Welcome back to our weekend gaming plans thread—as always, tell us your video game-related hopes and dreams in the comments. This weekend, I’m going to fire up the new Gauntlet on the PC (pictured above) and give it a try with my wife, Anna. Although I wouldn’t call myself a Gauntlet aficionado, it’s a cooperative multiplayer game, so I’ll give it a shot. Regular readers of WAYPTW? know that ever since falling in love with Super Mario 3D World last year, I’ve been on the lookout for other games that are fun to play cooperatively with friends and family of different skill levels. They’re hard to find. Kirk Hamilton wrote a piece over at Kotaku earlier this year called “The Best Video Games To Play With A Friend,” and it’s an excellent roundup, as you’d expect from Kirk. My only quibble with it is that a lot of the games he chooses are single-player affairs that he suggests you play by passing the controller between friends.
Passing the controller stinks. It might seem practical and equitable to just alternate lives on a single-player game, but all this does is make you root for your friend to die so that you can have the controller back. I played a lot of games this way with friends in grade school. I have never loved Death Star stormtroopers so much as I did when they were wearing down my middle-school buddy Spencer in Super Star Wars. I succumbed to the Dark Side something fierce, at least until it was my turn again.
But recalling this today got me thinking: Alternating is just one way to MacGyver cooperative multiplayer into a game. I’m betting that Gameological readers have invented other, more creative ways to get friends involved in a game that doesn’t technically support multiplayer. If so, share your ideas down below!