Richard Flamm
The Paw Print
There is a certain nostalgia that comes with the memory of morning-light filled living rooms gaming with my younger brother. I remember spending Friday nights having friends over after school with all of us on the edge of the couch with controllers in each hand. What I have witnessed unfurl from those days is a travesty. The online game and first-person shooter has won, and like a tyrant reigns from the upper echelons of the gaming industry. *Deep breath* When I was your age…we used to game together on the same couch. Shocking I know, but for those of us who remember, there is something not-very-appealing to the idea of playing exclusively with strangers online. What am I referring to my friend? I am referring to the legend of the couch co-op. Games like X-men Legends, Secret of Mana, or Hunter: The Reckoning pitted you not against your friends, but bound you together for an afternoon of hijinks and teamwork. Even for competitive games like that old Hockey game on Nintendo, Perfect Dark, and Age of Wonders were centered around the human element of an afternoon or evening spent together. Maybe it’s just me, but after a stressful day, being thrown into an online world of strangers shooting each other in the head from basements does not sound cathartic. It sounds like practicing real war, which is increasingly offensive and distasteful in a world that is slowly globalizing, but that is a digression from our topic at hand…which is that I miss shooting down my friends in Star Fox over birthday parties. Now, now, I know that some of you are objecting with games like Borderlands and Resident Evil. I know. I own those. The point is that the market is producing one local multiplayer game for every 50 brainless online “adventures.” Even Diablo went fully online. Instead of building something with friends, most games nowadays seem to focus on murdering strangers. That’s a fundamental change from the gaming time I used to know compared to the way it’s being utilized to focus aggression online. If you’re angry and want to take that out on others, buy a punching bag; I want to kick it with my actual real-life friends. So enough ranting, there’s no point in complaining about a problem if we aren’t willing to do anything about it. While we wait for the industry to shift back around through supporting local multiplayer games through buying them, we also ought to let each other know about those old gems that are just waiting to be dusted off for a party or summertime. Rather than buying the next-gen systems that are just rehashing shooter after shooter, maybe we should break out the old stuff. In that spirit, what are some games you remember playing with your physically present friends? Either co-op or competitive send your favorite local-multiplayer games to flammrd@grizzlies.adams.edu for a chance to be featured in an article exploring the top games of the past. Present or past games are welcome. Let’s hear it!
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