Most successful co-op games?

Obiwanshinobi · Post by **Obiwanshinobi** » Sat Oct 24, 2015 9:12 am

Measured by the sum of man-hours spent playing particular titles co-operatively, I suppose the most popular MMOs reign supreme. I am, however, particulary interested in success stories of games played primarily for the sake of co-op against the game (which of course in many a case is not without competitive qualities).
So, what games made their name primarily by the virtue of co-op? Where it was not only there, but the really real reason people played for. My guess would be certain Gauntlet-likes and bmups... on home platforms (not sure about those in the arcades). Pretty sure ToeJam & Earl and the first BG: Dark Alliance fit the bill. Wouldn't have a clue how many per cent of man-hours the humanity put in Monster Hunter were actually co-op.
Oh, Alien Swarm, surely. Chaos Engine?

Shepardus · Post by **Shepardus** » Sat Oct 24, 2015 10:18 am

Left 4 Dead's the big one. In a similar vein, Payday: The Heist and Payday 2.

ryu · Post by **ryu** » Sat Oct 24, 2015 12:53 pm

Resident Evil 5 is supposedly great in co-op and shit when played alone. At least I heard and read that statement a lot.

cj iwakura · Post by **cj iwakura** » Sat Oct 24, 2015 1:43 pm

Demon's Souls is a great singleplayer game, and a STELLAR co-op one.

DestroyTheCore · Post by **DestroyTheCore** » Sat Oct 24, 2015 5:37 pm

Does Rocket League count?

iconoclast · Post by **iconoclast** » Sat Oct 24, 2015 5:44 pm

Gears of War, Halo, and Diablo come to mind as big co-op games. And Gauntlet.

Obiwanshinobi · Post by **Obiwanshinobi** » Sun Oct 25, 2015 4:37 am

To me, Diablo is all about co-op nowadays, but I believe PvsP made for much of its social appeal... or was it true only for Poland (where some lively cyber-folklore surrounds the title)?
I feel Kuri Kuri Mix is co-op at heart, but paradoxically, the only context journos ever seem to mention it in is twin-stick singleplayer. I wish there was any research possible as to how it was usually played by the folks.
As a matter of fact, reading about Tri Force Heroes the other day reminded me of Kuri Kuri Mix as a game more strictly co-operative than usual, and here I am wondering how successful such games can possibly ever be online.

DestroyTheCore wrote:Does Rocket League count?

Is it team vs team? If so, not quite, unless it's practically played vs CPU by the majority of teams.

copy-paster · Post by **copy-paster** » Sun Oct 25, 2015 7:04 am

Didn't too sure about this, but the Lego games (I'd pick Batman and Indiana Jones ones) are the most friendly co-op I've ever played. Mortal Kombat : Shaolin Monks also comes to mind.

Obiwanshinobi · Post by **Obiwanshinobi** » Sun Oct 25, 2015 7:13 am

MK: Shaolin Monks - certainly by design at least (like Kuri Kuri Mix before).

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Sun Oct 25, 2015 1:36 pm

World of Illusion for the Genesis/MD is best played co-op.

Gespenst · Post by **Gespenst** » Sun Oct 25, 2015 2:51 pm

Payday 2 - until the recent microtransaction fiasco and disappointing end of crimefest week that is.

I haven't tried it but I heard Warhammer Vermintide is pretty good.

Battlesmurf · Post by **Battlesmurf** » Mon Oct 26, 2015 6:55 pm

Obiwanshinobi wrote:MK: Shaolin Monks - certainly by design at least (like Kuri Kuri Mix before).

We had a lot of fun with this.

I'd like to mention the original Obscure, too. Not sure on part 2.

Good co op can make bad games fun, too!

broken harbour · Post by **broken harbour** » Mon Oct 26, 2015 7:24 pm

Not that I'm the hugest fan of FPS games, but the original Halo on couch co-op was great fun back in the day, I recall the game being pretty tough (Haven't played it in over a decade) and co-op made it pretty enjoyable, at least once the flood shows up. A lot of other players I know played a ton of co op on this game.

Portal 2 has a special co op mode with the robots that is seriously fun with friends.

New Super Mario Bros for the Wii is probably my favourite "co op" game of all time. I put the quotes around it because your sort of competing and sort of not, and half the time the game deteriorates into a kafka-esque barrage of ineptitude because the game clearly wasn't properly designed around 4 player simultaneous play... and its all the better for it. Back when it came out we had another couple over and we literally played the game for 13 hours while drinking, and hollering at each other, and laughing our asses off. Possibly one of my favourite gaming experiences to this day, and I'm not even the hugest Nintendo fan out there. Everyone I know that's played this game won't even go back to single player, it's just a totally different experience.

More to the point of the original post, when I think of games that earned their reputation because of co op, I'd think of the 90s beat em ups, Final Fight, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, etc....

House of the dead was fun in the arcades when playing co op with friends, but became epic when playing co op with yourself, John Woo style.... I did that quite a bit as a teenager, got pretty good too, I think I 2cc'd that game back in the day.

