Co-Op Gaming with your Significant Other

ben_bot

This past weekend my wife and I decided to have a gaming night and we chose PixelJunk Shooter. We pretty much played through the whole game in one sitting. It was a blast.

While playing through the game we worked together to accomplish tasks, and fought each other for the coveted Water/Magma suits. It was probably the most fun either of us have had playing a game with another person in a long time.

We loved it so much, it left us wanting to find a similar experience in another game. But besides Little Big Planet (which we will be playing through this weekend) what other games on the current generation of consoles compare to the co-op excellence of PixelJunk Shooter?

What games have you guys (and girls) had fun playing with your significant other?

THEPAIN73

Dokapon Kingdom, Ghostbusters (on Wii),and New Super Mario Bros.

Those are great to play together. You are gonna love LBP.

hyperpower

My girlfriend and I have been playing through New Super Mario Bros Wii. It is good but it is easy to knock the other player off platforms, hit them with shells etc and accidentally bubble. We have named it Super Divorce Bros - still play it lots though.

OptimusZed

Dokapon Kingdom is great, but be warned. The entire game is a race to screw over other players and abuse the imbalanced class system. There's virtually no co-op element, it's all competitive.

The wife and I played Borderlands together for a while, that was fun.

subedii

Left 4 Dead 2 is incredibly solid as a coop shooter, but it depends how comfortable your wife might be with FPS's, not to mention the graphic content (although you pretty much just abstract that out after a while).


Trine maybe? Is it on PSN yet?

Sipex

Wife and I play co-op:
- Halo 3 & ODST
- Eternal Sonata (battles can be co-op)
- Fable 2
- Castle Crashers

Darmak

I would say N+ because it has a wonderful co-op mode, but then I remembered it destroys relationships. Seriously though, take a look at it because it's fun, and hard as hell. I also second Castle Crashers, it's probably one of the best XBLA games I've ever played.

lionheart_m

Add me to the New Super Mario Bros list. That game has certainly given us lots of fun nights. Also Mario Kart Wii. I'll be honest, now that she finally finishes races on 1st place it's become way more fun. I'm still having a hard time convincing her to go online with me but someday.

Also, Umbrella Chronicles. Coop with her is a blast. I'm trying to nab an used Dead Space disc to further the shooter love. We used to play RB together but lately our PS3 has become my FF8 machine.

JHunz

My wife isn't good for much in first-person shooters, so I mostly play those co-op with other people. But we have played and enjoyed the following:
Earth Defense Force 2017, the one exception to the shooter rule
Splosion Man, which we're currently working on
Heavy Weapon
Castle Crashers
Sacred 2
Samurai Warriors 2, if you're a fan of the hack & slash
Baldur's Gate: Dark Legacy was fun, but I don't think it's on current-gen systems, just the PS2

If you're both good at tough platformers you could try the Metal Slug Anthology as well.

lionheart_m

I so want to get Castle Crashers. Why it hasn't been released on PSN is bothering me to no end.

strebalicious

Wifely gaming that we have done:

Castle Crashers
Any of the top down action games (Baldur's Gate, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, etc)
Dynasty Warriors, et al
Army of Two
Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
Left 4 Dead
Various MMOs

I've tried other FPS games, but those are the only two my wife can play for some reason without getting motion sickness.

Bethryn

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory has some rather enjoyable stealth co-op gameplay. And it's actual co-op, in the sense that some obstacles require you to boost/pull up your friend, and some obstacles require two people in different places working together. Obviously it's a bit serious and now considered old I guess, but it's good clean fun.

Brainiac 8

Geometry Wars Galaxies
Castle Crashers
NSMBWii
Space Invades Extreme

mrt144

Mortal Kombat for Wii (She kicks my ass so hard)
Monkey Ball for Wii

I'm trying to get her to play borderlands with me, but I still havent purchase it yet.

viciousdogatak

Marvel Ultimate Alliance and Borderlands

Jam Warrior

New Mario Wii as has been mentioned many times.

Lego X (Batman, StarWars, Indiana Jones) is brilliant co-operative multiplayer.

Rhesus Positive

The Guitar Hero and Rock Bands can be pretty fun co-op, as the individual difficulties can be altered to adjust for skill disparity.

Xenogears of Bore

More than one recommendation for Dokapon Kingdom? You guys must really enjoy angry sex!

Seriously, I almost decked my brother the one time we played, and my best friend and I have a long going "friendly" game that we only pick up once every four months or so. I can't imagine playing it with an SO!

Visti

We did Castle Crashers and it was awesome.

El Fantastico

lionheart_m wrote: »

I so want to get Castle Crashers. Why it hasn't been released on PSN is bothering me to no end.

I was wondering the same thing. Behemoth is a small developer, and they're working on their third game right now. It took them months to patch the multiplayer on the Xbox though, so I'm not surprised that almost nothing has been said about Castle Crashers for PSN outside of the one announcement that they were working on it.

A Bear

My wife and I have been enjoying Pokemon Rumble. It would probably also be a great 3-4 player game. I used to play Castle Crashers so much with my old roommates, but my wife never got into it...

joshofalltrades

The only things my wife will play with me are Carcassonne and Rock Band

And even then it's like pulling teeth to get her to stop watching Law and Order

She occasionally enjoys watching me play a game with a story though, like Uncharted 2

Ketar

My wife likes to play Rock Band and SingStar, but not much else these days aside from a few occasional rounds of a fighting game or maybe Buzz! Trivia. When she's on a slower rotation I hope to get her back to playing through Uncharted 2 with me around for back-up, even if it isn't co-op.

