Great co-op multiplayer PS2 games?

Shrek 2 takes 1 to 4 players and you can switch between any of the four who aren't being played at any time. It's cooperative and they have little mini-games at the end of some levels called 'hero time' that singles out one player to complete a hard task. I played this with one other person (the characters not being used at the time are controlled by the computer) and whoever was playing the hero would try once or twice to get through and then hand it over to the other so they didn't have to sit and wait until it was over - it could take a while so both got to participate and see who could figure it out. I'm looking for more games like this because it's so fun to work together with the characters instead of fighting against them.
P.S. Shrek 3 is nothing like this - for 1 player or 2 players completing tasks to see who is better. Stupid!

...

You may want to research Dungeons and Dragons Heroes which is slated for a
February 2003 release. It looks like it will be similar to Baldur's Gate
Dark Alliance.

Cheers,
Cay

Angel, HeavenGames LLC
#

If you are still looking for a good coop multiplayer game, I would suggest Shrek 2 (not the third). It is an adventure type game. We had 3 players including my 6 year old and we all had a great time.

Well, that's fair. And if your friend and whomever they are playing with
(you, or perhaps a girlfriend/boyfriend) are both fairly serious game
players who can play fairly egolessly, then it's a fine game. And the
battle mode is gravy.

The problem is that I rented C&C hoping, as the cutesy game art and
interesting concept promised, for a fun cooperative game which I could
play with my spouse. She's no game-novice, though she veers towards
puzzle games and stuff like Spyro.

For us, C&C was an _evil_ experience. I'm talking, more than one night
of play might have put us in counselling! The fact that the entire game
consists of timing interactions with a strict time limit, starting even
on the very first level, and the relatively high difficulty level, means
that this is not a great cooperative experience for most of the likely
players. I am sure there are some hard-core gaming pairs out there with
a shared love of tricky platformers that will love C&C, but I suspect
that such a group is a very small subset of people who might want a
cute-looking cooperative platformer. Hey, how can you not love a game
with a bunny rabbit that wears a flower pot on its head? I'll tell you
how

Oh, I thought the idea of making the game time-limited in such a strict
way was an awful idea considering the general game concept. It forces
you to rush instead of learn the game, at least in the early levels, and
doesn't encourage getting in enough play to actually get good at the
game.

Graphics and cuteness can carry a game somewhat, but actually playing
the game was entirely off-putting.

--
Ryan Cousineau, (trim trailing t), #
FREE WINONA!

Hmm, does look pretty good--thanks for the heads up.

There've just *got* to be other good co-op multiplayer games out there,
though. I didn't mention Alon D'ar in my original posting, but neither
did any respondents...so I'm sure there are some other games I don't know
about that people haven't thought to mention, maybe because the games
are too old or not all that great. But beauty's in the eye of the
beholder, and I'd rather hear about a bad game than not hear about it
(and you can always pick up older games on Ebay or elsewhere).

How about PSX games? As long as they hold up pretty well, that'd be
fine too.

- John

...

I think that only the European PAL release of Ico supports 2 players.
Someone may correct me on that though if I'm wrong?

Cheers,
Cay

Angel, HeavenGames LLC
#

To each his own, I suppose. I'm a big fan of platformers, and I found
it to be a wonderful example of the genre, and an utterly original
concept to boot.

So your criticism boils down to the fact that the game was hard? I'd
agree, it's not easy as it might seem from the outside. But I just
considered it challenging. As for making you angry, believe me, I
understand that--C and C could test the best of friendships, since
progress through the game is so completely interdependent. But none of
that made me dislike the game.

It seems to me you haven't presented anything that was actually *wrong*
with it--just that you were irritated by it. Since all the elements you
mention were, in fact, quite well done (as you say), and since the gaming
aspects of the game were also well done (IMNSHO, since I've played many
platform games), I take it you just mean you didn't like it because it was
a bit frustrating. If that's the case, why not just say so, rather than
listing good game elements and then saying there's no actual good game
there?

And back to the topic at hand: do you have any recommendations for other
co-op multiplayer PS2 games? We've played Alon Dar, though it was just
so-so. The one I'm looking at now is Time Splitters 2, which apparently
allows two players to go through the game cooperatively (can anyone verify
this?). I also saw mention that Halflife has a cooperative mode, though
it appears it's just some tacked on mode and not the ability to go through
the main game with two players.

Also, can anyone verify if Ico can be played cooperatively? I've seen
various mentions of co-op elements in Ico, but I can't nail down what they
are exactly. I'm looking for games where 1) you can play the main portion
of the game cooperatively, and 2) the players are basically equal (in
other words, it's not some lame co-op add-on where one player is doing
all the work and the other one is, say, controlling a gun turret on the
first player's ship :-).

- John

Cookies and Cream? Stay away! Abort! Abort!

Ahem. I rented this game figuring "cute, cooperative, perfect for me and
the missus!"

No. Hard, irritating, made me and the missus angry! The only redeeming
feature was an amusing "battle" mode that is a tacked-on extra mode. We
had some fun with that. Despite the fact that I loved the concept,
artwork, and presentation of the game, there was no actual good game
there.

--
Ryan Cousineau, (trim trailing t), #
FREE WINONA!