Co-op gaming

[Rocky]

Dai San pointed me to PC Zone magazine this month in the UK. They have quite a big feature on co-op gaming. They played about 8 games on co-op mode and rated them for how cool they were to play co-op.

The looked at Doom 3, Half Life, Op. Flashpoint, SWAT4, SC:CT, Far Cry, Vietcong, and a couple of others.

I've played most of those and don't think any of them has a co-op mode to rival the fluid, objective based custom missions you can play in co-op Ghost Recon.

Additionally there are hundreds of fan made coop missions available for free download, enough to keep even the most ardent coop gamer busy for a long long time.

Most importantly though, Ghost Recon missions are created through IGOR and fans have taken mission scripting to a new level, where the missions can be so complex and robust that they are now the mainstay of regularly held and professionally organised coop tournaments.

The missions can be created to automatically score the coop teams effectiveness. For example, points may be awarded for rescuing a hostage or destroying a tank column, or even deducted for breaking stealth and opening fire to soon. At the end of the mission the script calculates and displays the teams score. Are there any other games that offer such a powerful and flexible coop mission scenarios?

What does everyone else think - do any of those other titles come close, for co-op gaming?

[Sart]

I think Flashpoint beats GR by a long shot, ever since I started playing that and VBS1, it feels very... "restricted" going back to Ghost Recon.

Never played anything else on that list.

GRs co-op is great though, four years of game-play was well worth the cash.

[T_1]

Oh here we go.

GR vs Flashpoint debate anyone

[WhiteKnight77]

I can't say about the other games, but I hosted Coop servers for GR and I enjoyed the ability to do as Rocky stated.

[X69RZX]

Can you put your own face on you and your crew's soldiers in Flashpoint?

FLASHBACK

I think the real issue is the type of game, and the type of gamer who plays the game. GR seemed to attract a more mature player, less Quake-like gameplay, it seems to me. That more mature attitude enforces the idea that you really need teamates and team work to survive and win. Like I have said, if they would've allowed us to use the hand signals via keyboard strokes, which the AI could use, but we couldn't, GR would be untouchable for co-op, IMO.

[harntrox]

Currently, GR is the best skill-based coop game all around. I say this because ...If you want to press an attack button and watch your hobbit dance, then i guess thats a massively coop experience but lacking the skill component - bigtime. And the replay value...

Several reasons, not in any particular order:

Its design is flexible enough to allow many styles of online play-and support them successfully through script and server options. You can run and gun with infinite respawn or crawl for 8 hours with none. Nothing is forced, nothing is assumed. Play the game you want to play, and set up the server accordingly. And you can set up to 27 players in coop missions, which is simply incredible imo.

Because it is one of the only titles to not use singleton Bot-Ai, and instead uses a fire-team based system with global pathfinding, the possibilities of what can happen are far beyond anything else out there.

This sophisiticated design is also more scalable than most games because the ai is handled globally. This scheduling allows the server to balance the load between ai and traffic, which in turn lends itself to massive amounts of enemies in a wide-open environment.

---------------

More ai, more enemies visible, more challenging enemies, more performance = More replay value.

[warhawk]

The only thing I have seen come close to GR is VBS1 and it beats it hands down. But to compare VBS1 to GR is like comparing apples to oranges. GR was made, for lack of a better term, for the masses. VBS1 is first and foremost a training tool. Having done mission scripting now in both GR and VBS1 I can honestly say I find the learning curve in IGOR not as steep but the AI in VBS1 react much better than that of Ghost Recon for one thing. The scripting power that VBS1 has though I think far outweighs GR and I would hope that whatever "mainstream game" that comes along to replace GR has a similiar tool with it. If it does that game will enjoy the same amount of replayability that GR did. GR is and has been for a long time I think the benchmark many have used and will continue to use when they compare similiar titles looking for something new and fresh. For mainstream play GR is probably still king out there, though I wouldn't really know at this point and time. Based however on other people's comments on some of the other games out today I would say that hasn't changed.

Stout Hearts

|RE|Warhawk

[Kurtz]

GR coop is the best, but, SWAT 4 coop is very good if you have the right players. That goes for any game, but, get a group of people ready to play like a SWAT team and it is a lot of fun. I have been in games where everyone follows orders and breaches rooms like a team. It is something to see 4 guys stack at a door while 2 others watch other avenues of approach.

[Rocky]

Great responses, I'll e-mail PCZone a reply and see if I can get GR some more airtime

[deleyt]

I'd have to say that GR is one of the best at COOP gameplay compared to the previous games mentioned.

I like to rate coop in two ways:

1) the level of AI to make logical decisions and react to it's surrounding (both friendly and hostile AI)

2) the ability for human players to coordinate their tactics to achieve their goal.

GR stands out in the first case because the engine's AI is able to direct hostile actions towards a reaction "that one could expect".

If the hostile AI got under fire, they ducked, sought cover and returned fire in the direction they got fired upon. After a while they would team up again and slowly start to hunt you down.

The only problem I have with hostile AI, is that it failed to see a desperate situation and adjusting it's plan of attack accordingly.

Instances like where one would get shot coming around a corner, their teammates would still follow the same fate.

That should have been better.

For the second issue I think GR was outstanding because it had a mix of wide open spaces and smaller areas.

The open ranges where extremly suitable for staged attacks where the whole team could set itself up, and let it rip once everybody was set.

In the smaller areas a different kind of teamplay was required because the alleys where often too small to hold a full 9-man squad.

This meant teams had to be divided into smaller squads, working individually but still keep in touch with one 'n other to get maximum result.

But, like many times in the past, GR is not getting the recognition that it deserves.

Most magazines, online mags, game-programmes on TV or ladder-sites only have eye for the more arcadish action-based games like some of the ones that are mentioned above (OFP and SWAT4 being maybe the only real tactical games).

Does GR fit in with the best COOP games around?

Hell yes!

Edited July 30, 2005 by deleyt

[squad_e]

aaah.... The good old days in GR LAN gaming at college was totally awesome!.. We'd just run in a room bang bang bang all tangos gone! In and out!.. Proper fast.. Some fool would let off a grenade indoors and kill the whole team..

It was always on the edge of the seat stuff...

Did anyone play Tribes?

Im not sure about flashpoint.. Ive only had it for 5 weeks

Edited July 31, 2005 by GooseBumps

[chiles4]

I've played a ton of co-op in GR, VietCong, and Swat 4 over the years. And I'd have to say that the co-op in VietCong, in terms of enemy AI, was light-years ahead of that in GR. With their tendency to use cover and flank and simulate human behavior, it often felt as if you were playing human opponents. The phenomenal implementation of iron sights and automatically raising up over cover when you aimed made weapon usage the best of any game I've played.

Swat 4 co-op can be awesome when you use strict team discipline and your goal is to subdue and arrest, not kill, the perps. Taking down a large room with 5 perps and 3 hostages by having one player enter one door and one player enter another door deploying CS is a total rush! But SWAT 4 is so different from any other combat game, you can't make comparisons - suffice to say it's simply awesome. But it takes a HUGE adjustment in how you approach the game. You prove your studliness not by killing perps but by arresting them while they're trying to blow your head off.

Since there's nothing new out there with good co-op, I reloaded GR/DS/IT. My main beef with GR is that there are no firefights per se because the enemy AI is way too accurate when they fire at short or medium range. Couple that with their faster than human reaction speed and it gets very aggravating. One of the strengths of VC was the long intense engagements with both sides make good use of cover.

[Colin]

In answer to your post Rocky, no they dont.