As you might recall, Infinity Ward decided to cut cooperative play from Modern Warfare 2's story mode and opted to create the Spec Ops mode to satisfy the need for friendly shoot-the-bad-dudes action.
IW's Robert Bowling has once again gone on the record to defend the decision. Campaign co-op "ruined the experience," he explained to VG247. Bowling says "it really broke the cinematic experience, took the immersion out of it, out of the story and the pacing and everything we’d spent so long crafting."
"It just ruined the experience we were aiming for, so we took it out, kept the single-player for that one player intact and polished it." Generally speaking I would say making co-op optional -- so long as it scales correctly difficulty-wise -- wouldn't hurt anyone.
But in the case of Infinity Ward, I can see where they are coming from. For instance, what if the incredible nuclear explosion aftermath sequence from Modern Warfare had been co-op enabled? How exactly would that work?
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Contest:
6:00 PM on 10.15.2009
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Why would it matter if players could experience it together for a laugh and the fully fleshed out single player campaign (with cutscenes etc) on their own?
Not much of an impact if you and some buds are all:
"OH SHIT SON! LOLOLOLOL"
I say keep co-op for FPS-lite games like Halo/Killzone (and Serious Sam!), and leaving the heavy, story-driven campaigns for solo play.
People should just be glad that IW even cared enough to put in a cooperative-like mode at all. That shows right there that at least they care enough about the gamer to not short change us entirely.
You unlock co-op once you have completed the story.
Everybody wins.
SO agreed with Kalmah - i'm definitely a fan of the trend leaning towards tailored co-op campaigns separate from the original campaign. Spec-Ops is big, too. And long. (Apparently roughly equaling the length of the main campaign to get through all of them? Or something like that.) Good stuff.
That being said, if I want cinematic I play alone. I want to have fun with friends, I play with them. Separate missions for co-op is cool but the more options the better. If I get as much or more play out of Spec-Ops than I do with the single player then I'll be satisfied.
Co-op does not detract from single player in any way. Just be cause I CAN play co-op, doesn't mean I HAVE to. IW's reasoning is pure BS.
I'm all for a dramatic, cinematic experience, but it should be up to me, the customer, whether I want to take your game that seriously or not. And as others have said, giving players the option of co-op gives your campaign legs and ensures it will get replayed after I've beaten it solo a few times.
Halo ODST's narrative is clearly intended for a single player story. It doesn't even make sense in co-op. But you know what? It's fucking fun. I've played through it solo and with friends, and I can tell you the fact that the game included the OPTION of co-op in no way detracted from the single player narrative.
IW is making the game and they can make it however they want, but please don't spout BS reasons for not including co-op in the campaign. Not everyone is a gullible, braindead COD fanboy.
I'm not into action games mostly, but Call of Duty series is the phenomenon of modern action games.
I just hope that when MW2 comes out, they'll move forward in terms of innovations and game design as a whole. IW has a lot of potential, so I hope they will not waste it on pleasing masses with one franchise.
- we can hold each other hands and die happily.
I think that's where you and IW have a fundamental difference in what you're looking for out of storytelling.
Flashback missions perhaps?
Let's be honest, if the Singleplayer is less than 7 hours (as the first was), we'll have to wonder what the hell they've been working on the last two years!