I’m trying to think of local coop games I can try with my wife, who is a non gamer, that I can use the Steam streaming so we can play on our TV. I don’t think she’d want anything too difficult, but also not something mindless either. I played a lot of Rayman Origins / Legends with my son so I was considering that. I’ve probably got some games that bounced off of me for solo play but might work in coop, I just can’t think of what they might me. I didn’t see anything that allowed me to search my Steam library for games that support local coop. Any ideas?
Search your library by tag with this tool: http://www.lorenzostanco.com/lab/steam/
Edit: Click the “local co-op” tag
Pretty cool. Thanks!
If anyone has any favorite local coop games feel free to recommend them, even if I don’t already have them! I bolded the ones that I played a significant amount of the single player so I’ve got a good idea how they play, but have no idea how they do as coop.
The ones I have that the above link says have local coop are:
Borderlands, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Child of Light, Dungeon Defenders, Full Mojo Rampage, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, Left 4 Dead 2, Magika, Monaco, Orcs Must Die 2, Pixel Junk Monsters Ultimate, Portal 2, Rayman Legends and Origins, Resident Evil 5, Sonic All Star Racing Transformed, Spelunky, Trine, Trine 2
The Lara Croft games are fantastic and I’m sure would be a BALL co-op. They’re action shooty games with lots of environmental puzzles, so I don’t know if your wife would like that or not. It can get challenging, but I would think it would feel a lot less stressful with a companion.
I came here to recommend Rayman Legends, Lara Croft: Guardian of the light and Monaco and can see they’re already mentioned. All worked really well co-op with my GF. (Well, Rayman: O is currently working really well, as I’m finally playing it on the Wii U). So I suggest you start bolding those in the list and stop bolding the others ;)
Divinity also went down really well, though you need two copies of that and two computers, so it’s not really “local” like you’re after.
ps: About streaming to your TV. How are you doing it? Have you done it before? I found doing something like Steam streaming from my main computer to a laptop hooked up to the TV to be too laggy. Simply hooking up the computer itself via a really long HDMI cable, or suffering with the laptop’s performance, to be far more preferable.
edit: Oh, the LEGO games went down well. I can’t remember which ones we co-oped. Definitely the first Harry Potter one…
I am planning on using the Steam streaming, so it may put a crimp in my plans if it is too laggy. I’ve got my main gaming computer hooked up to my TV computer via one of those networks that use the electrical lines. Maybe it will be less laggy than wireless, who knows.
I have a bunch of the Lego games for my son, but I don’t really like them (and don’t think my wife would either). I’ll probably start with Rayman since I’ve co-oped that before (locally but not using streaming), and then try some of the others mentioned like LAra Croft and Monaco is that does well.
Brothers is a singleplayer game. It emulates cooperation by having one side of the controller control one character and the other side the other character, but it is designed to be played solo. I guess you could hold a controller between you but it would be awkward and kind of subvert the intended experience.
Sonic Racing Transformed is pretty awesome if you like racing games with the wife. Any lag might ruin it though. I remember playing Burnout 3 with my wife and just the TV’s input lag was enough to kill it for us.
Monaco is the best co-op game I’ve ever played. Can’t think of a challenger; me and two friends spent a lot of good hours with that game.
Rayman Origins and Legends, hands down.
With Monaco my girlfriend had real difficulty parsing the visuals. That said, I don’t think it was really her bag.
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light is a solid recommendation from what I played. A nice blend of action and puzzles, though I did hear it gets very difficult near the end. If you’re a fan of that then I’d also recommend FORCED (I wrote about it here). That could also be tough.
Sonic & All-star Racing Transformed is my favourite kart racer and features split-screen co-op for the World Tour mode (which is fantastic). Playing together would be great practice for racing against each other too ;-)
I own Tiny Brains, which looks like a clever little co-op puzzler for up to 4 players involving super-powered lab mice. Been meaning to play it for a while now. There’s a demo too.
Jamestown co-op was awesome and just accessible enough for a buddy of mine to get into it.
Outliers: Risk of Rain (a little wonky for local co-op though), Renegade Ops
Not played suggestions: Chariot!! Nuclear Throne? Trine? Guacamelee? The Cave? Towerfall? Never Alone? The Yawhg? Shiftlings?
Edit: actually, some of those games may be a bit tricky, but check 'em out; most of them should be fine. I know it’s difficult trying to get the right game to play with your partner. Rayman was such a success that my girlfriend and I completed and collected everything in both games together. An awesome experience.
Edit edit: check out Co-optitude with Felicia and Ryon Day. Pretty entertaining and a good stop for local co-op.
Picked up Forced and Castle Crashers to add to the list. I think I’ve probably got a pretty good selection for the time being. Now hopefully Steam streaming cooperates.
Spelunky is a blast but might end up being a little too difficult. Try it anyway. The Trine games should be perfect as well.