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Lament of Player vs. Player Games
Yesterday I drove to Eastern Washington to visit my family for thanksgiving and I brought my PS2 to enjoy with my cousins. There is not much fun to do in my hometown of Richland most of the time.
There is a real shortage of two player cooperative games these days. The problem with player vs. player games is that if one person does not own the game they are at a disadvantage and the more experienced player can kick their ass. About the only games that we are close enough to play is Smackdown and 3d fighting games. It is actually a bit refreshing since BBQ has an aversion to most of my 3d fighting games. My cousin from Oregon is now a senior in high school so he is finally old enough to enjoy GTA Vice City.
Anyway back to the two player games.. Things seemed a lot easier back in the 8-bit and 16-bit era due to the ease that new games could be learned. Now days the person who wins is the person who has invested the most time into the game. Not who is better.
I would pay real money for a new version of River City Ransom on the PS2 or Gamecube.
Jake at November 27, 2003 
Games
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Comments
Agreed. I remember many a modem co-op game of Doom 2 with somebody living in the country...
Posted by: Matt at November 27, 2003 12:38 PM
We have been playing lots of Tenchu on PS2
Posted by: Jake at November 28, 2003 12:08 AM
Tenchu on PS2? Hmm, must be good! Only know the PS1 version which I loved.
Hey, isn't there a MAME Emu for the PS2?!
Posted by: dr_colossus of dataleak at November 28, 2003 5:37 AM
Hear hear! I was just lamenting this same issue recently (I think around the time of Animal Crossing), as playing all of the old Nintendo games brought clearly to mind hours of playing co-ops like RCR and ToeJam & Earl. Even Sonic was fun when you had a friend playing Tails (Imagine how surprised I was to see that you could pick up the second player controller in Sonic Adventure!).
Right now the closest thing you can get is playing old Nintendo/SNES games via emulator over a modem - not quite the same, but brings back some of the fun of two-player co-op (I still think the "illegal" Tengen Tetris for NES was the second-best, only to the first Game Boy one).
I guess part of the problem is dealing with camera and split-screens in the new crop of games, but some still manage to pull it off. I think the Gamecube has the best set of "party games" on any system right now - Smash Bros., Mario Party, etc. Even Kirby's Air Ride is fun multiplayer.
Posted by: Chris at November 28, 2003 6:11 AM
I agree 100%. Want to polarize video game players into hardcore geeks while leaving the rest of the population behind? Continue making games that require such blinding devotion that your average Joe cannot sit down to enjoy it without playing through a full training campaign first. This dreadful learning curve is why, in my opinion, Dead or Alive 2 is a better game than Soul Calibur. The goal should be to allow anyone to sit down, learn three buttons, and enjoy a good game.
Posted by: Resipsa at November 28, 2003 9:55 AM
