Two player online co-op PC games with low skill requirements

inlemur

My girlfriend has recently moved to a distant part of the country. She had never really played video games at all until I met her, and I suggested a few that I thought she might find interesting. She took a liking to Portal, and recently finished it. Since she moved, we have been playing Portal 2 co-op, and it's a great way to do something together even though we're apart; we're not really phone/chatty people.

I don't game as much as I used to, and I've never been interested in games like this, so I was wondering if anyone has suggestions of somewhat similar games? She isn't interested in anything with heavy action elements, and she gets frustrated by demanding platforming sequences. I suppose competitive games would be fine as well, as long as they don't emphasize the video game skills I've spent a couple decades acquiring; something like an online board game might be good. Neither of us is interested in MMO or MMO-type games.

I appreciate any suggestions you guys might have.

Elimination

Have you thought about something like Might & Magic series? Or the older Disciples games? Both have co-op and are more "board game" ish. I used to play Disciples 2 with my ex all the time, it was fun. Also there is Civilization games as well. Resident Evil 5 is co-op (And a lot of fun played that way.) Note that Disciples 2 is the only one that has online multi, Disciples 3 only has local. (No idea why, but the 3rd one is a fair amount worse game.)

Also there are things such as Neverwinter Nights 1/2 both can be bought with expansions for quite cheap and the campaigns can be played co-op.

Nylonathetep

There's a few games on Yahoo you can both play. They are of board game nature like battleship, Chinese Checkers, Texas Hold'em... They only require Java and a Yahoo account. You can find each other via your Yahoo ID... and tends to be very light in nature.

Not sure if Minecraft or Maple story is an option. They are both more like MMO but are relatively easy.

It also helps if you can see what system she has access to. Does she have a PC, XBox, Wii, or PS3... PS3 you can go online for free and there's more options available for Co-ops games.

Tomanta

Maybe one of the LEGO games? If you both are interested in the licensed property (and there are several to choose from now) they can be quite fun and while there is a little platforming and action it is not very difficult.

genia

Magicka is a lot of fun and reasonably easy to pick up.

She might like Monday Night Combat - it's not *easy* persay, but the tutorial is really good, and it's a fun game to play with friends. The rounds are usually about 20-30 minutes, so you don't have to dedicate hours to playing.

Hewn

Elimination wrote:

Also there is Civilization games as well.

This is a good choice because of it's turn based nature. You can take it at the pace you want, at the difficulty you want. Plus, you can play cooperatively, which is a great team building kind of thing. My girlfriend has recently got into Civ Revolution with great success!

Civ 5 is far more streamlined than it's previous versions for this kind of thing.

Joe Camacho MKII

If she liked the Portal games, I guess she doesn't mind playing FPS, you could always get Left 4 Dead 2 and play on an easy difficulty, just to hang out.

Or you could get Borderlands, which is also a FPS plus Diablo 2, I think it also has a difficulty setting.

They are more action than puzzle games, such as Portal 2, but I have played both of them with another person and they are great.

You COULD also check out Killing Floor, but in order to really enjoy it you need a full team (6 people) it's doable with 2 people, but it's not as intense (It also has a difficulty setting).

exis

Joe Camacho MKII wrote:

Or you could get Borderlands, which is also a FPS plus Diablo 2, I think it also has a difficulty setting.

I think Borderlands would be perfect.

Though the loot/experience aspects of it might not appeal, depending on what it is that turns you guys off MMO's.

Toxin01

Sacred, Diablo 2. Titan quest?

corky842

How about Sleep Is Death? It's basically an adventure game for two people with one person being the storyteller. It's currently pay-what-you-want for two copies.

hamdingers

Elimination wrote:

Have you thought about something like Might & Magic series? Or the older Disciples games? Both have co-op and are more "board game" ish. I used to play Disciples 2 with my ex all the time, it was fun. Also there is Civilization games as well. Resident Evil 5 is co-op (And a lot of fun played that way.) Note that Disciples 2 is the only one that has online multi, Disciples 3 only has local. (No idea why, but the 3rd one is a fair amount worse game.)

Also there are things such as Neverwinter Nights 1/2 both can be bought with expansions for quite cheap and the campaigns can be played co-op.

Some good suggestions here I'd like to expand on.

For "Might and Magic", I'm sure this means "Heroes of Might and Magic" - this is a great way to spend time with her, my wife and I have sunk hours into HoMM. I'd recommend HoMM3 (complete edition is on GoG for 9.99) - it has the most allied maps.

For Civ, I'd get Civ IV over Civ V as I think the MP is more stable.

