Co-op games for noobs

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Thad
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Co-op games for noobs

Postby Thad » Tue Jun 14, 2016 10:03 pm

My wife wants to play more co-op games but she is not at the same skill level I am. She liked Kirby's Epic Yarn until the later levels where the platforming got too tricky for her, and she liked A Virus Named TOM in the early levels where it was just flipping around puzzle pieces, but not the later ones where you started having to dodge or kill bugs. As far as non-co-op games, she likes World of Goo and the original Katamari Damacy.

So basically, puzzles are good and hazards are bad. And this is outside my area of expertise.

Aside from the PC, I've got a couple last-gen consoles, a Wii and an Xbox 360. There are some Katamari games on the 360, right? Are any of those any good?

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Mothra
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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby Mothra » Tue Jun 14, 2016 11:10 pm

NES

Bubble Bobble is always good.
Life Force is a bit tough in parts, but great.
Mario 3.
Chip and Dale.

SNES

Kirby Superstar is still a blast - easy, fun, entertaining.
Kirby's Dream Course is a delightful golf-style game where you and your spouse switch off.
Goof Troop - I know, but it's actually a ton of fun with a second player.
Super Mario World.
Final Fantasy 6 actually has a mode in the options where player 2 controls two of the four members of your team. I've heard it's actually fun to play through the campaign this way. Always wanted to try it.

PC

Terraria is a lot of fun with friends. It's basically a side-view minecraft with a ton of exploration, building, and weird monsters to battle.
Risk of Rain is fun on the PC, and has local co-op.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is supposedly great, but might be too involved.
Pixeljunk Monsters is bright and fun. Enjoyed playing this with roommates.
Portal 2 is a blast. Could play two-player mode, or play campaign.
Castle Crashers is a good beat-em-up.
Magicka is supposed to be good.
Civilization V COULD be a lot of fun if she's into that sort of game.
Worms games tend to be fun, since you can switch off from turn to turn.
Rocket League
Spelunky

Free hot-seat capable games:
Freeciv : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeciv
Hedgewars : http://www.hedgewars.org/download.html1
UQM : http://sc2.sourceforge.net/1
Battle for Wesnoth : http://wesnoth.org/
Scorched3D : http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/1
OpenOMF : http://www.openomf.org/3
Toribash : http://www.toribash.com/

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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby IGNORE ME » Tue Jun 14, 2016 11:22 pm

Let's see...

Portal 2 co-op for the most part requires more critical thinking than twitch reflexes, and is on sale or free for the PC every time Gaben sneezes.

Typing of the Dead: Overkill is... well, Typing of the Dead. And also House of the Dead: Overkill. So there's that. It has a co-op mode but for some stupid reason it's online only, so maybe you can jam with two laptops or something.

Goof Troop for the SNES is challenging but I don't think it's too terribly taxing on the dodging skills? I'm not sure how hazards-bad we're talking here. She might hate the last boss.

Viscera Cleanup Detail is... well, you'll definitely want two more people for maximum shenanigans, and I can't say for sure that it'll be her thing, but it can be a surprisingly engaging game if you actually decide to stop !@#$ing around in it.

Really for general messing around without imminent threats you can do any number of sandbox games like Minecraft Creative, Garry's Mod, etc.

Pretty much any old-school beat-em-up is going to put you two at an even playing level. She won't necessarily be good if that's your concern, but you can't possibly be much better.

Could always force her to play as Tails, or be the 2P sniper in Super Mario Galaxy, or do some other game where the second player is effectively invincible.

Talisman is not a co-op game but you'll probably enjoy playing it anyway, assuming you don't already just own the board game.

(EDIT: So yeah that's a second for both Portal 2 and Goof Troop, which are both fine co-op games in general.)

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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby zaratustra » Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:38 am

Hmm. Sonic 2/3, Kirby 3 for SNES, Binding of Isaac...

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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby pacobird » Wed Jun 15, 2016 10:21 am

Assuming Secret of Mana is so obvious as to not be worth mentioning?
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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby Mothra » Wed Jun 15, 2016 11:08 am

It's a bit hard to get everything together, if you're doing in on ye olde SNES, since you need a multitap and a copy of Secret of Mana, both of which run about 60 bucks.

(But you could just emulate it on your computer)

(Also I have an extra copy if Secret of Mana I'd sell for 50 to Thad. Otherwise this thing's going on eBay for 60 when I feel not lazy.)

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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby Grath » Wed Jun 15, 2016 2:49 pm

Magicka is evil and bad. Not a good co-op experience.

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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby beatbandito » Wed Jun 15, 2016 4:41 pm

I feel like most of these have missed the point.

Bubble Bobble (for that matter bust a move) and Portal 2 second, but P2 will have a lot of frustration

Puzzle Fighters, duh. More competitive but there's single player for hotseat stuff.

Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime is def more action/arcade and hectic but the controls allow her to only focus on one thing while you could take over everything else if you're a bad enough dude.

Unfortunately most asymmetrical coop is like shooting stars in mario galaxy, or being tingle.
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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby Mothra » Wed Jun 15, 2016 7:15 pm

Mario Kart Double Dash is incredibly fun in the co-op sense, since two players control the same kart. Getting a copy at a reasonable price is the hard part.

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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby Thad » Wed Jun 15, 2016 10:16 pm

Some good suggestions here; thanks.

Mario-style platformers are probably out (though more Kirby games are probably worth a shot); we've tried New SMB Wii and Donkey Kong Country Returns and she hasn't been able to wrap her head around holding down a button to run. I'm wondering if puzzle platformers might be any better; I've got a Trine game around here somewhere that I've never played, and vague memories of playing Lost Vikings with Steve back in the 1990's.

