How do I tell which games have local cooperative multiplayer?

Question

I've always wanted a gaming console. I figured I wanted a PS3 but when I looked into it it seems like Xbox 360 has more games that support couch coop ( = 2 player on the same console)

I want to buy the console that has the most local cooperative multiplayer games. The specific games that I've found so far are:

Xbox 360

• Gears of War 1/2
• Halo reach
• Halo ODST
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Earth defence force 2017
• Perfect dark Zero

PS3

• Resistance: Fall of man
• Resistance 2
• ??

Both Consoles:

• Rainbow six Vegas 1/2
• Borderlands
• Resident Evil 5
• Splinter Cell conviction
• Army of two 1/2
• Lord of the rings conquest
• Lego Starwars/Indiana Jones/Batman
• Kane and lynch
• Fifa, Nhl, Madden

The way I see it Xbox 360 is better for couch coop. Have I missed any games that are worth mentioning? How do I tell which games on a given console have local cooperative multiplayer?

Answer 1

What's mostly missing from these recommendations are all the amazing digital download coop games, which quite frankly take up most of my time.

Games like:

Castle Crashers (Xbox 360 only right now) ilomilo (Xbox 360 only) Trine (PS3 only right now) Fat Princess (PS3 only) Bomberman (both platforms)

If you don't own either PS3 or Xbox 360, then either console will have enough new games you haven't played that you ultimately won't feel short changed, because both have a catalog of games quite big now. If you have to pick a console, then look at the exclusive games you see above and decide if there are certain games you must have, ie. Gears of War, which is an Xbox 360 only game.

For even more coop games you should check out the site: http://www.co-optimus.com It's dedicated towards cataloging all coop games, and has a great system telling you if a game has local coop or not.

I will say this: If you enjoy entertainment with a partner, maybe you should go with PS3, because then you can watch BluRay movies, which is always more fun with people around:)

Answer 2

If you are looking for campaign co-op, I would definitely recommend xbox. Gears of War is just amazing in that aspect, Halo is good too.

Resistance : FoM has a campaign co-op and is a lot of fun but Resistance 2 doesn't have that. It has an online co-op in which upto 8 people play the same map over and over ( it gets old quickly )

My opinions on others are below ( minus those I haven't played ), but mind you, none of these would compare to Gears of War.

Rainbox Six Vegas is good, a bit tedious but fun

Borderlands is fun, has good replay-ibilty and co-op element is very natural

Army of two 1/2 is fun only in co-op, otherwise I found it to be very boring.

Fifa, Nhl, Madden - these are the basic co-op games, fire up the console and kill some time.

If you are looking at online multiplayer split screen, then Call of Duty has that, but you have to really get used to it, if you are playing seriously and are worried about you KD then the other guy will just get in your way. There is also co-op missions, those a lot of fun. There is also split screen local matches, which are ok, I guess.

Answer 3

I recently had the same question and did some investigating. Don't forget about downloadable games on PSN that offer some great co-op mayhem.

PSN Playstation exclusives: PixelJunk has several games, my favorite being PixelJunk Shooter.

Non-exclusives PSN titles: Trine, BomberMan Ultra, StarDust HD, Tomb Raider and The Guardian of Light

Retail exclusive: ModNation Racers has up to four player split screen racing. This game is a gem. I highly recommend it. I found it to be vastly superior to Mario kart Wii.

Warhawk: 3rd person shooter, launch title that you can pick up for dirt cheap. Highly acclaimed at the time.

If you are a major fan of split-screen FPS games, then Xbox is your best option. If you want other types of games, I think PS3 is the best option. I am mostly a PC gamer, so I do not go to consoles for FPS games.

Answer 4

Gears of war 3 will be exclusive to xbox360 when it comes out (April 2011 at the moment of writing).

I enjoyed the CoD series couch coop but they are both consoles.

I also really enjoyed the Forza on multiplayer, but i assume GT5 will be similar or better (and your lack of race games shows its not a priority anyway.)

Recently had a play at the lara croft game DLC on Xboxlive and toy soldiers is right entertaining

And finally, the Fable 2 and 3 games are Xbox only right? had some fun couch coop fart moments there :D.

So it seems xbox does have some nice couch exclusives.