Co-Optimus - Editorial: Top 5 Co-Op Games for the Rest of 2008

Top 5 Co-Op Games for the Rest of 2008

Editorial

Loren "AgtFox" Halek Sunday 07th of September 2008 10:09 PM

1. Left 4 Dead (360/PC, Valve/EA, November 20th)

Co-Op Experience: 4 Player Online Co-Op - 2 Player Split Screen on 360 Version as well as 4 Player Online.

This is the one game that was on everyone's list this year. Sporting a 4 player co-op story mode in which players attempt to survive the zombie onlsaught, Left 4 Dead has an atmosphere that is like no other game to date. The game was designed from the ground up for co-op play, and it's essential to use tactics and teamwork to survive. Even the game's vs. mode which allows 8 players to play online together has strong ties to co-op. After E3 and PAX this year, it's easy to see why this is our number one anticipate co-op game of the year.

Notable Mentions:

Guitar Hero: World Tour (Multiple Platforms, Neversoft/Vicarious Visions/Activision Blizzard, October 25th) - Guitar Hero's first foray into multiple instruments, can it survive the jump?

LittleBigPlanet (PS3, Media Molecue/Sony, October 21st) - It's yet to be seen just how much game is in LBP.

Red Alert 3 (PC/360, EA October 27th, 360 Novemeber 11th) - An RTS where every mission is designed to be played co-op. Risky.

Saint’s Row 2 (360/PS3/PC, Volition/THQ, October 14th) - Open world and goofy, drop in and drop out throughout the entire campaign. You can also dress as a hotdog.

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Tags: playstation 3 xbox 360 co-op lists wii

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Reader Comments

justabaldguy at 10:49 PM on 9.7.2008

Neat list but I can't agree with many of your selections. I don't have a PS3, so those are out. Fable 2 is likely to be my game of the year. Left 4 Dead looks amazingly awesome. GoW2 COULD be good, if they manage to get more out of it. GoW was disappointing to me. As for the rest, I'd honestly put Castle Crashers up to them as an alternate choice!!

Shazoo at 12:12 AM on 9.8.2008

On that list the only must have for me so far is LBP as a notable mention, but because I literally had NO idea what L4D was until I seen this post, it's now a must rent until I learn more.

txshurricane at 06:25 AM on 9.8.2008

justabaldguy, Castle Crashers is already available. This list is for games that haven't released as of September 07th.

I can't say that I'm crazy about the Fable 2 co-op that's described, although it will be cool to see different uniquely customized characters...

I'm wondering what happened to Call of Duty World at War; not even a notable mention! It's going to have a drop-in, drop-out four player online and local co-op campaign.

Anonymous at 10:06 AM on 9.8.2008

We did forget about World at War. Took us quite a bit of time to figure out the number of games we did. One thing about World at War I am very apprehensive about is that Treyarch is doing it. Call of Duty 3 was okay, but it was nowhere near Infinity Ward's efforts honestly.

AgtFox at 10:08 AM on 9.8.2008

We did forget World at War. We had a hard enough time coming up with the amount of games we did, so missing one is not surprising. The one thing about World at War I am apprehensive about is that it is being made by Treyarch. Call of Duty 3 was okay, but nothing compared to the excellence that has been the Infinity Ward releases.

pheriannath at 10:28 AM on 9.8.2008

World at War has to prove to me that Treyarch can rival Infinity Ward's COD games before I'd put it anywhere near a "top" list.

Left 4 Dead is definitely my number one, especially after the hands-on time we recently had with it at PAX.

txshurricane at 02:00 PM on 9.8.2008

But surely World at War is comparable...?

I mean: what's the co-op track record for the Fable series? How about the Little Big Planet series? I'd say that Treyarch as a developer has more high notes than some of the other inexperienced studios featured in the list...

What exactly is the criteria for being in the Top 5, anyway? I'm not arguing, I'm just curious. Because to be fair, none of these can be judged for quality, since they haven't been released. If you're going by overall hype, here are the "hype" ratings from Gamestats.com for reference:

Fable 2 - 99.4
Gears of War 2 - 99.2
Rock Band 2 - 98.4
Guitar Hero World Tour - 97.5
Call of Duty World at War - 97.5
Saints Row 2 - 94.7
Resistance 2 - 94.5
Little Big Planet - 93.2
Left 4 Dead - 92.6
Red Alert 3 - 79.8

(For games with both X360 and PS3 versions, I chose the highest number of the two.)

So were they picked based on your hands-on time at the conventions? Personal preference? Specific co-op features?

DO YOU KNOW SOMETHING WE DON'T?

Either way, though: nice article. Whether or not everyone agrees with the choices, at least we have a decent idea which games to expect Co-optimus members to be trying out at launch.

bapenguin at 02:17 PM on 9.8.2008

The reality is

1) It's Treyarch. They don't have a good track record.
2) Call of Duty has never had a co-op mode
3) The strong point of CoD has always been it's cinematic moments, it'll be interesting to see what happens when they are split between 2 characters.

As for how they were picked, at the time staff of the site voted for their top 5 most anticipated, and the more lists a game was on, and the higher on the list it was on, the higher it was on the overall list.

Shazoo at 02:54 PM on 9.8.2008

what other games did Treyarch develop that leads them to not have a good track record? I'm not too familiar with their games outside of CoD3, which personally, I liked, alot.

txshurricane at 03:57 PM on 9.8.2008

Well, there's Spider-man 3 and Minority Report...other than that, they seem to hold their own for the most part...