9/10 co-op FPS’ just have the ability to bring in a second player crowbarred in just to tick a box. Halo doesn’t really gain anything in co-op because the campaign doesn’t change whereas Gears always has an AI partner with you. I’d much rather any co-op was tailored to having 2 players rather than forcing you to deal with retarded AI when there’s no-one else around.

I don’t necessarily think that every shooter needs to have co-op, especially if Infinity Ward thinks that it would ruin what they are trying to do with the campaign. I’m all for a single player campaign that doesn’t have to make any compromises by adding in a second person.

Modern Warfare 2 will be all about the online multiplayer anyway.

Yeah no co-op means squat to me, hell the single is only mildly relevant to MW2. It’s all about the mp for me

You stated that Halo and Gears of War’s single player modes were not damaged by their Co-op modes yet you state that if GOW had not had the co-op mode you never would have played it? This implies that the single player is rubbish which in turn could be blamed on the co-op nature of the game.

Your article just comes off contradictory and shows a lack of understanding how a story requires certain gameplay choices to made when creating a game. Neither of the games you mentioned had particular deep plotlines, and while Call of Duty 4 could be accused of being 2 dimensional, it certainly had more depth to it.

I can’t believe everyone is on IW’s side on this. Personally, I’m with Matthew on this one. Seriously, I’ve never seen Coop actually ruin a game. Every game I’ve ever played with it was actually better by virtue of having a friend along for the ride. It even adds to the re-playability.

@NEONswift
I think you’re putting words in the author’s mouth here. He never said Gears was rubbish, just that he wouldn’t enjoy it without co-op. The inclusion of the feature made it more fun for him, not less.

The only contradictions I find are within your comment (no offense, not trying to flame or anything). You seem to be implying that adding a feature detracts from a game when in fact, by definition it adds to it! The only time it doesn’t is if the feature is total crap, at which point it detracts by shifting valuable resources away from potential good to something that sucks. Clearly that is not the case with Gears or Halo(according to general non-fanboy consensus).

Of course a game’s story requires gameplay choices, but there is nothing complicated about a story like COD4 or what I assume Modern Warfare to be. It’s WAR, with MANY soldiers. As Matthew said, where’s the harm in letting someone else control one? No sacrifice to the story at all.

Oh, and COD4′s story is total rubbish. The only reason it’s mildly intriguing is because everybody died. That doesn’t mean it has depth.

Modern Warfare was a very linear and orchestrated experience. I don’t want co-op to ruin that but I was hopeful that it could’ve been worked out. If Infinity Ward didn’t have to turn out a game every two years then I’d probably be in luck.

A Halo-type co-op seems possible to me as it wouldn’t result in you having to baby-sit any other characters. If they can make it work for specific moments in this Special Ops mode, would it have really ruined the game to give us the whole experience?

I was merely using Gears as an example of how co-op can improve a game. I only meant that the co-op enhances it so much so that it wouldn’t be as fun without it. There are many other games with better single player modes that I could play instead but the fact that I can play through Gears with a friend makes it very appealing. Saints Row 2 is another good example of this.

I understand that the co-op mode could’ve influenced design decisions in Gears’ single player due to the squad mechanics as it does in Army of Two and RE5. Gears doesn’t take it to the extreme that those two games do but it is there. I don’t want that for Modern Warfare.

However, in Halo the co-op isn’t visible in single player. Halo works in both single player and co-op and it’s that kind of experience that I hoped for in MW2. It gives you the option of co-op play without hurting your enjoyment of the single player.

Modern Warfare seemed even more suited to this type of co-op as the story revolved around you being with other soldiers at all times and I assume that the sequel will be the same. It feels ripe for a co-op that wouldn’t sacrifice the quality of the single player and that’s why I find it disappointing that it isn’t going to be included.

I hope that clears things up a bit.

I think that co-op in MW2 wouldn’t be good because when playing co-op in WaW it really doesn’t feel right. When you play 4 player co-op in WaW it all just seems wrong because everybody takes control of their faceless, mute characters. All it does is clusterfuck everything and make the whole story unnatural. It worked it Halo because each player had an identity(somewhat) and the story mended well with co-op. It worked in Gears of War because it was built for co-op.
Now if MW2 had 2 player co-op it wouldn’t be as bad as say, 4 player co-op as in WaW. The reason I believe IW thinks that co-op will “ruin” the experience is that the story is supposed to be about you overcoming all these odds and killing all the bad guys , not neccesarilly by yourself, but by you leading the charge. I can’t find the words to explain it, but I think that I W just wants you to experience the badassery by yourself.

