It was September and Dead Rising 2 had just come out. Being huge fans of the original my friend and I bought it. I played the single player for an hour or two and enjoyed it, but I decided to join my friend’s game to see what was happening. He had reached the part where you get the maintenance keys. This was the best part because you’re allowed to do whatever you want; or basically start decapitating zombies with home-made weapons.
Leon Bell turns up on his bike. I remain quiet as the cutscene starts, but my friend immediately skips it, arguing that I should watch it on my own time. He’s right, whenever we’re playing together there’s no chance of us getting involved with the game’s story. We’re too busy being like the grumpy old men from the Muppets and criticising everything.
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Time’s running out; if we don’t get this Zombrex back to the safe house then Chuck’s daughter is going to turn into a zombie! Oh well. Also, check this out; I’ve just attached a lawnmower to a wheelchair! I run into a crowd of zombies like a madman and we both laugh as limbs fly towards us.
After a few hours we call it quits. We never do play Dead Rising 2 together again. Why bother? You can get more out of the game by playing it by yourself. And that’s the point, we’ve seen a flood of games putting co-op into traditional single players, but none of it seems to add to the experience, and sometimes even detract from it.
What makes a good Co-operative game?
Co-operative play has seen a rise in popularity since online gaming has become so prominent in the current-generation consoles. Many games attempt co-op, yet only a few get it right.
The Left 4 Dead series has been hugely successful at this. What makes it so great is that it encourages teamwork and makes it part of the game. Maps are short, concentrated experiences designed with intention of being replayable. Valve also uses ‘Crescendo Events’, in which you would have to fight waves of zombies while covering your team mate who could be operating a gun turret, or carrying fuel for your getaway. Teamwork is key to survival.
Your best chance of survival is only possible if you keep all of your team intact, and Valve knows this. If you take enough damage you will become incapacitated, with your only chance of survival being your teammates. What if a hunter pins you down? Again, you’re doomed unless someone knocks the hunter off you.
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Valve understands that to do co-op right, you had to make sure that the gameplay encourages teamwork and interactivity among your players. With L4D2 selling over 4 million copies in 2009 alone, I think it’s safe to say that they have succeeded.
The Problem
The problem is that developers often try to shoehorn co-operative play into an ostensibly single player experience.
Metal Gear Solid is still one of the best single player experiences because it blends the story and gameplay perfectly. But you have to pace it properly, and Kojima knows this; it would give you new weapon and let you get to grips with it before you actually needed it. It’s the same thing for telling a story; look at the handling of Master Miller; he’s first introduced as an aid, but throughout the game he becomes more prominent acting as if he’s got Snake’s back, and by the end you discover he’s actually your enemy! By the end of the game you feel like you have achieved something more than beat the bad guy.
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It’s the opposite with co-op. Co-operative play turns that experience into a social event, and because of that you have a limited attention span from your players; you are restricted to doing fewer things. You can’t develop things like story or use pacing because in most cases players will skip the cut scenes or get bored when they’re not shooting something.
Resident Evil 4 and 5 illustrate this example. RE4 was one of the best games of the last generation. It was great because it never rushed the player and it allowed them to soak up the immersion. On the other hand, RE5 rushed the player through environments. Each new area felt like an arena that forced you to kill the enemy, move to next area and repeat. By introducing co-op, Capcom turned RE5 into something like a soulless straight-to-DVD sequel which didn’t really understand what made its predecessor so great.
Then you have Lost Planet 2. For anyone that remembers the first one, it was a fairly by-the-numbers game, but it had a memorable charm. Lost Planet 2 transformed that into a primarily co-operative experience. Each mission was incredibly short and; there wasn't much in the way of plot development and interactivity between players. Although these changes made it decent co-op experience, it compromised the single-player by taking away the depth and cohesiveness of the campaign.
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And this is what happens when the developers actually try. It’s quite common, especially among free-roaming games, just to throw it in as an afterthought. Dead Rising 2, Crackdown and Fable 2 all have it, and while it’s fun to muck around with your friends there’s no purpose, and nothing meaningful to gain from the experience. Essentially your partner is just replacing an A.I.
The perfection solution?
What’s the alternative? On one hand, there’s plenty of evidence that co-op can change a single player for the worse, but sometimes the idea is right. Games like Dead Rising 2 should be able to offer a meaningful co-operative experience in a way that isn't tacked on to the single player.
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And the answer is already out there: Additional co-op campaigns. This is becoming increasingly common, and shows that developers understand the differences between single player and co-operative campaigns. Why not have both? Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and Conviction, Uncharted 2 and Ghost Recon Advanced War fighter all offered this, and it's no surprise that these co-op campaigns were great.
Why can't developers offer the best of both worlds? An immersive single player to enjoy by yourself, and a more social co-op experience for you and your friends.
But even then I can't pretend that this is an ideal solution; the biggest problem is keeping quality consistent across the different modes. Keeping the high production values which players expect requires the best planning, resource management and communication between the multiple teams. Publishers such as Ubisoft hire outside studios to develop parts of the game, but this usually exasperates consistency problems, rather than solve them.
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This can be seen with Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, the campaign, developed by Ubisoft Paris, was praised for having great visuals and an innovative cover mechanic. However, Red Storm developed the multiplayer, and there seemed to be a lack of communication between the two teams because the multiplayer didn’t share the same graphics engine or cover system as the campaign. Although this didn’t ruin the game, it did make jumping from the single player to the multiplayer a jarring experience.
Accepting Co-op for what it is.
Maybe the current approach is just misguided? In the end, what most people want to do is compete. What happens when you just get rid of any pretence of a narrative, and focus purely on scores, ranks and gameplay?
We can already see games doing this; Gears of War’s Horde, Halo’s Firefight and Resident Evil’s Mercenaries erase the narrative, and make competing for the highest score the aim of the game. The blend of co-operating with a partner, whilst vying for the highest score adds an exciting layer to what would otherwise be a dull fighting scenario sandwiched between a story.
What happens when we use co-op to improve the experience itself?
Demon's Souls is one of the games being praised for doing just this. It uses a variety of methods to help the player through their experience. From leaving warning messages, to seeing the blood stains of where players have died to warn you of upcoming dangers. You can be direct and get players to help you, but on the same token others can force their way into your game and kill you for their own benefit.
Developers and Publishers need to understand that although co-op looks great as a feature on the box, if you hurt the integrity of the game by poorly implementing it then you risk weakening the whole package.
When developers carelessly merge single player and co-operative components into one, either the campaign suffers or the co-op does. I want co-op modes which are unique, and tailor made for the perfect experience. It needs to be designed specifically for playing with friends, and be a feature that must be played, rather than something which is toyed around with to kill an hour and then never played again. When that happens, both experiences are made better.