Uncharted 2. I personally love the side-scrolling co-op games, though it would appear I'm not very good at them anymore for some reason. Needz moar practice.

--- Replying to ShadokatRegn -----

I remember playing the Simpsons Arcade game outside of Walmart when they had an Arcade. It was so awesome back them playing a co-op game and someone came up and popped in a quarter to play with you, it was then that you sort of bonded with random people trying to defeat a common foe together. Man those were the days.

My best memory is actually not to long ago. I was my Cousins son's birthday party at Chuckee Cheese and they had the old turtles arcade system there, man my free tokens went a long way on that one. Ended up beating the game with a guy around my age maybe older and we talked about playing the game back in the day. It was great.

I played games of all types through the Atari and NES eras. I got way too much into Street Fighter 2, and to take breaks from the rough competition we'd play the co-op brawlers of the arcade: Turtles in Time, Golden Axe, Captain America and the Avengers, and best of all: X-Men! I sure hope these titles make it into Game Room sooner or later.

--- Replying to DjinniMan -----

X-Men was one me and my brother played a lot.

'Reset the computer now' ....

--- Replying to Zonf86 -----

U guys talking about X-Men on the gensis? The one where u are trapped in the sim room?

OMG that game was awesome Gambit FTW!!!

--- Replying to Biohzrd451 -----


That's the one I'm talking about it - I was a cyclops fan myself. I've got a copy at home.

I think that was the first game we got for the Gensis actually.

God I remember how tough it was, in fact I let my Brother in Law have it since I didnt have a sega anymore.

I loved calling in the different x-men like storm etc to help out. God do you remember how hard the bosses were?

Tell me about it - apocalypse used to be the worst for us, until we worked out a way of using nightcrawler to not only skip the entire level required to get to him (jumping through to the elevator shaft), but to also kill him really quickly.

I also loved the way you could stand on the same spot and share your health. Great co-op features, even back then.

Edit: In fact, I would now like to make a request that this be the next featured game on Co-op classics.

Speaking of X-Men on the Genesis, does anyone remember how we used to get tips/tricks/cheats before the interwebs? We READ MAGAZINES and BOOKS! That's just insane...man, I feel old now...

--- Replying to Zonf86 -----
I will see what I can do. I was originally talking about the Arcade X-Men, but the Genesis game intrigues me...

--- Replying to MisterDeeth -----

LOL I can one up you on that.

I remember we were stuck at a part on Startropics and we wrote in to Nintendo power and they actually answered our question in the Magazine the next month.

--- Replying to DjinniMan -----

Check it out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men_(Sega)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncrH8vJzdn0

If Gamepro would've answered my letters, I would've felt like a God. Kudos to you, Biohzrd451.

I played the arcades just like everyone else but I think my most memorable co-op experience was with Secret of Mana. A couple of my buddies and I would sit down and power through that over a week or so during the summer. Those were the days.

I'm a co-op gamer because I have friends, and while I could spend my gaming time blowing them away, it's more satisfying to work with them. Sometimes harder, too. Actually I could say the same about total strangers. Any fool can aim, fire, and obliterate, but it takes real adaptability to pull off a tightly-coordinated plan with someone you barely know.

hunterx280 says...
I loved the arcade games like X-Men but my all time favorite co-op game is Secret of Mana. Spending a week or two over the summer playing with a couple buddies fighting over who gets what weapon then hacking and slashing away will stick with me forever.

--- Replying to MisterDeeth -----
Oh, man, me and my brother played Blades of Steel on the NES a ton. Once we got tired of beating each other up, we'd team up against the computer. Great fun, that game was. It helped us get through the rough times when we were the subjects of a harsh, years-long custody battle.

Beyond that, we loved playing Jackal and Double Dragon II.

Kind of funny that this gets brought up now: after eight years of living over 2,000 miles apart, he's moving down to Texas again, and bringing his son and girlfriend with him. Recently he bought an Xbox 360, GTA IV, and Modern Warfare 2, so the co-op gaming memories are slowly being reanimated.

oh boy. my first experience with co-op gaming would be on commodore 64 with my brothers. we played mario brothers (the original), save new york city, double dragon, and fire king. being the youngest of six, i rarely had the opportunity to play alone, so i played mostly co-op games out of necessity (plus there weren't many VS games back then). as i grew up, i moved to PC games where i eventually played a lot of VS games but i still had a strong desire for co-op. i often hunted down co-op mods & bots for games like quake and quake 2 so i could play with friends online. serious sam was one of my favorites back then which featured split screen on the PC plus online co-op right out of the box!

