The Co-op Experience

Once again, I have been slacking with my posts. But this time, Time itself isn't the only issue. As most of you know, the Playstation Network has been down a lot lately, and now it is undergoing maintenance. The first few days of connection issues was reportedly from DDoS attacks on Sony's server. People claiming to be outraged by Sony's actions against the Mod Community, decided to show their feelings by shutting down Sony's online servers and websites. This not only hurt Sony's image(as planned), but any innocent bystander that wanted to play their games online suffered too. And even more recently, there have been security threats to Sony's User Account Access. Since this is a threat to the customers, Sony had to shut down the servers for maintenance, meaning once again, I can't play games Online. For the server attacks, it is stupid for anyone to think they are doing other's a favor on an issue that effects less than 5% of the players. I don't really want to get into how I feel about Modding video game systems, but what I can say is that when your modding affects other people, then there is a problem.

Basically, people suck(except you guys). Another person that doesn't suck at life is Chelsea, which brings us to the point of this post. Since I can't play MAG with strangers online, I have resorted to playing local co-op with my girlfriend at home! We haven't played a new release together, as most of my latest games are single player or have a ridiculous skill curve. I did manage to go out and buy one thing that puts us on the same level of joy and difficulty.

Neither of us have ever played Portal 1. I know all about it and the premise of the puzzles, but I have never actually played the game. The PS3 version of Portal comes with a code for Steam, an online platform for games. With that, you're supposed to be able to play Portal 2 on your PC and play with others who are on the PS3. So the idea was to have Chelsea on the computer, while I play on the TV. Unfortunately, the PSN is all out of wack so that didn't happen. We are playing Split-screen on the TV though, which is good enough for now. The Co-op campaign is not the same as the single player. In Co-op, you plays as the blue and orange robots, and complete a series of missions from a Hub. The missions are "Tests" designed by Aperture scientist for humans to complete, but obviously robots are better. As far as I have seen, no mission is soloable, and requires at least 1 portal from your partner to complete. It could be something as simple as them shooting it while you hold on to a ball, or as complex as overlaying portals.

We probably aren't experts at the game. