Co-Optimus has only been around for 6 weeks now, but that doesn't mean the site isn't getting noticed around the internet.

We've only begun to build a strong community of gamers, co-op fans, and readers who want to know the latest news about their favorite form of gaming.  But now the question is...what makes co-op gaming so much fun?  Is it the teamwork?  Perhaps those "had to be there" moments? 

What we really want to know is -

What features do you look for in a co-op game?

Whether it's item trading, player communication, co-op specific level design, or drop in/drop out ability - let us know!  Be sure to leave a comment...you never know who may be looking at it!

I want a game that has more than 4 players. Something that lets me join a large team of friends - Resistance 2 has the right idea in this. I'd like to see something like R6:V2 with more than 4-player T-hunts. What's with the 4-player limit? I'd also like to see games that're more co-op oriented, rather than just single-player focused.

So much of what I've played has been either multiplayer versus, or 2-4 player co-op at most. Let's see more players at once!

For me, two players is ok, though more is better of course. Most of the time, it's just me and a friend. What we want is random enemy placement terrorist hunt, as in Rainbow Six: Vegas. We want to be able to play co-op against AI in a new pattern each time, update our characters with new gear and skills, and mess around with cool weapon combinations and options. Campaign co-op is excellent (See GRAW 2), but just us vs them on a host of maps is the best.

Right now, I'm very happy with Army of Two... and those maps with random enemy placement and objectives (no vs another human team) would have been perfect. Same for GEARS.

ONLINE CO-OP! It is 2008, most of the gaming community is connected to the internet so there is no excuse for not having online co-op. Co-op Campaign (like Army of Two), more than 2 player co-op is nice too.

I am not a fan of the Halo series really (though I have all three), but I do like the Forge map edit feature that can be done co-op. I would like to see the ability to create custom maps (like you can in FarCry on Xbox and Xbox 360) for games that you can share with the entire community over Xbox Live or PSN. And more importantly, the ability to work on those custom maps with 2 or more people (like you can do in Forge on Halo) live. Collaborating on custom maps for teams and community sharing would be my number one request.

The most important thing for a co-op game to me is drop in, drop out. As the father of two boys, I spend most of my time in multiplayer games, preferably co-op. I don't know how much time we've wasted restarting levels, navigating menus, etc. just to add a player in. The Lego Star Wars series was the best for this, I think, but Marvel Ultimate Alliance handles it well too. For all the hoopla the Wii gets about being casual friendly, the multiplayer games usually don't have drop in, drop out. And don't get me started on having new players join/leave in Rock Band; with all the Gamertag confusion, it can be a real mess. All these things really suck the fun out of a game in a heartbeat.

Apart from that, I think some sort of a "no-fail" mechanism is important. Again, Lego Star Wars is the leader here. You can play those games indefinitely, no matter what your skill level, and yet they are still fun even for adults. Games like the GH series and Rock Band could use this as well. Many times a gaming newbie joins in, wants to play a favorite song, and we end up failing because the song is too hard. That's not exactly a great way to win people over. Difficulty is important for single player, but for co-op you really just want to focus on the teamwork experience, anyway.

Give me drop-in, drop-out with online co-op and I'm happy. My kids aren't quite old enough to play very many of the games I have with me and it's often easier to coordinate a shuttle launch than it is for my friends to get over to my place with all of the conflicting work and family schedules, so having the ability to play online is very important.

Abolish friend codes too. I don't even bother playing my Wii games online, even if I can, because it's just such a hassle adding new games. I don't mind doing it once when I add a person to my console list but I hate doing it for each person AGAIN for every game they chunk out.

But as far as co-op experiences go, I want what I mentioned above plus I also like having content that is exclusive to co-op modes.

Drop-in/drop-out co-op with at least 4 players. I think Gears and Crackdown have made co-op the most fun for me in the last year - but I've got more than one friend. It would be nice to be able to play those with a few more of my friends. It leads me to playing more GRAW 2 co-op and Vegas Terrorist Hunt (both of which are still fun) just to get more of my friends involved.

These guys beat me to it, but drop in/drop out is ultra important. More than two players helps as well.

Imagine Crackdown with 4 players. That would be a blast. Or Gears with 4 players for that matter.

Its important for me to be able to voice chat with whomever you're playing with online. After playing Super Smash Bros Brawl online with no voice chat and having to use Ventrilo or even my Xbox Live connection through UNO to talk to my friends... its a little ridiculous.

