Gaming has taken a massive shift in recent years, attempting to connect as many gamers together as possible. This shift has changed the way we play together, allowing us to join our friends at any time of day, in any location. Provided they have a good internet connection of course.
Because of this, couch co-op is becoming a thing of legend. No longer do we pack into a compact room, with all eyes glued to a single screen. Now we join each other online, communicating through headsets, never seeing each others faces. Game developers are also following this trend, removing the functionality of offline co-op, in favour of online.
Now, while I do enjoy online gaming, a part of me is always saddened when I can’t couch co-op a game at all, even as an additional feature. It saddens me that it is often now surprising to even see offline co-op in a game at all.
Just recently, an attempt to play Star Wars Battlefront on my PC with a friend was cut short when I found no offline co-op at all. What made this worse was the fact that you can play offline co-op on the console versions of the game. An omission on PC that makes no sense at all.
The only games that do seem to still have this feature, are usually more child focused. Games such the Lego series, Disney Infinity, or Skylanders. So in a spur of the moment decision today, I sent my copy Disney Infinity into my PS4, hoping for a short game to pass the time before work. My flatmate Max was in the room at the time, and he decided to jump in with me. Just like that, we had begun a session of the fabled couch co-op from years ago.
Playing as the angsty Kylo Ren, and the charmingly excited Poe Dameron respectively, we carved through waves upon waves of First Order Stormtroopers on the planet Takodana. Multiple times we set up enemies for each other, called out to be revived, and made jokes about how uncanonical what we were doing was.
Playing on the highest difficulty resulted in a lot of broken figurines on the screen, forcing us to make the painfully hard decision of who to play as next. But that was again part of the fun. Rapidly grabbing figurines, and launching them into the digital world, helped add to the excitement surrounding the entire experience.
The game made me nostalgic of the days of playing games on the couch with my friends, again, an experience that happens a lot less often these days. Partly because I am older, and I generally want more depth than offline co-op ever gives, but also because less and less games feature this old, but fun piece of gameplay.
Overall the experience reminded me of how fun couch co-op can be, even with something as basic as Disney Infinity. It is an experience I definitely want to try again.
8/10
I Review Everything 