I’ll be there for you…

Online multiplayer modes are everywhere in games these days, but co-operative play is still lacking behind it’s “deathmatch” style counterpart. With the co-op that has been in games being such a hit with the general public, developers are starting to catch on that people would rather have a human being soldiering on next to them rather than another “Johnny AI”.

Suffice to say, the grass is starting to look greener with plenty more co-op games on there way, and not just in the traditional co-op campaign style either, there’s actually modes being made just for players to use teamwork to defeat their enemies. One of these modes includes “Firefight” which is going to be apart of the new Halo spin-off game “Halo ODST” which, from what we have heard, is going to resemble something along the lines of Gears of War 2’s hit mode “Horde” (which unless you been living under a rock you should have already played or at least heard of). This “Horde” mode pits up to five players against waves of enemy AI, which at first are as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, but as you clear the waves your squad of buddies find yourselves completely overwhelmed, having to use clever tactics rather than pure brute force to win. This sense of teamwork is what really made this mode shine.

Lets take a look at the zombie killer Left 4 Dead. This game sees 4 random people put in one of four scenarios where the player must try to survive and ultimately escape the zombie infestation. You could choose to play this game by yourself with the AI taking control over the other 3 survivors, but if this was the only way to play this game I’d have to say it would of been a total flop. The big fun comes with playing with 3 other human players, teamwork was essential to beating the game, especially when playing on the hardest difficulty.The game forced players to work together, having to help each other if ever they were grabbed by a giant tongue or spat on by a zombie whose had one to many doughnuts, otherwise you would become walking dead yourself quicker than Speedy Gonzalez on crack. Left 4 Dead was a big hit and still has tonnes of people playing it now and it was all because of the human co-op aspect.

I’d really like to see more co-op opportunities implemented in games in the future. Sure there are a lot of games that should really just be left solo because otherwise it would ruin the immersive experience the developer was going for, but there are alot of games that could be expanded if they were made co-op. Imagine something along the lines of Hitman but in co-op, where you could have 2 people working together on a hit. Maybe one person could cause a distraction while the other cleans the target up or one of you could be hiding with a sniper rifle and the other person lures the target into the open for an easy shot. It could really open up pandora’s box if developers just thought outside the traditional single player campaigns and really thought about the co-op side of things. A lot of gamers love being able to play with there friends side by side and are calling out for more, lets hope the developers are listening.