I doubt Infinity Ward are cutting back on the single-person on rails cutscene bits, nor the setpieces. Modern Warfare had the plane, the assassination levels, and the famous cutscenes (*spoilers* honestly, could you do the sinking boat with two players messing around? or the death in a nuclear blast?) – all wouldn’t really work too well in co-op, whatever people say. Tacking on co-op so that people can play it after they’ve played it once in singleplayer is just not really a good aim either.

Anyway, it’s the designers right to state they won’t be making the single player experience co-op I think. There are much better examples of games which would have it ruined by it – shooters, especially Modern Warfare’s squad-based mentality, is probably a good one to do in co-op, but it’d certainly highly limit many of the things IW could do with the player.

I mean, it’s not like you’re calling out for Metal Gear Solid to be co-op friendly or God of War, or a multitude of other action and shooting games which, really, rely on a single person and solely a single person to be there, playing.

It also adds a tremendous amount of work, btw. Hopefully that’d mean they’ll make a much better single palyer experience. Certainly for whatever Gears of War and Halo are in the co-op arena, they are not better experiences then Call of Duty 4 in my opinion.

joepenn18 has some good points too. The game, if not “made with co-op in mind” kinda sucks in co-op. Making it specifically with co-op in mind means the design needs to change so the singleplayer experience is, in fact, lessened – or it’s tacked on like WaW…

@joepenn18: I’m very interested to try WaW now. I skipped it initially because I was waiting for MW2. How exactly does it feel wrong, I mean, don’t you always play a mute character in CoD? Four might be too much but do you think it would hurt if there was only a second mute soldier with you?

@Andrew: It seems like they’ve at least made the gameplay work with two players as Special Ops sounds like the campaign missions with the story taken out. In order to get the story in they would have to design all those specific moments, like the sinking boat and the nuclear death, to work seamlessly between single player and co-op, and as you said it requires a lot of work, which is probably the reason it hasn’t been done.

It really is unfortunate that they don’t have more time betweeen games, because I think if they had time to work on it they could make it work. I agree that MW provided a better experience than Halo and Gears, and that’s what makes me disappointed that they couldn’t make an experience like that work in co-op.

I understand what you’re saying though, those highly orchestrated moments would be difficult to design for both single and co-op play.

@MJP The reason why I think co-op in WaW was no good was because it essentially was just tacked on. In single player you were aknowledged and talked to and actually took up space in the game, but in co-op you were just shoved aside until the gameplay started. But I would like to make in clear that when I say that co-op would not be good for the game I mean that the story would not be as good. It may be more fun to play with your buddies throughout the whole game, but the story aspect will suffer, be it that it doesn’t make sense, or that you simply miss some points of the story. Whenever I play co-op with my douchebag friends usually they never shut the fuck up and I’ll miss something in a cutscene or not hear what I might be told to do, or something(sorry I can’t really concentrate right now).

Let’s hope the co-op in MW2 is the best fighting levels of MW2, which would be acceptable to me – I am sure the game won’t be long, so we’ll be able to play and replay fighting parts which are the most enjoyable bits in MP anyway :D (cutscenes are just “skip skip skip” most of the time).

@Leviathan902: My original post was very “bleh” to say the least. Probably the time of day or something. I am in agreement that GOW2 did co-op alright but the single player wasn’t up to scratch in my opinion, quite possibly because the game is tailored for it. The annoying mechanic of you crawling around dying for a moment before your buddy comes along to save you is very jolting and is the same with World at War.

A specifically tailored co-op would be better as its rare that fps games do co-op well… The only one I actually like is Rainbow Six Vegas which is both great in single or co-op.

As for story, the point I was trying to make but probably failed at, is that a game’s story is a combination of things: the dialog, the atmosphere, the plot and the pacing. All of these worked well in COD4 and for one reason or another did not work well for me in the WAW co-op.

The reason I am supporting IW with this is because its their creation, they can do what they want with it, whether you or I like it or not. If they tried to accomodate everyone then their game would be a collation of every game mechanic ever. And for the most part that just doesnt work.