Gaming Thursday

So, I was planning on doing a new game today, but since it won't come in until tomorrow, I'll be doing Soul Calibur 4 next week. Now, instead of being able to discuss a hardcore fighting game, I decided that I would do a little discussion of the awesomeness of co-op (particularly online co-op) in video games.

You see, I never really got into the whole Halo thing, or really the online FPS gaming in general all that much. There is something annoying to me about playing a game and just dying over and over again because you are either really good at the game and spend hours playing (other people) or just like to play a little bit here and there and be a waste of game space (me). On a similar note however, I really do love playing games with other people (see Rock Band), and it makes game time all the more fun when you get to run through Liberty City on the back of a motorcycle driven by someone else yelling "Crazy Dogggz for life!" without having to worry about that one camping sniper hitting you in the back of the head just when you feel good.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, this wonderful thing of online co-op has allowed my brother and I to finally get back to playing games like we used to back in our room at home. We recently finished playing through Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, which really isn't that amazing of a game, but when you get to play it through with someone else and make up stupid stories about your characters and what they would really be saying in the game, makes it priceless. For this reason, he and I have now aligned our schedules of game buying to ensure that we both get the same games at the same time to be able to play through together. If a game doesn't have an online component, it automatically goes back a notch on my list.

Not to say there aren't some fantastic single player experiences (I loved Half-Life 2 and the Zelda series), but as I said before there is just something about being able to play through a game with someone else that makes it infinitely more enjoyable.