Anti-Social Gaming

Remember when you were a kid and your mates would come over every evening and you would play a game together? Well if you are still a kid then you probably don't. 

Before technology kicked off into the huge part of our lives it is today, you had to see your friends to talk. As part of this you had to get together in a space to interact. Playing games was done on a single console, a single screen and using a single game.

Now I am not saying that technological advancements are bad cause they obviously are not. I would not ask for the games consoles to go back to the ones we used to have (Even though the games qualities were better!) But I do get annoyed that I cannot find many games to play with a friend. Now I used to have a weekly get together and play a COOP Campaign. Games such as Halo, Gears of War and Left4Dead allow this to be done on one console and one game. But trying to find a game which allows this to happen has become the most difficult task in my life.

I go shopping, looking at the back of the game boxes for a little green box the says 2-4 or 2 coop. This is the sign that the game is playable as coop on a single screen. Well it is meant to. Before people say anything I know on the back of a box it also has an orange box which may say the same. this shows Online coop. The issue I have is that COOP is often put on boxes either incorrectly or for a specific mode like Horde. Now to me this is not COOP, this is more 2 player. I want COOP to mean cooperative play, so Coop Campaigns. Yes you can do this online but to me that is defeating the idea of coop. Games should be something that brings people together. I get fed up with having to play games with my friend round the corner as the game will not allow him to come round mine for a beer and to play. When and why did this change? Are we now not allowed to communicate unless it involves some for of technology? Is there some disease that will be passed between us if I actually see him. I find that the games industry is determined to make people anti-social rather than the other way around. Take online gamers. You play COD and some chav american will curse you and your mother from the comfort of his living room so you need to mute him so you can actually play a coop game the way you want. This is pointless. Plus that chav is never going to be able to speak to someone face to face. Put him in a room with the players he cursed online and he would be in the corner not making eye contact because the skills to talk are not there.

I have read that making a game split screen takes away graphics etc from the game engine. Well how come then two of the biggest games on Xbox have done it without a problem? Gears and Halo have always had split screen coop and Gears has up to 4 players. I cannot understand how a game can be made which allows online coop, but cannot allow the screen to be split and the same experience to be had.

Having played through all the big titles listed above and having not been able to find anything in my local game stockist, I resorted to playing Epic Mickey! That is just embarrassing. I used to have a girlfriend heavily into games. Playing a game together was really good but this would not be possible. I would have had to send her to her house so we could play together. How would I progress that to nocturnal activity if she is not even there? Games makers need to be less lazy and make games more social. Then then need to make sure that boxes are accurate.

Thank you to http://www.co-optimus.com/ for allowing me to find games that have couch coop with my mates. Otherwise I would never find anything to play.