And you can't forget about all the great co op shmups out there.

Post by **system11** » Mon Oct 26, 2015 8:26 pm

The Army Of Two games work particularly well due to the agro mechanic.

Xyga · Post by **Xyga** » Mon Oct 26, 2015 8:45 pm

Secret of Mana
Three players run: awesome fun.

kaicooper · Post by **kaicooper** » Mon Oct 26, 2015 11:47 pm

Broforce

SuperGrafx · Post by **SuperGrafx** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 1:50 am

Without a doubt, the original CONTRA on the NES.

Drum · Post by **Drum** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 11:08 am

Joust. I think the ones that are most fun allow you to 'accidentally' fuck your comrades up.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles has some really interesting co-op ideas. Each player has a 'secret agenda' shown on their GBA screen - it might be 'don't use magic' or whatever, and they get extra points at the end of the stage if they fulfil it. These agendas often run counter to the co-op aspect so it's an interesting push-pull dynamic. The game is one big social experiment.

MR_Soren · Post by **MR_Soren** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 12:24 pm

Not sure about success, but these are ones I've had a lot of fun playing co-op:

Contra series
Life Force
Secret of Mana
Legend of the Mystical Ninja
Zombies ate my Neighbors
Diablo Series (and similar games like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance)
Dynasty Warriors (and spinoffs)
Guardian Heroes
Heroes of Might and Magic III (certain maps)
Double Dragon, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, etc

Obiwanshinobi · Post by **Obiwanshinobi** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 7:52 pm

broken harbour wrote:And you can't forget about all the great co op shmups out there.

And how many people on here play shmups in co-op?

broken harbour · Post by **broken harbour** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 7:55 pm

Obiwanshinobi wrote:
broken harbour wrote:And you can't forget about all the great co op shmups out there.
And how many people on here play shmups in co-op?

I do. *shrugs* I have a few not-so-hardcore friends that enjoy shmups and we occasionally play through them, they usually have to credit-feed but it's still fun.

My wife actually got pretty decent at Raiden 4 (she can do a 3cc) and we have fun occasionally plowing through it. She stinks at any other shmup tho.

Tregard · Post by **Tregard** » Tue Oct 27, 2015 10:58 pm

Some great shouts already in this thread. I absolutely adore World of Illusion and have played through it co-op at least 10 times over the years. The NES port of Contra is also a big hit with the wife.

Diablo 2 was the big one for me though. Played through that with two good mates over a LAN when I first moved to London and it was a blast. Sometimes we'd just light up a spliff and sit there looking at our gear for hours, nodding our heads sagely at each other's DPS stats.

I read somewhere once that nostalgia is tied to people, not objects or experiences. It was in a fit of nostalgia that I tried going back to Diablo 2 last year and it just wasn't the same. It was the people who made that experience, much as it was with World of Illusion and with all of the games I grew up playing with my brother. The modern shift towards solitary or online experiences really has torn a lot of the heart out of the hobby for me.

ACSeraph · Post by **ACSeraph** » Wed Oct 28, 2015 4:16 am

Obiwanshinobi wrote:
broken harbour wrote:And you can't forget about all the great co op shmups out there.
And how many people on here play shmups in co-op?

My wife and I coop them at a serious level. We have a "2cc" rule for clearning: both players get one single credit and both have to clear or the run is considered a fail. They are incredibly satisfying to clear this way; I wish more people on here could experience this style of play.

Some games work better than others for it, but most can be workable and interesting with a little creativity and planning. Generally we will attempt to 2cc anything we have both gotten the 1cc in. So far we have done Infinite Burst, Caladrius, Shienryu Explosion, Darius Gaiden, and Dariusburst ACEX (one of the best coop games ever made in any genre imo). ACEX and and Caladrius we've actually done directly in the arcade.

Shmups get a bad rap for coop because they require an unusually high level of competence and coordination from both players. There is definitely a certain amount of cooperation and looking out for each other, but one good player won't be able to cover for a bad player the same way they can in modern coop games like Halo.

Obiwanshinobi · Post by **Obiwanshinobi** » Wed Oct 28, 2015 7:47 pm

Tregard wrote:Diablo 2 was the big one for me though. Played through that with two good mates over a LAN when I first moved to London and it was a blast. Sometimes we'd just light up a spliff and sit there looking at our gear for hours, nodding our heads sagely at each other's DPS stats.

I read somewhere once that nostalgia is tied to people, not objects or experiences. It was in a fit of nostalgia that I tried going back to Diablo 2 last year and it just wasn't the same. It was the people who made that experience, much as it was with World of Illusion and with all of the games I grew up playing with my brother. The modern shift towards solitary or online experiences really has torn a lot of the heart out of the hobby for me.

Diablo was online from day one I believe. Bettle.net's killer app (and we all know what happened next). With two bearded guys in the same time and place, very high chances are both of them have been playing WoW.
I don't think any clearcut line divides local and remote co-op.

shmups.system11.org

Most successful co-op games?

Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?

Re: Most successful co-op games?