Last normal co-op game I can think of that she went for was one of the PS2 Gauntlet titles, before we were married.

enc0re

joshofalltrades wrote: »

The only things my wife will play with me are Carcassonne and Rock Band

And even then it's like pulling teeth to get her to stop watching Law and Order

She occasionally enjoys watching me play a game with a story though, like Uncharted 2

I have one of those (well, The Closer, instead of Law and Order).

What you need is Mario Kart: Double Dash! (the one for the GC). Two people to a cart, one drives, the other slides/bumps/manages items. It's great, because there's less pressure on the 2nd player. If they screw up, no big deal. However, once the 2nd player gets good, it takes the game to whole new level as she mercilessly steals everyone's item we drive past and causes a ton of mayhem.

I really begrudge Nintendo for not sticking with two drivers/cart.

Glal

A Bear wrote: »

My wife and I have been enjoying Pokemon Rumble. It would probably also be a great 3-4 player game. I used to play Castle Crashers so much with my old roommates, but my wife never got into it...

Aye, this is quite fun. Repetitive, sure, but the steady difficulty curve and promise of more pokemon to unlock is quite addictive while it lasts.
The final arena in the last rank gets insane, though. The 3rd or 4th round, hooboy.

ben_bot

I completely forgot about New SMB. I'll check that out eventually once we finish Little Big Planet.

Castle Crashers we played the demo of and had a blast. But then we forgot about it. I'll grab that too!

Okay, that should keep us entertained for a while.

Regarding FPSs: split-screen co-op play is kind of frustrating in my opinion. It was great for Goldeneye, but on newer games it just seems awkward. Just my thoughts on that.

Hows the length on New SMB? I remember people saying it was rather short.

Xenogears of Bore

NSMB is pretty long for what it is. Might take you eight hours to just beat and another five or six to get everything. The real treat is that it is pretty much just as fun on subsequent playthroughs.

joshofalltrades

Having a wife who is not nerdy definitely has its advantages, like making you appear to be somewhat less of a nerd

It just means you won't be doing much co-op gaming with her

El Fantastico

The hubby and myself played Co-Op LBP from beginning to end, which was a lot of fun. Sadly, we don't own a whole lot of other co-op games. We're both hardcore MMO/RPG nerds, which are usually one-player affairs. At least in a game like WoW, we're co-op grouping, but most of the time, if either one of us wants to level a new character, or farm, we just play in the same room but doing different things.

Since I've been playing WKC on PS3, he's had to give up the TV to me. He borrowed Halo 3 and GoW1/2 from a friend for the X360, but we only have 1 controller, so no co-op for us there.

Xenogears of Bore

There are quite a few really decent co op RPGs in the past two generations.

Tales of Symphonia, Abyss, Vesperia to name a few.

Final Fantasy:Crystal Chronicles for the GCN still remains the best 3D gauntlet type game ever made.

ben_bot

The Lego X games look great as well. I'll have to check those out definitely.

SwashbucklerXX

The Lego games are a blast to play co-op. My husband and I have also enjoyed playing Castle Crashers and Tales games together (though be warned: if you're a completionist, have your own Tales savegame to do that stuff in and just play a casual one with your spouse ).

We also played Persona 3 & 4 "co-op". It was fun making social link choices together, and we'd just take turns doing the dungeon grinding while the other one did something else.

OptimusZed

The Lego games are a blast in Co-Op. My wife and I made it a weeknight appointment to sit down and play a couple hours on the latest version there for a while.

They're good because they're simple, fun, and really low frustration while still being somewhat challenging.

Vee

Me and my boyfriend have beaten these together:

Halo 3
ODST
RE 5

I can't get him to play L4D with me. He HATES the online play. I managed to get him to do some campaign stuff a couple times but he will not do online play : / He doesn't like that there's no type of ranking system that prevents unbalanced teams.

We also enjoy watching each other play. He watches me play DA:O and I watch him play Fallout 3.

DVG

hyperpower wrote: »

My girlfriend and I have been playing through New Super Mario Bros Wii. It is good but it is easy to knock the other player off platforms, hit them with shells etc and accidentally bubble. We have named it Super Divorce Bros - still play it lots though.

Funny, people keep saying that there is a certain level of irritation in this game, but whenever I play it with others it's always seen as hilarious when you start tripping over others and occasionally screw each others over.

Dr. Face

Wife and I played both Star Wars LEGO games and are now working on Indiana Jones with Batman waiting in the hanger. By the time we even get to Batman I hear Harry Potter LEGO will be out. Its lots of fun and since its made for kids its game play is very forgiving when it comes to death, very good since my wife is not an avid gamer.

We also just got Carcassonne and she loves it. She wants to play just about every night. I would suggest leaving out Farms if one of you doesn't know the rules well. It makes it much more simple for the strategy-challenged (my wife).

We also have Sacred 2 but haven't gotten into it yet.

There are also a slew of games on PC you can co-op if you have 2 PC's. Being more into Fantasy we've played through both Dungeon Sieges, Neverwinter Nights and Titan Quest. All solid games, and cheap to get since they've aged a bit.

Terroric

All of the LEGO games are awesome to play with your girl.

We also have "Trivial Pursuit" that's fun and competitive.