not the super market chain...
For me co-op gameplay is probably my favourite feature of gaming. It is inherently sociable, bringing together as it does groups of players. These might be good friends in your living room, or strangers on the opposite side of the globe. Personally I find co-operative play to be more fulfilling than head to head, it is a chance to combine skills and have a laugh, without there being a ‘loser’ as there is in head to head matches. This can create a more genial atmosphere and can be more relaxing since it may result in a reduction of tension. Of course this will vary depending on what you are playing, and who you are playing with.
she isn't calm, vista user?
By and large I think competitive multiplayer is in the majority, a great many games feature deathmatches of various kinds, and even when gamers are divided into teams, there is very little co-operation taking place. There are plenty of games featuring multiplayer modes that really have no place being there, and this trend appears to be growing. Multiplayer has become in many ways a default part of a game’s backbone, like pressing the start button at the launch screen (ever notice loads of games say press start, when in fact you can press any button?).
Whether or not this expansion into multiplayer territory is a good thing or not remains to be seen. I am all in favour of multiplayer modes, so long as, if there is a single player mode, it isn’t sacrificed. Modern Warfare has been a particular victim of this. Call of Duty is a series with a long and healthy pedigree, famed for the quality of their single player campaigns and epic battle sequences. It was with some disappointment therefore that I found the modern warfare single player campaign, in the second game in particular, to be a rather token affair. It felt very much like an afterthought, a little padding to justify the price, which was, and remains to this day, higher than most games. I was sad to see such a distinguished series pay only a passing lip service to a history of single player excellence. Multiplayer should therefore not just be a default option.
Despite the expansion in multiplayer gaming in general, there seems to have been much less of an increase in the number of games to feature co-op gameplay, and in many instances we have not seen the same level of quality improvement we have seen in many competitive multiplayer modes. For me this is a real shame, I greatly enjoy getting a group of friends together and venturing into a digital world of camaraderie and mutual appreciation. You can enjoy enjoy each other’s skillful plays, and joke about poor performances alike.
one for all, and all for one
There are of course a number of games over the years that have featured excellent co-op gaming, or even been entirely co-op based, and I would like to look at a few of these, and what makes them great.
My favourite, as I mentioned previously, is conflict desert storm 1 and 2. This was in many ways the ideal game for me. The pair have excellent gameplay coupled with superb level design and pacing. The missions are varied and interesting, the guns and gadgets satisfying. What of course really makes these two games shine, is the four player co-op. The games feature a team of four expert soldiers, Bradley, Foley, Connors, and Jones. The four are perfectly balanced, being team leader/all rounder, sniper, heavy weapons expert, and explosives expert accordingly. Each character has a distinct personality and a key specialisation that gives them ideal roles. Yet every level is designed in such a way that all four characters with their different weapons and abilities can each contribute equally.
have at you vile truck
Co-operation is built into the very foundation of the game mechanics. You need your team mates and you share resources like med kits and grenades. Because all four are vital (in the second game, you couldn’t have a character die) if someone is injured and goes down, the tension is instantly ramped up as you have a limited time to get to them, and heal them before they bleed out. Situations arise where you are pinned by enemy fire with an ally trapped and wounded, you must think on your feet and get to them in time. Because team work is so vital, it is essential to have a group of players that can work together effectively. All four of you must talk constantly, work out plans, set up ambushes and be in harmony at all times. If you don’t, you will fail.
What helps to emphasise this aspect are the various missions. As I stated, the level design is superb, and the enemies are excellent. AI is tight and efficient, and your character cannot take many hits. This makes every fire fight important, each encounter matters. But there is one thing which really instills fear into the four gamers, and that is the sound of a tank. In so many shooters, tanks turn up occasionally, you destroy them, it is a matter of course, run of the mill event. Super human soldiers and massive guns make short work of armour, leading one to wonder why the enemy bothers at all. In Desert Storm however, your character is a simple man. Expertly trained undoubtedly, but small and frail in the face of an armoured behemoth. Each tank becomes like a boss battle. If you are unprepared, a single shell can kill your whole team. All four of you must work together to bring them down, either finding rocket launchers, or using C4 and guts. It is these encounters that raise the game to brilliance on a co-op level. All in all these two games create a perfect atmosphere of mutual dependence and excitement.
some tanks are scarier than others
Another game to feature co-op gameplay as a fundamental mechanic is of course left 4 dead. I was terribly excited about this game, being a fan of both valve and zombie films. A co-op survival horror game sounded like exactly my cup of tea. I picked it up immediately, and loved it. For about an hour. I played each chapter, and really enjoyed them. Then I played them again, and they were just the same. After a few goes I knew exactly what was happening. In theory the AI director makes changes to each level as you go along, but in reality the changes are so small as to be hardly there. The big problem I had with it was that the atmosphere did not hold up. When I could hear another horde of zombies rushing in, and the music starting up, I was not concerned. I felt no real threat from them. The game for me reduced zombie slaughtering to a mundane task.
4 is the magic number?
This lack of threat and atmosphere combined with a small number of short levels meant it became stale and repetitive, exactly like a zombie, in a very short time. It is of course a popular series, and my friends online play it ad nauseam, but I quickly grew bored. The co-op mechanics are solid. Players must share ammo, items, and health kits between themselves, and the incapacitating special infected attacks are designed to ensure that players have to stick together and help each other out. This is good stuff, and like desert storm makes working together essential, but the lack of atmosphere and excitement meant I just couldn’t really care. What I think the series really needs is less linear levels. If each level had multiple routes through it, then you allow the possibility of players inadvertently becoming separated and isolated in the heat of battle. It also helps prolong the life of each level as you can go through it multiple times.
