I posted the above video in my G+ stream yesterday with no intention of writing a whole Thursday post about it. On it’s surface it was a cute tech demo of a game that I wish existed. But I kept thinking about it and I realized that it was much more than I initially thought. It was co-operative gaming like I’ve never seen it.

Most co-op games are pretty similar in that you are playing your game/character/army alongside your friends. You travel the game world individually attempting to achieve the same goal. Or you are in control separate game entities fighting alongside each other. Generally speaking, though, you are playing a solo game with a friend who is also playing a solo game together with you. This is a generality* but you get the picture.

The video above changed my entire perception on what a co-op game could be. Take another look at it. There are four players, two on each side. Each player isn’t in controller of only specific units, they have full control of any unit on their side. They work with each other separately and as one. They either work as a team or they will be overrun quickly. How many times have you played a multiplayer game only to have one jackass try to play the game like he is playing solo deathmatch? Only concerned about their stats? In the end screwing the entire team.

That’s why the Horde mode for Gears of War 2 or Battlefield 2′s Onslaught mode or even Left 4 Dead’s basic gameplay got me excited. You are FORCED to work together or die. True co-operative gaming as we know it. But is that all co-op can be?

At gamings earliest stages parallels can be drawn to film. Early on film had no ‘laguange’. Most early films emulated plays or other story telling mediums. They had to, it was a completely new artform. Over time though, they discovered what worked and what didn’t work. Audiences become more sophiscated allowing filmakers to tell stories in non-linear ways or with jump cuts or just in more experimental ways. Film now has an established language to tell stories and we accept movies that only 20 years ago would’ve been lambasted for “structure problems”. (Want a good example? What is the timeline for The Dark Knight? Hours? Days? Weeks? Months? You have no clue but that doesn’t matter.)

Games are at a similar stage. Games started off emulating films or anime and have spent the last quarter century trying to become them. For a while, because of technical limitations, they were forced to come up with their own language and we reaped the benefit. But as soon as the technology caught up we started seeing more and more cinematic games and the innovation of new game types slowed down. Metal Gear Solid 4 isn’t so much of a game as a more successful version of Night Trap. Innovation has stagnated in gameplay. I would like to see that reversed and I think you can start with CO-OP.

The way we play CO-OP is rooted in how we first played games. Two controllers meant you can either play against or with each other by controlling different avatars. I was player 1, you were player 2. You played solo adventures but with a friend just as it always was before the virtual world came around.

But the video above got me thinking that maybe we’ve reached a time when that scheme could be changed. Maybe multiplayer gaming could mean not just multiple players playing but could come to mean one player being multiple people. That we could achieve true co-operative gaming. This kind of game would be strange at first and most likely the first iterations of it would fail hard.

But if the right developer came along and fully embraced the concept we all would reap the benefits of a brand new way of gaming. We are very individualistic people and this kind of game is rather communist in nature but it would require a different way of thinking. And I would welcome that.

*Definition of GENERALITY

Previously on Lance’s Musings….
Five Downloadable Games You Should Own And That Chicks Dig
Homogeneous Gaming
Oh What The Hell Is This Crap?
Intervention Con Panel
Bored.
Bazingas
They Came At Us From Behind!
We Need A Jaws
The Kim Bauer Annoyance
N4G Sucks. Accept it.

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