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Co-operative Play Where You Don't Kick People Out of the House

by ahoodedfigure

For those of us who have friends or partners who actually live in the same house, whom you don't want to kick out in order to play a video game with, this song is for you.

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Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

1. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance

My wife likes this game better than the sequel, at least as far as character choice. She prefers the Sorceress for her damaging spellcasting, rather than the defensive cleric of the next game.

Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II

2. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II

Me, I like the sequel better just because the customization and secrets are more fun to fiddle with, and the character choice is broader.

Dynasty Warriors

3. Dynasty Warriors

I'm not going to apologize. Some of the funnest times I've ever had were when me and a bud were hammering on dudes in split-screen mode, pulling a win out of a near-loss at the hands of a nigh-invincible boss, scouring the battleground for equipment, and making Lu Bu our bitch. I think the best of these was probably 4, because the weapons had variable statistics, but I still think they could do better with this series than they have, even though I like it.

Mystic Heroes

4. Mystic Heroes

As long as I can forget about this game's painfully frequent voice acting, the character customization options were pretty cool. My wife and I managed to have more fun with this in co-op that probably anything else. Well, except the following--

Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus

5. Phantasy Star Online Episode I & II Plus

This was the best. Loot. Killing. Support spells. Dimate. Light saber things. Critical hits. Vaguely Phantasy Star related. Good stuff.

Streets of Rage

6. Streets of Rage

You can double-team, which is nice. I forget what happens at the very end, though.

Gladius

7. Gladius

The key to a joint campaign is letting each player pick what characters they want, up to half if this is two player. Then as you progress, try to keep everyone's XP reasonably even, and lay out a few recruiting and loot goals ahead of time so there are no misunderstandings later. You control the ones you select for each battle, so there's no territory per se, and it may require some controller swapping, but it works really efficiently, and you get some nice teamwork moments and buddy insight you can't necessarily get playing alone. Best if both players are experienced, though.

Spelunky

8. Spelunky

The commercial version has side-by-side, though I haven't played it... yet. Love this game in single player, though.