of course, i can't forget countless hours (and quarters) at the roller rink playing co-op arcade games like TMNT, simpsons, and terminator with friends and classmates. my mom would yell at me for blowing my entire allowance and paper route money on arcade games instead of rollerskating like i was supposed to be doing

in college, i finally broke into console gaming with a used xbox and halo. that kept my room mate and i occupied for quite some time. we were instantly addicted. since then, i've married a gamer and we enjoy anything with split screen co-op. halo, left4dead, and gears of war are our favorite franchises. we prefer co-op but we still have a little competitive taste. we're often fighting for the highest score and biggest kills but in the end, its all about having fun together. even if that involves a little friendly spousal abuse

Ooh, the Terminator 2 light gun game! Y'all are gonna make me hit up some ROMs later tonight.

I started out with the controller swap Co-op in Super Mario Bros. I have followed it and been a large fan ever since. There's just something about gaming with another person couch co-op style that is a big part of what makes gaming so fun. Whether it's playing Rock Band and New Super Mario Bros Wii with my wife, Gears of War 2 and 'Splosion Man with my Brother-in-law, or Little Big Planet with anyone; I'm all about couch co-op. I'm just sorely disappointed that Couch co-op and online co-op don't mingle more often.

This is almost too big of a concept to even address easily. I started on the NES and arcades around the same time, predominantly with friends and my brother.

Something I remember doing a ton, especially before I started subscribing to gaming mags and essentially had no information about games other than the box, is going to the rental store got get a couple of games for a weekend sleepover. My buddies and I would only get games that said they had multiplayer, and then just hope that it was something that was co-op or at least fun.

--- Replying to MisterDeeth -----

I loved when magazines had a "cheats" section in the magazine with lists of cheat codes and their effects. Those were the days when I utilized the space in my games booklets for the "big hands" cheat for games, or whatever other goofy stuff they had for me.

--- Replying to roland -----
very true. i'm tempted to write a lengthy blog post on this. i'd like to dig through a list of commodore 64 games to see if there were any other co-op games i'm missing. oh, the memories.

Here's one that will date me Realm of Impossibility on the Commodore 64! My brother and I would spend hours delving into the isometric dungeons, running from zombies and resurrecting each other when one of us would fall.

This is one of the most awesome comment threads on Co-Optimus I have ever seen. This day should be a Co-Optimus holiday...I don't know what you'd call it, but we could basically say it's the day that humanity (or Co-Optimus' piece of the pie) banded together to reminisce on battling Skynet and the Machines.

I kind of feel like a noob in a way with co-op lol, even tho its slowly becoming more a big part to my gaming experince in life...because as far as i can remember i didn't have any co-op experinces when i was younger with older consoles since i didn't have anyone to play with at that time .

When i first bought my Xbox 360 & started to go on to gaming website/forums & community game sites (like this site & gamertagpics.com), thats when i started to make friends online & have fun n a laugh with co-op & mutiplayer.

I think the first game i played co-op on was probaly Halo 3 i think, playing through the campaign having a blast & a laugh, was even better when after we complete the campaign after finding all the skull to do it all again but turned on the IWHBYD skull just to laugh at what the enemies say.

Even though i've only been online for just over a year now, i've had some pretty fun matches/co-op experinces with friends on Halo 3, Gears Of War 2, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 & Left 4 Dead. Co-op to me is not just about people helping you out with getting certan achievements or something like that, but more of playing with friends that you talk to & have fun just kicking back playing the game you love. I've made some really good friends from this site that i've had the chance to play with which i'm happy about, every game will have a different co-op experince...& it'll keep getting better & better as time rolls along which i'm most looking forward to

Co-op is so important to me that I skipped a lot of good games just because it doesn´t features co-op.

While I played NES and Genesis with my friends growing up, some of the memories that stuck most with me were playing with my sister. On the NES we were always playing through Bubble Bobble, Chip and Dale, TMNT II & III, Contra (so long as I used the Konami Code) and others.

When I graduated to the Genesis there was plenty of co-op in beat em' ups like Streets of Rage and Golden Axe.

By the time I got the PS1 she had grown out of gaming, but when she comes to visit I will break out some NES games on the WiiWare Virutal Console or the Sonic Ultimate Genesis Collection and relieve some of our childhood together.

Of course there were plenty of old school co-op titles but I will mark the original Rainbow six as the first true co-op experience for me. It came on the scene and I seen a few players in the game rooms at msgaming zone where I was playing MSOutwars and decided to pick it up. I didnt see anything I liked out of the single player then went online to test it out and was blown away. I haven't looked back since. From that point on it was co-op or nothing pretty much.

--- Replying to Willtur -----
oh good call... i had some good times with R6 and GR back in the day.