Coop winning terrain in online play??

[Binnatics]

Hi Guys, I discovered more and more games have coop online gameplay. My first experience was in GTA IV. You could do certain missions, like the singleplay ones, but you did them with up to 3 buddies. It worked great, was the best way of leveling up in online rank. I think that made it so popular.
Basically you could do all your own part of the plan, no need for real teamplay. I just liked pushing my own gameplay to the edge and impress others with kill-ratings and fast steering / flying.
My second was Resident Evil 5. You could do the storyline with a friend. Allmost never did that, just didn't really seem nice to me because I allready did the storyline like 3 times when someone wanted to do coop. Was allready tired of the game.
Then I tried Dead Rising 2. The coop in that game was more like free roaming together and showing off with great combo-weapons. It was like the game itself: Crap after a while.

My first REAL coop experience was Bulletstorm. There it was necessary to really cooperate to get the goals. You would only gain great points if you worked together. There were very few players who understood that. Maybe due to the game being hard to understand, maybe due to most players just being dumb. Maybe the game attracted dumb guys in general. Anyway, I found Art there, and we did a great job on cooping our way through the online play. That was a great teamplay experience.
The next great coop experience for me was Portal 2. That game had also a strong teamplay need. The puzzles were unsolvable alone, so communication and working together was really important. It was simply great.
Now I hear of and read about other coop games as well. There's Brink, that seems to give great value to teamplay, allthough I don't know if a bunch of good killers who don't cooperate are a strong team as well. What you think about that Art?
Now I read about more games who dedicate their onlineplay all to the 4-playermax coop. I read the topic about Operation Flashpoint: Red River and I'm glad I did; The game seems crappy to me so I won't try. But the main idea there seems as well: Do the storyline with friends, not alone. The bad AI stimulates that extra (HAHAHA).

What you guys think of this? I can imagine for the ones who don't play online it's not so cool. Or maybe it's an extra stimulance to get better connection. I can tell when you play coop with good mates you can be a cool team and the gameplay gets 10 times more funny.
Do you know other great coop titles allready there or coming up? There will be a new Resident Evil sequel so if anybody is interested we could be buddies then  ;)
The game is great. Good graphics and nice gameplay. Only some cutscenes are quite frustrating, having to press the weirdest buttons in order to do stuff like jumping, dodging or shooting. But for the rest the game is a great adventure.

Share thoughts and desires concerning online coop. I'd be interested  ;)

[Art Blade]

There's Brink, that seems to give great value to teamplay, allthough I don't know if a bunch of good killers who don't cooperate are a strong team as well. What you think about that Art?

Brink is a little strange in this respect.

There is a main goal both sides know (for example, Attacker team: destroy structure A, Defender team: prevent structure A from getting destroyed) and several side goals that are also known to both teams. Obviously most players of both teams focus on the main goal. Now the teams consist of players of different classes (specialised in something, like operative, mechanic, medic, soldier..) but it doesn't matter how many players belong to the same class. Sometimes there isn't any medic (no player fancies that class for the time being) while sometimes there are a lot of medics, that sort of thing. Plus, you can change class during missions, several times if you are so inclined.

All this leads to more or less chaotic team play and the teams that manage to survive long enough (by not getting killed too often or by killing the other team members in quick succession) to achieve their mission goals win. You do respawn but usually it requires you to run across half the map to get back to the core of your scattered team which doesn't really help if you're trying to play coop with someone.

So there is not much room for "proper" team play as it was in Portal and Bulletstorm.

[fragger]

When it comes to mutliplayer gaming I've always preferred coop over say, deathmatch, as I like to w@&k together with my friends as opposed to trying to kill them :-() I like being part of a team, even if it's just a team of two. It largely depends on the nature of the game too, of course. Something like Portal 2 or Bulletstorm, where you and your coop partner(s) really need to w@&k together, appeals to me the most (even though I've never played Bulletstorm, just going by what you guys have written about it here).

As some of you know, my big prob with online coop is my net connection. I can only get wireless or (shudder) dial-up where I live - no ADSL access here. At times it's subject to dropouts, on the odd occasion I can't get on at all, and if lots of people in the area are online the whole thing can slow to a crawl. This is due to change however as a new national broadband network is currently being rolled out, with regional areas being among the first to benefit. People living in areas that have already been hooked up are saying it's terrific and super-fast. Hopefully it'll come to my town soon, but I have no idea when.

Even so, I've always been more a fan of SP than MP. Not that I'm antisocial or anything :-() but I generally like to take my time with games and not have to concern myself about holding up the other players while I waste time mucking around and going on stupid :-D

[Art Blade]

I wouldn't worry about the mucking around and stuff like that as long as you're friends with the team mate(s). I don't feel like kicking Binnatics's teeth down his throat when he keeps blowing me up for his own amusement (  :-() ) and sometimes I administer a headshot to him by way of saying "I love you, too."  :-() We do get along perfectly well when it comes to playing "seriously" as in scoring high or achieving goals. The real deal is talking to each other using headsets which is fun when commenting silly stuff and useful when trying to win.  :) :-X

[fragger]

You just reminded me of a routine my friends and I got into whenever we played Doom coop on my mate's LAN. Dunno if you remember, but in Doom your guy could throw a punch with a small blade on his fist. After we'd had enough of playing coop, we'd generally conclude the night's festivities by running around trying to biff each other's lights out - fists only allowed, last guy standing won. I used to like the satisfying "smack" sound when one of us managed to connect. That final all-in brawl was always good for a laugh and a funny way to end the night's Doom session :-()

[Art Blade]

good one :-() I don't recall that blade, maybe because I was more into bullet sprays  :-D

[Binnatics]

That reminds me of how I usually end a play in GTA IV. After doing some serious s#!t I like to end up raising chaos and killing policeofficers by the dosens  ^+-+
It will allways end with death... I mean reincarnation outside the hospital doors. Hmmm, let's crack 'm again  >:D

[Art Blade]

.. and when I get out of the hospital I usually still have a couple of hand grenades left..  >:D

[Binnatics]

Red Faction Armageddon has also a coop only online play. Besides the storyline there's a similar coop matchplay like in Bulletstorm; A team of max 4 guys has to fight wave after wave of alien-enemies. I've checked a preview about the coop and it looks promissing. Besides, Red Faction as a very good game. Fiach wrote a good review about the single player. You can find it here.

I'm planning on buying the game when I come back form my holiday in september. Hope there will be more enthousiasts for that coop by then ;)

[Art Blade]

Not sure yet about RFA

[Binnatics]

At the time being I will somehow 'convince you' I guess  >:D

[Art Blade]

If it is any good, I believe you  :-D