Originally posted by: Shadowknight
Hmm... I can't remember, but doesn't System Shock 2 also have a co-op mode?
Yeah. It's fun for two players when both players pick different roles (one goes all out heavy weapons, modification, and repair, and the other goes psi, hacking, etc.)
The only thing to keep in mind is that the co-op mode was a last ditch hack that just added in a second player into the single player game. While it turned out great, there is still an obvious lack of any puzzles that require players to split up or solve things cooperatively or simultaneously being that it's a single player game. Congestion and conflict can occur often.
Also if you get too many players it starts to get cumbersome... ammo for example is extremely limited throughout most of the game, so if 3 people have handguns and all 3 empty 3 rounds into a enemy thats 9 rounds expended that should have only taken 3 and it makes resource conservation and distribution impossible. Again, it's only designed as a single player game.
That said, if you take these things into consideration and make each player have a set role (one psi, one melee weapons, one conventional weapons, etc) it works out extremely well and is fun as hell!
My dream game is a game like System Shock 2 or Resident Evil or Metroid Prime or LoZ
carina of Time or Dead Rising that is designed from ground up to be played cooperatively and be as good as the single player versions...
Resident Evil, being separated and passing each other a key or some ammo through a grate so the other player can progress....
Metroid Prime, two players in different areas of the map or game world that have to activate two consoles at the exact same time, or one has to stay and find parts to repair the ship while the other has to investigate a distress signal... a player in Dark Aether performing actions that cause some affect in Light Aether for the other player...
Zelda... two players doing the Spirit Temple at the same time (it's divided into two parts only accessible by either young Link or older Link, but both halves are connected)...
Half Life 2... Dawn of the Dead type game play, two or more players start off in random places, just trying to survive. Meet one thats been trapped and exploring a warehouse while you've been out cruising on a buggy running for your life... have check points where everyone meets up and fends off waves of attacks... have multiple objectives at the same time and everyone chooses one (find gas for the buggy, find the battery in the junk yard, defend the buggy while the others look for supplies, etc) Two players stay up on the roof to snipe and defend a third player that has to make a run across open terrain to a generator, etc.
And of course all the scenarios, when given the character specialization and personalization tree like System Shock 2, would allow players better suited for some things to be elected for certain tasks before others.
Co-op story play games would be great... don't know why nobody is pursuing it. Making the game playable single player so as not to alienate buyers is as easy as simply unlocking the parts of the game that require more players or simply dropping NPCs in the right place at the right time (ie: Resident Evil does this anyway!)
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