I can understand the issues at play here. In having a co-op game online, with four human players, and maybe infected players too plus hordes of zombies, they had to ensure that the game ran smoothly on all connections. Lag is of course the bane of online gaming. But for me this lead to a shallow game. The shooting lacks depth and excitement, for a survival game there is too much ammo, the lack of detail in levels like debris and multiple heights (e.g. a lack of ladders, stairs, balconies etc in one place, creating multiple tiers in one space) meant the whole thing was very linear and unsatisfying. So whilst the core co-op mechanic is as well done as desert storm, the actual game it is set in isn’t.
What is needed, is both a game with depth and real involvement, that goes hand in hand with well worked co-operation. Just like in single player modes, if the game play is not exciting, then it doesn’t matter what else you do with it. Co-op games can suffer from the same problem as games spanning multiple genres, in that they simply don’t have enough focus. Left 4 Dead contrasts with Gears of War for example if you play that with a friend. Left 4 Dead is a co-op game first, and a shooter second. Gears is a shooter first, and a co-op game second. Conflict Desert Storm is a co-op shooter.
made me laugh
Lots of detail these days is going into multiplayer modes, look at Modern Warfare or Bad Company and you can see a well done levelling system, modifiable equipment load outs, all manner of stat records, kill streaks etc. I am hoping that this detail will filter through into co-op gaming also.
One game which does feature this kind of depth is Army of Two: 40th day. I did not play the first game, but I picked up the sequel and played it through with my brother. Both of us loved every minute, choosing and modifying weaponry to suit our individual play styles and sitautions, combined with a really great shooter, and some cool moral choices to be made as well. Plus those masks are just funky. It is another game built around co-operation, and the level of detail gone into it is superb. You can have one player mock surrender to enemies, drawing attention away from the other player who sets up an ambush, then you get a cool slow motion shoot out. I also found the two main characters really engaging and funny. If you like to play co-op, and like shooters, it is a must have.
co-operation at its' best
Coming back to my opening paragraph about competitive gaming, the last style of game I want to talk about is the team based online shooter. For some games, teams are fairly arbitrary and are just there to have a load of players shoot one another. There is often little to nothing taking place beside simply dividing the players in half. Dice really set the standard for team based shooters with 1942, and then their big hit, Battlefield 2. In that you can form squads who then have squad leaders who determine objectives, and commanders who call in artillery and field supplies. Battlefield 2 is still the first choice for many online gamers.
though everyone hates the pilots
One game has raised the bar above any other though for squad shooters, and that is MAG. I adore MAG, I think it is quite breathtaking in its’ scope. For anyone unfamiliar with it, MAG can have over 100 players on each side. Squads are compulsory, not an opt in like other online games. Every player goes into a squad of eight, each squad has a squad leader. Four teams make up a platoon, and the type of game determines the number of platoons on each side. Each platoon has a platoon leader, and in large games there is an overall commander too. The level of work gone into it is really amazing, squad leaders can communicate with their squads, or with other officers, each tier of officer has access to particular abilities, from local squad powers to overall battle changing abilities. Each squad is charged with a specific objective, usually a certain point to capture/defend. This results in squad on squad battles that take place within the wider context of a huge game.
have you?
MAG has the team shooter pretty much down to perfection, and what this means is that how much fun you have depends on the people you play with. Therein can lie the problem. Because teamwork is so vital, if your squad contains people who don’t co-operate, you are pretty much guaranteed to lose. badly. The gameplay is really amazing, near flawless, it is the human element that causes issues. If you have an objective to capture and all eight people in your squad work together, you can take it fairly quickly. But what can often happen is that players run in on their own and die immediately. They then respawn and do the same again. You cease to be a team, and become eight separate players. Given the design of each mission it then becomes nearly impossible to achieve your goals. On the other hand, if you have eight team spirited players, you sweep to victory.
best team game out
What this creates then is a situation whereby the enjoyment you get from a game is directly dependent on the people around you, and in a game the size of MAG, they are likely to be total strangers. This is really the crux of the problem, and the problem with creating co-op games in general. Can you rely on people to play well together? Unfortunately the answer is of course often a no. The bigger the game, the more people you have, the more likely it is some of them wont co-operate.
there's always one...
This is always going to be a very tight line to walk, it is something incredibly difficult for designers to cope with. There are ways to mitigate certain elements, Battlefield 2 for example (and I am sure others) have a system whereby you can punish teamkillers. But you cannot stop every idiot who wants to ruin it for everyone else. Co-operative games will therefore always be at the mercy of the wider public when played online. For that reason I would like to see more split screen local co-op used. It was quite common in older consoles to have split screen co-op, but many games now seem to use online co-op only. It is a real shame that now technology has improved and become cheaper, gamers are more likely to have good sized TV’s, I was looking forward to split screen games on my 50″ tv, because everyone would be able to see easily, yet they have become much rarer. I hope we will see a resurgence of split screen gaming though, the new Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is initially split screen co-op only I believe, which is refreshing to see.
There are plenty more co-op games I haven’t covered, and feel free to sound off in the comments about your favourite. This has been a look at just a few, and what they do right or wrong. All in all, the co-operative game is a fragile beast, requiring co-ordination and a willingness to put aside personal gain. So if you are playing something like MAG, please be sure you have everyone else in mind.
Stick together, work together, and have fun.
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