Now that I’ve accumulated a fair amount of co-op experiences (Neverwinter Nights, Splinter Cell 3, Gears of War, Halo 3, Army of Two, Rainbow Six: Vegas), I finally realize that one of the primary attractions of cooperative play is that it offers endless variations of gameplay because every time you play with a new person, the game will change.
For example, this weekend I managed to squeeze in 3-4 rounds of co-op Terrorist Hunt with first Shane, then Chris, and then Nick. Chris cares a lot about tactics, he’ll use cover a lot and throw smoke or flashbang grenades into a room before he enters. Shane is a bit more reckless, making solid use of cover but still sometimes apparently losing patience and charging forwards to shake things up. Nick has an on-going love affair with pistols and refuses to use any other weapon than the Beretta, which forces a somewhat more reckless and humorous play style.
It’s the same game, yet it plays subtly but fundamentally differently depending on who you’re playing it with. From a game design or game studies perspective, it’s an utterly fascinating insight into the more or less subtle nuances of how a particular game can be played, and yields almost the same information you can get from watching somebody else play a singleplayer game (I say almost because you’re not just an observer when you’re playing in co-op, your participation in the game influences the other player even more than your presence behind him would, just as he influences you).
I haven’t “collected enough data” yet (so to speak) to confidently judge whether being in the same room as the person you co-op with causes the players to tune into each others playstyle better. I’ve only played split-screen co-op with my friends Casper and Ole, and it’s quite possible they just play rather similarly, though Ole tends to be a bit more cautious, less gung-ho than Casper. I’ve played Army of Two and Gears of War with both of them, and it was mostly the same experience with both games.
Contrary to this, I like to recall my experiences playing Splinter Cell 3 with first Lawrence and then Manuel. Larry charged forwards in complete disregard of sensible stealth tactics, generally resulting in (for some reason) my death. Manuel was much more sneaky and tactically minded like myself and of course we did a lot better. It might be interesting to conduct a proper systematic and comprehensive study of how two players in co-op influence each others’ play style depending on whether they’re in the same room or playing over the Internet.
Apologies to those of you I “sold out” in this post – hopefully the exclusion of your last names and your online nicks will afford you some anonymity if you wish (just don’t post a comment here under your real name if you don’t want to be recognized 
). I enjoyed playing with all of you and I hope we’ll be killing a lot more terrorists together in the near future!
Don’t do what now?
I personally have no great concern for anonymity on the internet.
I do love my pistols, which obviously limits my potential usefulness as a coop partner somewhat but I have fun (on the upside the pistols in vegas have unlimited ammo so I can unleash a lot of bullets). Maybe if I feel like winning quickly I’ll pull out my assault rifle (
So what you saying is that I need to buy an Xbox Live Gold membership so you could compare with person sitting next to you and then playing over the net?
Actually Jonas and I talked about playing styles some weeks ago when we played Crysis, and found out that my playing style, in those games, are typical Quake 3 Arena deathmatch style. Jumping around, strafing from side to side etc.
But my gamestyle in Coop is very much the way Jonas describes it.
Nick: Well I had fun playing with you and Shane even though I was far more effective with Chris. In fact a problem with playing with Chris is that he’s so good I barely have time to take down any enemies myself before he gets them.
As for anonymity, I did say IF you don’t want to be recognized
Casper: I’m perfectly happy just playing split-screen with you, so don’t go wasting your money on a Gold membership unless you really want to. I don’t have time to actually conduct a study like that, I’m just saying somebody ought to. Somebody who can get a research grant for it, preferably.
I think NVShacker would be kind of the guy that kills your family in Fable 2 when you play co-op, just for fun
Yeah but last I heard, Fable 2′s co-op won’t be online, so the chances of me ever playing it with Nick are very small. And even if he does some day come to Denmark just to play Fable 2 co-op with me, I can wrest the controller away from him if he draws a weapon near my Fable-family
I may only be able to get your Fable Wife or one of your Fable Children, but I will get one of them, mark my words.
Nick Van Sickle – The Easy Alternative to Divorce.
Shane is the guy I’d play with. Onwards! DESTROY!
It can be pretty entertaining, but you tend to die a lot
Dying is for girls like you Jonas!
Damn straight! THIS IS SPARTA!
Actually this is Vegas. But close enough.
THIS IS SPARTA!