• Top 5 Two Player Co-op Games

  

  Written by Zeromage 11 Comments
  Last Updated:: August 18, 2008

  Was there anything more fun than playing a video game with a friend after school? Not only were you taking turns playing though, you were playing together, traversing battlefields and experiencing the best 2 player action in the video game medium. In this list, we wanted to go through what we thought were the top 5 co-op video games. This was a fairly obvious list for us. We knew what games we played most with our friends at all hours of the day. We’ll spare you any more of an introduction. It’s these next games that bonded friendships, and sometimes created turmoil over one or the other not “doing their part”.

  5. Doom

  All the great 1^st person shooters may have been better than Doom, but it was Doom which first brought the style to the video game market. Playing this game co-op was even more fun. Knocking down cacodemons with one person shooting a rocket launcher and the other shooting a shotgun was enormously entertainment. Meeting up with each other in the middle of a level knowing you’ve both cleared out the entire level of monsters was supremely satisfying. Just try not to hit each other while hitting all the enemies or you would be sucked into another Battletoads melee. Duke Nukem, Rise of the Triads, and Halo would all follow suit in Doom’s successful style. Halo especially was a fine example of a 1^st person coop shooter. Doom though was the first to make this experience recognized.

  4. Toe Jam and Earl

  What? Another Sega Genesis game on a positive Old-Wizard list? You got it. We congratulated the greatness of Toe Jam and Earl on our unexpected “Top 5 Sega games of all time“ list. This was one fun game. Playing it with two players was intuitive and endlessly enjoyable. When on the same screen, you would walk around with both players looking for parts of a ship you needed to exit off of the nefarious planet you were battling on. When the two players walked apart from each other though, the screen would split in two as you could both check out the large levels while not having to be on the same screen. This creativity was not seen in most Sega Genesis games but was employed to absolute perfection in Toe Jam and Earl. When looking for the premiere coop game in the Sega market, one need not look any further than Toe Jam and Earl.

  3. Double Dragon

  Double Dragon put the side scrolling fighting game design on the video game world map. It would have lost much of its pizzazz if it wasn’t able to be played in a 2 player co-op format. With bad dudes coming at you from the left and right, how could you not play this game with two players? One of the players had to take the front while the other took the back. These hooligans were hiding everywhere. One player could not possibly do justice to the all the amount of enemies that needed to be beaten on in this game. Fighting final bosses was also fun when playing with two players. Poor Bolo didn’t know who to fight when being drop kicked from two different angles. Sometimes you could have him glitched by constantly turning back and forth making him seem like he was utterly confused. When it comes to side scrolling street fighting games, Double Dragon owns in the coop market.

  2. Battletoads

  Battletoads, like Double Dragon was a superlative coop sidescroller. Some of the most fun in the game coop mode though was beating on each other instead of playing the game itself. Sometimes it would be so fun to beat on each other than you wouldn’t even make it past the first level because both players would be so intent on knocking each other out. Screw street fighter and mortal kombat. We will take a one on one in the first level of Battletoads any day. If the players weren’t interested in displacing their real world anger out on each other though, they could play through the game co-op style and go through a multitude of difficult levels that would most certainly require two players to complete. Still though, Battletoads was most fun when you could “accidentally” knock your partner off a platform making him lose all his lives.

  1. Contra

  Contra was the ultimate two player game. One player would take the top road in the first level while the other would take the bottom. Both players would equally enjoy all the smooth sounding 8-bit Konami music while the battles were going on. Contra was made for two player action. Enemies would strike at you from all corners and you would need that friend with you to cover your back as you were trying to take out a machine gun implanted into the ground. The levels would always change in design so sometimes it just wasn’t you taking bottom and the other taking the top. Sometimes you would have to cover the left and right of the screen as you were traversing a large waterfall (level 3). This game never gets old. Still to this day, we at old-wizard will combine our average game playing ability to try to conquer this game with the code. It’s just not as much fun doing it alone.

11 Comments

1. #1 Chase357 says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 11:45 pm

   This is a fantastic list. Contra, Doom and Double Dragon are still favorites that I play to this day. Doom is especially fun to play online.
2. #2 The Mountain says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 4:00 pm

   Awsome article. Love that contra level
3. #3 Osama says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 5:23 pm

   Great list but I woulda liked a top 10 at least
4. #4 Pingfa says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 7:42 pm

   I agree with Osama: You should extend it to a top 10 list.

   Though, you didn’t really specify how you were rating these games – as is mentioned in your short paragraph about Doom, it isn’t the greatest co-op first-person shooter around.

   ToeJam & Earl is one game that I have never been able to become immersed with. I can understand the appeal, but it just doesn’t ‘do it’ for me.

   Number three and two are good games but have been superseded by later remakes or clones.

   This would have been a pretty good list in the early ’90s, but I’d say most of them have been replaced at this point in time.

   How about a list of your personal favourites?
5. #5 Maul says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 3:30 am

   Whats with the nostalgia fest here? I mean I understand they did them first, but it doesn’t mean they did them best.
6. #6 Erik says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 5:17 pm

   Im looking for a old computer game, that I dont remember det name on. I hope someone could tell me if they reconize it from what I remember.
   ok.
   Its a military game, split screen, bird perspective, you can choose between jeep, tanks, helicopters and so on, and the main thing is to capture the flag.
   During the game you need to fight your way throgh walls, towers, granate throw´ers, other tanks and so one, to get to the flag.
   please help me!!!
7. #7 Newly says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 2:22 am

   I was introducted (via a nifty little piece of software) to System Shock 2 Co-Op!!! Without a doubt one of the best gaming experiences ever!!!
8. #8 The dude says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 6:55 pm

   What about Super Smash T.V., Ikari Warriors or expecially Gain Ground??!!