I'll weigh in even though Hedon and Fiver beat me to it (as usual).

1) Drop in/drop out - already covered here.
2) Play against bots/AI - kinda already covered being a co-op forum, but hey whatever.
3) Replayability: game +, where you go through with extra stuff you unlocked earlier; option to reposition enemy opposition on the map (see Tenchu 3); etc. Give me a reason to come back over and over. GRAW2 maps have night and day options, kit limitations, etc. This is great.
4) Customization of my character. Imagine GRAW2 with the ability to adjust your soldier's appearance like you can in Halo 3. Some things are unlockables, some things you must purchase, whatever. When in the game, I'd like to look over and say "Hey, that's Biosc1 there on the roof. I can tell cause he's the sniper wearing zebra-striped pants and a chainmail tubetop." Unique fashion makes the game more fun (and yes that's an absurd combo for him to wear but I've got proof!).
5) Co-op mission portions! Remember the level with the Krill in GoW, where one guy manned the spotlight and the other ran to turn on the generator? Let's have levels that NEED an extra hand, not just running through a single-player shooter with an extra body. Halo 3 was fun, but it never felt like I needed the other guys. Army of Two is seemingly stepping in the right direction here: the game is unplayable if you don't assist the other player (CPU or human, either way). I'd like levels designed where I have to help my co-players. We have to decide who'll carry the injured hostage, who'll keep us covered, and who'll run ahead to get the chopper ready for liftoff. When in doubt of examples, just check old 80's flicks and TV shows for ideas.
6) Character uniqueness. Remember Brute Force? Those characters were unique! It wasn't just "I'll snipe when I get a sniper gun," the robot girl didn't breathe, so her aiming wasn't affected like the other three characters would be. This made it really important when deciding who to send where to do what. I'd like that to be fleshed out in greater detail in co-op. If I'm in the pre-game lobby with the other players, we'd have to carefully decide who'll play as which characters.
7) More support cast players. More medics, for example. I'm disappointed there's no medic as a playable class in GRAW2.
8) Separate world interaction. I'd love to be able to work on a map/world, much like Hedon said, with another player. What if it was a game where you defended your building against an invasion. I could log in, make a few changes, and log out. Later on, FallenReign logs in, sees what I've done to "our" building, and improves upon it that much more. When we all log in to play, we're ready and we've all contributed to the design of the play environment. Rather than have only on guy making all the maps, weapon locations, sniper positions, respawn points, etc, it's a shared event, almost like real life.
Fallen: "Hey, I went in today and cleared out some space in front of the fort. We'll be able to have lookouts in all directions now."
Baldy: "Cool. When I get the time I'll go in and make sure all the weapon racks are full, and double check health pack placement so it's not too easy."


"Wow Baldy, why don't you just demand a custom soundtrack from Rush while you're at it??" Yeah, I know this is a lot, but honestly it's what I look to find some day. I love gaming, and co-op gaming is 90% of what I do now. I don't buy single-player games, and I don't buy games with online multiplayer in vs modes only. I want to work WITH people to complete objectives, and I think these factors would help there.

For me I want both online AND offline coop. Preferably drop-in drop-out. I know Many people don't care about offline coop anymore but when you have some friends over you need a game that is offline. Also the army of two multiplayer where you could go online with a friend on the same console was FREAKING AWESOME! I'd love to see some more of that kind of stuff. Like Team based multiplayer with certain objectives and stuff would be cool.

P.S: Co-Optimus was also given a blog post basically advertising it on Joystiq
http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/28/new-s ... op-gaming/

1) enemy number scalable to active players in game

2) possibility to cure each other with medikits (loved so much this feature in Conflict global terror) , if every teammates dies the mission is over.

3) checkpoints and possibility to save

4) more 2 online coop players games, like conflict denied ops or gears of war, it's easy to have 1 affidable friend to play online, not easy to find 3 or 4 accurate players to play difficult games like Swat in coop, i think soft houses must concentrate on the 2 players online coop games. (with possibility to add other players of course)

5) possibility to gain experience and level (ex, an headshot to an enemy gives more experience, cure gives experience, shooting give exp, etc etc)

6) complete multiplayer campaign with videos, and of course with saves.

7) possibility to drop in drop out

8)conflict global terror 2 !!! (best 2 coop game avaible imho)

1.) biggest wish: 4-player splitscreen offline AND online (like graw 1&2)!!!

