Major Nelson has announced the winners for the 2009 Xbox Live Arcade awards, which were voted on by the community. While Twisted Pixel's `Splosion Man won for best original game, it was the only co-op game listed in the winners despite Battlefield 1943 somehow managing to win the "Best Co-Operative Multiplayer" category. Battlefield also won "Best Competitive Multiplayer," which by all accounts, is well deserved.
We've covered Battlefield on this site a bit, we gave a preview of the game from the New York Comic Con earlier last year, Jim reports on it from his Battlefield report, but we've been pretty clear that there's no co-op modes to be found in DICE's team based shooter. And that's exactly what it is, a team based shooter.
Perhaps we need to revisit the excellent Co-Op Terminology Guide for a refresher.
"A co-op game is a game where two or more players work together to accomplish a goal against AI opponents. Ideally the game will feature a strong story in which both players take part of. Co-Op can be online over the internet, offline on the same console, or via a LAN or Wireless Network. We do not consider team based games as co-op where players face off against another team of human players."
It's a bit odd for sure, there were 27 Xbox Live Arcade Co-Op Games released in 2009. Excellent titles too like: Madballs in...Babo Invasion, Alien Breed Evolution, Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao, and the aforementioned `Splosion Man - which was our runner up for Downloadable Co-Op Title of the Year in 2009.
So remember folks - any time you have human on human action - it's not co-op.
Source: Majornelson.com