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Two Players, One Console, Cooperative Play?
boredme asks: "With the free time I'll have this summer, I thought I'd get in some quality couch-potato time. I'm married, no children, and our Playstation2 is nice because it can be both more interactive than TV and more social than a computer since it's in the living room. The problem is that the vast majority of two player games are sports or arena fighting games that only allow confrontational interaction; since I have a dozen extra years experience gaming, these competitive games get old very quickly for both of us. What suggestions for cooperative, (not online) multiplayer games do the Slashdot folks have?" Along a similar vein, the Gauntlet games (available for most platforms) offer similar opportunities for co-operative play, but no other titles come to mind right now. What co-op games do you have fun with that you can play using a single console?
"The perfect example of this is Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. The whole game, with storyline, can be played through with one or two players alike. Others, like Jedi Starfighter, are close as they offer a small set of two-player missions that are distinct from the one-player missions. (Googling for this, by the way, has turned up very short lists at best.)
I'm primarily interested in PS2 games, but I still want to know what XBOX, GameCube, or even PS1 or PC games in this category are available. I'd even like to hear about sports games that offer a cooperative mode, or games not yet released."
Cookie and Cream on PlayStation 2.
Two cutesy Japanese-style bunnies must race up the screen before the timer gets to zero. Various obstacles and puzzles get in their way. The clever bit is that each player needs the help of the other--for example, one player might have to push some logs through the wall to the other side, where the other player can then jump across a river using the logs.
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I own Jedi Starfighter for the PS2 and its cooperative mode is one of the better ones I've played. Most of the time you and your partner control two different ships but on occasionone of you is the pilot and the other is the gunner on the same ship. Definitely very cool.
-- shayborg
Chu-Chu Rocket is a blast, if you can find a Dreamcast at a decent price. And my buddies and I had way too much fun with Super Monkey Ball last year at school.
Also, Agetec has a game called The Adventures of Cookie and Cream out for PS2 that's basically a 2-player puzzle adventure. It might be just what you're looking for.
purchased this game a while back with exactly this scenario in mind. My wife still declines to play it. It's weird...she loves sci-fi and fantasy, but the idea of an RPG of any sort strikes her as "over the geek-line". any other suggestions here would be *greatly* appreciated.
You see, without that little doohicky, the universe stops.
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I know most of the EA sports games USED to allow 2 players (or 4, or even 5 back with the SNES) to play on the same team.
I see no reason why they wouldn't still. NHL 2002 for PC still does.
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Am I the only one, who is terrified, by the "social" activities of today's era?
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My wife and I play a fair bit of Super Monkey Ball 2 mini-games. Some are co-operative, some are competitive - but the competition doesn't get in the way of participation.
Games like Crazy Taxi or Tony Hawk can be fun too - while I'm a lot better than my wife, the competition isn't direct so it works well.
In sort of another vein, my wife likes playing Legend of Zelda, but she has enough difficulty playing it that often she wants me there helping/watching. Being able to dip around with the Tingle Tuner makes this work pretty good.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Tonight my wife and I are going to pickup a box of Monopoly from Toys R Us and/or a jigsaw puzzle.
:)
For video games, I think that the Lost Vikings series for the SNES let you play in co-op.. if not, it should've
What about contra? best co-op game ever. Also like Baluders Gate for PS2 as a CO-OP. I have gauntlet dark legends for PS2 also. Great game.
I haven't followed this very much, but from what I can tell, the new MarioKart DoubleDash title (for the gamecube, obviously) would allow two people to play together against the other computers. One of them would drive the cart, and the other would control the "extras" while riding on back.
From past experience, even the competitive parts of the MarioKart games have been really fun - especially if you get into a hard race, and the players racing (if against other computers, mind) have to only hit the other computers in order to be able to advance to the next race.
Anybody remember the Ninja Turtles coin-op game? That was a lot of fun to play with a friend. There was a whole slew of them. The Simpsons! Heh.
In this day and age of consoles with 4 controller ports, gotta admit I'm saddened that this genre has disappeared. You didn't need no stinking split-screen.
Fortunately, there is a Ninja Turtles game for the GameCube in the works.
"Derp de derp."
At E3 (electronic entertainment expo) the big thing in the nintendo area was cooperative play.
No use to the author since but for cube owners (preferably with a few GBAs and link cables) it'll be great as soon as these hit the market (i think a few were targeted for christmas release).
There were 3 that stood out to me...
A pacman game where 3 players control ghosts on the TV in pretty 3D and a 4th player controls pacman on his/her GBA.
A legend of zelda: wind waker spinoff called Tetra's Trackers where 4 players play competatively in scavenger hunt type missions (for the first few levels at least). I don't know if there may be some cooperative play (a la mario party) later on, but the games are simple enough that the playing field is pretty even for veteran gamers and newbies alike.
And a new Final Fantasy game that's kind of diablo like gameplay for up to 4 players. All cooperative and played with GBAs plugged into the cube with status screens/menus on the GBA.
No good for sony users and not in time for summer, but something to look forward to. Seems like cooperative play may be the next big thing (from what I saw from the heavyweights at E3).
DONT PANIC
Tonight my wife and I are going to pickup a box of Monopoly from Toys R Us and/or a jigsaw puzzle.
NOOOOOOOOOO!
What is it with you Americans and Monopoly? Each year, hundreds of new board gamesare hoping for a little exposure, a little space on store shelves, and you keep buying Monopoly simpsons edition, Monopoly star wars edition, Monopoly yourcity edition, monopoly golf... Stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it! It's not even a good game, for crying out loud! Please just stop it! Or would you rather give Hasbro more money for domain disputes?
Play Tony Hawk 2-4 all of the time. Granted, I am much more skilled at the game, but she enjoys watching me fall more than anything.
She will score 60,000 points in a trick, I will be on the verge of 2 million, and I fall.
Nothing more entertaining to her than that.
I'd also suggest Marble Maddness on Nintendo
Snake Rattle and Roll was also a wonderful 2 player game.
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Either of those for PS2 are great cooperative games. Not exactly tons of thought needed, but great for a couple people to play cooperatively. Whenever I bring it over for the weekend hang-out sessions, it always ends up being in there most of the night and with people fighting for the controller. It's even more fun when you use the unlock codes to unlock all the characters that you normally can't get without playing an insane number of times through. Yeah, there are lots of cool things that unlocking doesn't do, but having zillions of characters to choose from makes it more fun.
I know of a game that some would consider a sport, definately cooperative, and is probably the only way to remedy the lack of children. I don't think its been released in stores, too many security cameras
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Um, Halo has a fantastic 2-player Co-op mode. Of course, it's xbox only.
My wife and I love these. While it isn't cooperative, you can pick up PS1 versions of YDKJ games for 5 bucks, and they are a blast but don't require both players to have similar hand eye skills (although the Jack Attacks might be an exception.)
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Monkey Ball (1 & 2), Mario Party 4
Serious Sam (both the first and second encounters) are the only PC titles I've seen with multiplayer play on one computer (split-screen), and their cooperative mode is fun. I would assume they've got the same cooperative mode in the xbox version.
Well, RSIII isnt out yet, so dont go looking for it. RSII is out and is a great game, but is single player only. The other Star Wars games you mentioned were made by a different company, not Factor 5.