SammyF

I've only played it on the 360, but I believe Fable III is available on PC. If my wife and I had to live in different states for any period longer than a week, that's what we'd be doing after work every night to stay connected. Titan's Quest also sounds like a good suggestion to me. I think RPGs in general are a good idea because you can usually take them at your own pace. Want to run screaming through a dungeon and clean it out in ten minutes or less? Sure, you can do that. But you can also slow it down and take a few minutes to chat about how your day went between mobs, as well.

inlemur

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. She definitely would not go for anything like Left 4 Dead or Borderlands, even on the easiest settings; she's just not interested in combat that's any more intense than dealing with Portal turrets. Minecraft is a pretty good idea; I already have it, and she's seen me play so is familiar with it, and it's nice and low-key. The problem we both have with RPGs is that they (to us, anyway) feel like a burden of either leveling/acquiring things or progressing story. I don't care for grinding or exposition (the games I usually play these days are almost strictly fighters).

So I guess I have a lot of fairly narrow restrictions, but some good suggestions here. I don't think the Gauntlet/Diablo style of games will appeal to her, but I'll run them past. I've never played any of the Civ games, but I'll definitely check them out.

Librarian

corky842 wrote:

How about Sleep Is Death? It's basically an adventure game for two people with one person being the storyteller. It's currently pay-what-you-want for two copies.

I love the concept of that game but never tried it, is it even possible to get a game running without first investing lots of time and effort into getting a grip on the mechanics and how to run it?

corky842

Librarian wrote:

corky842 wrote:

How about Sleep Is Death? It's basically an adventure game for two people with one person being the storyteller. It's currently pay-what-you-want for two copies.

I love the concept of that game but never tried it, is it even possible to get a game running without first investing lots of time and effort into getting a grip on the mechanics and how to run it?

I haven't played it much either, but it's basically just picking blocks from the sidebar and putting them on the playing space. Obviously the storyteller would spend a bit of time preparing the story and environment (like being a DM in D&D but probably not as much effort/time), and you can edit the config file to give you more time per turn (default is 60 seconds IIRC).

inlemur

Funny update. We finished up the co-op in Portal 2, and I noticed that Borderlands was on crazy sale on Steam for $7.50, so I encouraged her to try it even though she was pretty sure she would hate shooting things (I had never played it either). Turns out, there is no difficulty setting, the game is actually pretty challenging as a shooter, she dies all the time, but she loves it.

We did our first co-op game two nights ago and both picked Roland/Soldier because it seemed like a jack of all trades class. Things started out a bit rough, as I was racing to jump in front of bullets for her since she had no sense of how to move or shoot in an fps. But the penalty for dying isn't very bad, and she was content enough to just follow me around and try to chip in a bit of damage while I mostly handled the alien dog monsters. I was picking up the weapons we found and giving her different ones to try, explaining that "shotgun" in video game world means "obliterates things that are within 20 feet of you and is worthless otherwise", etc. An easy way to make her feel more useful was for me to shoot some distant bad guys with a sniper rifle, taking 90% of their health, then letting her polish them when they charged us. Eventually I found a better sniper rifle, and asked her if she wanted to give the one I had been using a shot (she was a few levels behind me). She did. "Ooh, I like this gun." We wrapped up the mission we were doing shortly thereafter and ended our session.

Last night I worked late, and didn't have time to play, but we chatted a bit before bed. She mentioned that she finished Portal 2 single player, "oh and I played a bunch of Borderlands. Started a new game with the sniper dude and got to the same level as you." So in the span of a day, she went from not interested in shooting things, to willing to try a cheap game, to tagging along with me in that game while I shot things, to finding a gun she liked, to starting the game over and playing quite a bit on her own.

Thanks again for all the suggestions.

Morblitz

I say this but I'm yet to buy it myself, but will be soon, and I'm so looking forward to it. The game is Dead Island and I've heard great things about its multiplayer co-op, when it works (should be getting more functional soon). If shes into borderlands she might like this one, its a similiar format, free roam, kill things, survive, etc. Although its more survival horror and she might not vibe with that. There's classes she could play that she might enjoy, like Purna, who is usually more focused on gunplay and has abilities that support the group with buffs and such. You could opt to play the more tanky role and protect her, and you both might have fun with that.

SwashbucklerXX

Morblitz wrote:

I say this but I'm yet to buy it myself, but will be soon, and I'm so looking forward to it. The game is Dead Island and I've heard great things about its multiplayer co-op, when it works (should be getting more functional soon). If shes into borderlands she might like this one, its a similiar format, free roam, kill things, survive, etc. Although its more survival horror and she might not vibe with that. There's classes she could play that she might enjoy, like Purna, who is usually more focused on gunplay and has abilities that support the group with buffs and such. You could opt to play the more tanky role and protect her, and you both might have fun with that.

The big warning with Dead Island is that it's extremely gory, so it'd be a no-go if either if you draws the line at wading through realistically-depicted human entrails.

Anyway, do give one of the Lego games a try. They're a real blast to play co-op.