While it’s not necessarily the case that a every game should have some kind of co-op mode, it’s safe to say it doesn’t hurt. Misery loves company and even a bad or average game can be made better if you’re sharing the experience with a friend. Still, there are some otherwise great games that leave you scratching your head as to why developers didn’t give players the option of bringing a friend in to help.[divider][/divider]
Ubisoft’s Prince of Persia reboot wasn’t received as warmly as some might have hoped. However, it’s possible some of the ire directed towards the game could have been mitigated if the reboot had brought some sort of co-op mode to the franchise – the entire game sees Elika run around with the titular Prince anyway. She follows him through the world and fights alongside him in combat, why not add some multiplayer fun to the game by allowing a second player to take control of her. It certainly would have added an interesting dimension to the game’s divisive ending if nothing else.[divider][/divider]
People Can Fly’s sci-fi romp has its fans but has generally been written off a misfire for the developer. The game actually included a cooperative horde mode but it’s not easy to imagine Bulletstorm finding a warmer reception if that co-op functionality had been extended to the main campaign. Grayson already spends most of the game fighting alongside Ishi and Trishka, making them controllable by a second player seems like it could add a lot of fun. Keeping Bulletstorm’s combo and scoring systems in mind, it’s not that far of a stretch to imagine an alternate reality where the game became a co-op classic instead of a short-lived solo adventure.[divider][/divider]
Techland’s 2009 western first-person shooter Bound in Blood will probably find itself regarded as an unknown classic as time goes on. This unique shooter laid the foundations for the more popular Call of Juarez: Gunslinger and followed the story of Ray and Thomas McCall. Each level saw you control one of the pair, each of whom had access to unique abilities, while an AI took control of the other brother. It’s baffling that Techland didn’t implement a co-op mode given the way that the brother’s abilities compliment one another. Then again, given their history, maybe it was something they tried and pulled out of the final game for technical reasons.[divider][/divider]
Last year’s Mad Max was a game that critics weren’t too hot on but one that garnered a pretty fervent fanbase nonetheless. For the community around the game, they didn’t care if the story was generic and the missions repetitive – they loved roaming the wide open wastelands with nothing but their wits and a couple of shotgun shells. It’s a shame that developer Avalanche didn’t take this aspect further by allowing players to jump into one another’s games and pursue non-story objectives together. If they had, Mad Max could have easily become the next Red Dead Redemption.[divider][/divider]
As a sequel, Hotline Miami 2 added pretty much everything you could want – more levels, more masks and an expansive level editor. However, the one natural addition to the series’ formula it didn’t add was a multiplayer mode. Whether it built off the main game or manifested as a series of challenge levels, adding a second player to Hotline Miami would have shaken up the dynamic of the game in some really compelling ways. You could blast through levels with twice the firepower and work with a friend to flank enemies. Hopefully it’s an addition that a crafty modder one day adds to the game.[divider][/divider]
