There aren’t nearly enough co-op RPGs in this world.

Last Fri­day night, after a crazy busy week suf­fer­ing video game with­drawal,  my boyfriend Daniel and I were bored and look­ing for some­thing fun to play.  Tired of our usual go-to FPS genre with old stand­bys like L4D, we started search­ing around online to see what other alter­na­tives we could come up with.  We ended up wast­ing half the night look­ing for games that either didn’t exist or games that we didn’t own and/or couldn’t put our hands on imme­di­ately.  But we had at least nar­rowed it down to three cri­te­ria.  We wanted to play some­thing that was 1) Co-op.  2) Fantasy-ish.  3) Action/adventure-ish.

Turns out there’s not a whole lot to choose from.

We searched in vain online, Googling things like “fan­tasy co-op games” and “co-op RPGs” only to turn up a smat­ter­ing of rel­e­vant results, usu­ally in the form of old forum posts where other co-op-starved cou­ples before us had ven­tured, dar­ing to ask the same futile ques­tion and met with the same small, pre­cious hand­ful of games in answer.

Even­tu­ally we real­ized that if we were going to get our co-op RPG on, we’d have to kick it old school.  So I drug out my boxes full of old con­sole games and began rifling through them, and to my delight, dis­cov­ered a very neglected-looking but oth­er­wise work­ing copy of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II for Xbox.  I had had fond mem­o­ries of the first Dark Alliance game, which, in a for­mer life, I had beaten on co-op with my boyfriend du jour.  But I had never spent much time with the sequel, let alone play through it co-op.  Daniel and I sud­denly had plans for our Fri­day night.

Eerily sim­i­lar to our WoW alter egos, Dan selected the Dwarf Rogue char­ac­ter while I, com­fort­able in my usual role of heal bitch, opted for the Human Cleric.  I thought per­haps we’d play through the start­ing zones, maybe get to level 3 or so before get­ting bored.  But ever since last Fri­day night it has been non-stop BG:DA II every chance we get.  I for­got how much FUN these types of games are, espe­cially on co-op.

And now back to my orig­i­nal point–why aren’t there more co-op RPGs out there?  Off the top of my head, the ones I can think of com­prise a very short list:

• Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance I & II
• Cham­pi­ons of Nor­rath 1 & 2
• Dia­blo
• Gaunt­let Legends
• Phan­tasy Star Online
• Sacred 1 & 2
• Secret of Mana

If you know of any oth­ers (any GOOD ones, that is), please comment…I’m listening!

If you really want fat, lazy gamers to click your ad…

…you might want to re-think show­cas­ing a circa 1985 Nin­tendo Enter­tain­ment Sys­tem, let alone using a stock photo that has clearly been (badly) shop’d.  I’m glad you know how to use the Paint Bucket tool.  Unfor­tu­nately, you’re a tool too.

Next time try show­ing a PS3, a 360, or any other con­sole that wasn’t made over 25 years ago.  Some of your tar­get audi­ence (read: the ones with­out hair on their balls) may not even know what the hell an NES is.  You might also be per­ceived as more legit­i­mate if you just–

Wait, what’s this?

…Lazy? … Soda? It’s like…almost as if this ad was writ­ten for me!  $150 a day, wowee!  But wait…what if the games I have to test are lame?

“I’m not talk­ing about some lame ass games online. I’m talk­ing about the lat­est and great­est games that are yet to hit the shelves.”

It’s like you’re read­ing my mind!  I don’t know how you do it!!!  Where do I sign up!?!?!

Oh. </3

Filed under: who-falls-for-this-shit-anyway

Trying on a new outfit…

I’m mess­ing around with a new theme today.  Par­don my dust!