Final Fantasy 6 might be worth a shot. She didn't really take to Secret of Mana (she didn't get waiting for the weapon gauge to charge to 100% every time) but menu-based combat might work better for her. This, of course, raises the conundrum of deciding on which translation to use; overall I prefer Slattery to Woolsey but I don't know if there's actually a patch where anyone's dumped the GBA script to the SNES. (I remember there was a guy awhile back who kinda tried to combine the best elements of both versions but I don't know if it was any good.)

The old (and old-style) brawlers seem like a good match but she's never shown much interest in them.

As far as the PC games, Portal 2 and the like -- does Portal 2 do splitscreen? I'm thinking probably more toward games where we're looking at the same screen, though I suppose one or both of us could play on a laptop in the same room.

I dunno if she'd be into handling the second controller on Super Mario Galaxy or not, but we could try.

I've never actually gotten around to playing Minecraft; now might be a good time to try.

Bubble Bobble's a good one; I've got the Wii version. I have not been able to get a picture on my Wii the last couple of times I have tried, so I am going to see if this $4 Monoprice cable I just got will work.

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Mothra
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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby Mothra » Thu Jun 16, 2016 4:25 am

Terraria really is worth a shot, if you're gonna try Minecraft anyways. But yeah, both are great with friends.

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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby sei » Thu Jun 16, 2016 6:17 am

Terraria is much more of a game than Minecraft.

MC is a shitty sandbox without mods, and a poorly-documented, overwhelming sandbox with them.
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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby Thad » Sat Jun 18, 2016 6:57 pm

Has nobody recommended Child of Light because it's not good, or because they know I'd rather eat a plague flea than install Uplay on my computer?

Guess I'll check out the 360 demo.




(Tomorrow's forecast says Flagstaff is going to be 26 degrees cooler than here. You know what? Given the choice I'd take my chances with the plague fleas.)

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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby IGNORE ME » Sun Jun 19, 2016 5:46 am

I think it's because nobody played Child of Light? Anyway in the demo the 2P's potential contribution seemed humiliatingly minor, but at least it's better than Super Mario Galaxy.

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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby beatbandito » Sun Jun 19, 2016 6:22 am

Oh, oh. Crawl is pretty good.

It's Co/op-competitive, everyone gets to choose three types of monsters and you go through a rogue-like dungeon. Everyone competes to be the 'player' who navigates the dungeon and that bit goes as you'd expect (clear rooms, buy equipment, find stairs. Anyone not currently controlling the player control the dungeon trying to kill him, some traps and tricks, but mainly the ability to summon one of your monsters to fight (and level / evolve down branching paths) and try to kill the player, the killer becoming the new player and the killed player going back to controlling traps and monsters.

Everyone has the same goal of getting down below and a new chance to play in every room regardless of how well you did in the last.
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sei
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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby sei » Sun Jun 19, 2016 7:22 am

If Castle Crashers sticks, there's also that Mystara game, old coin-op beat-em-ups, and Dragon's Crown.

May want to consider something like Battleblock Theater too.
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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby MarsDragon » Sun Jun 19, 2016 2:40 pm

Child of Light has a neat battle system but they wrote literally all the dialog as poetry for some reason so you have to deal with that.

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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby François » Sun Jun 19, 2016 4:27 pm

I don't think there's anything wrong with the idea of a game being written in poetry, but I found Child of Light occasionally has some pretty weak poetry in it, and whenever it happens, it makes the rhyme feels more like a we're-doing-it-so-we-can-say-we-did-it ball-and-chain than the pleasant, breezy piece of literature it aspires to be. It's one thing to make that choice and go for it, but it's another to actually do a good job.

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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby Blossom » Sun Jun 19, 2016 4:39 pm

It really isn't hard to write in verse, and honestly, if they just do it right, it ought to feel like ordinary speech. You force it, though, so everyone can tell, and it'll just seem hacky and obtuse.
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Re: Co-op games for noobs

Postby Mongrel » Sun Jun 26, 2016 12:00 am

In a similar vein, what are some games which aren't necessarily co-op but for which competition is more strategic than balls-out high-speed clicking? I mean, Starr and I and a couple friends have been playing Civ 5, and that's okay, but games just stretch out too long as would most online 4x and I'd like to have a shorter option. Something that takes a few hours is fine.

The same group of friends has played
- Age of Empires III (lololol, I mean Starr loves AoE and I enjoyed it in its day, but no one else does and even I don't like it anymore)
- TF2 (Starr can't play that for long without her hands hurting and everyone else quit TF2 anyway)
- L4D2 (fun, with enough downtime to not be too over-the-top, but everyone quit playing)
- Tanks (which Starr and most of my other friends hate, lol)
- Civ 5 (games running too long & getting bogged down)
- 7 Days to Die (I'm terribad at this game because combat seems so fiddly/particular/unforgiving. So bad in fact, that I'm getting constantly yelled at for incompetence, so I've pretty well sworn off playing and Starr's been scared off even trying)

We've also thought about Vermintide and Mordheim, but they're unfinished, super expensive, or both.


If there were some sort of low-key, low speed RTS that might work well. Conventional RTSes not so much. Purely strategic games with no dexterity elements would be fine too (obviously, since we're playing Civ 5), but we should be fine with moderate dexterity/real-time requirements. No one really has an idea of what game to play right now.

Any ideas?
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