2.) coop-campaigns for 4 people (like the conflict: series) - gow, rsv, ace combat, wouldn't it be great to play these games togheter with 4 people (off- and online)?

3.) drop in drop out

4.) other games than shooters - can't wait for fable 2... more action adventures, racing games, ...

I'd like to see more genres adopt co-op. Having it in a shooter is nice, but having more co-operative RPGs, platformers and strategy games would be nice, too.

Splitscreen is important. Gaming is a social experience. Sometimes you have a friend or three over, and you say "let's fire this up", play some split screen action or jump online for multi (I know it's off topic, but the Guest feature in CoD3 was nice). That can lead to sales; I think there's a tendency to think "if more people can play local, less people will buy" which (imho) is a fallacy.

More 'casual' drop in, drop out gameplay. Many folks remember "Duck Hunt" or "Sonic the Hedgehog 2", where 'drop in play' with a second controller was easy. The Lego Star Wars games brought that back, and it rocks - great for helping kids with the hard parts.

Coop doesn't have to be everyone and their clan; two player coop is good. I'd like to see more games where co-op is not an afterthought (add an extra player onscreen on the same team, a la Heavy Weapon or Contra) and has more influence on the gameplay. Doesn't have to be "pull the switches in tandem", but things like the (already mentioned) GoW spotlight mission.

Multiple paths or options for co-op play is good. Dungeon Siege was good for that - you could stick together and adventure and influence how the baddies behaved, or split off entirely. Maybe more dungeon crawlers where one person goes to get the red orb and the other goes to get the green, then they meet up and tackle that boss together. Different tasks, shared goal.

I'd say Drop In/Drop Out is the main thing I'd like. For the same reasons other people stated better.
However, offline as well as online co-op is a must. As much as I like online co-op, as DevsterC said gaming is a social experience, and nothing beats having a bunch of people in the same room playing together. There are various ways to pull it off depending on what genre the game is too. Split screen being the popular FPS solution when you don't want to use system link.
I would like more genres being co-op though, right now it's mostly FPS games, which I'm not too keen on, though I like a fair few. I want co-op RPG's, that would be great. I also can't wait for those LEGO Indy and Batman games.

Splitscreen is important. Gaming is a social experience. Sometimes you have a friend or three over, and you say "let's fire this up", play some split screen action or jump online for multi (I know it's off topic, but the Guest feature in CoD3 was nice). That can lead to sales; I think there's a tendency to think "if more people can play local, less people will buy" which (imho) is a fallacy.
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More 'casual' drop in, drop out gameplay. Many folks remember "Duck Hunt" or "Sonic the Hedgehog 2", where 'drop in play' with a second controller was easy. The Lego Star Wars games brought that back, and it rocks - great for helping kids with the hard parts.
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Coop doesn't have to be everyone and their clan; two player coop is good. I'd like to see more games where co-op is not an afterthought (add an extra player onscreen on the same team, a la Heavy Weapon or Contra) and has more influence on the gameplay. Doesn't have to be "pull the switches in tandem", but things like the (already mentioned) GoW spotlight mission.
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Multiple paths or options for co-op play is good. Dungeon Siege was good for that - you could stick together and adventure and influence how the baddies behaved, or split off entirely. Maybe more dungeon crawlers where one person goes to get the red orb and the other goes to get the green, then they meet up and tackle that boss together. Diffe

I'd say Drop In/Drop Out is the main thing I'd like. For the same reasons other people stated better.
However, offline as well as online co-op is a must. As much as I like online co-op, as DevsterC said gaming is a social experience, and nothing beats having a bunch of people in the same room playing together. There are various ways to pull it off depending on what genre the game is too. Split screen being the popular FPS solution when you don't want to use system link.
I would like more genres being co-op though, right now it's mostly FPS games, which I'm not too keen on, though I like a fair few. I want co-op RPG's, that would be great. I also can't wait for those LEGO Indy and Batman games.

I'd say Drop In/Drop Out is the main thing I'd like. For the same reasons other people stated better.
However, offline as well as online co-op is a must. As much as I like online co-op, as DevsterC said gaming is a social experience, and nothing beats having a bunch of people in the same room playing together. There are various ways to pull it off depending on what genre the game is too. Split screen being the popular FPS solution when you don't want to use system link.
I would like more genres being co-op though, right now it's mostly FPS games, which I'm not too keen on, though I like a fair few. I want co-op RPG's, that would be great. I also can't wait for those LEGO Indy and Batman games.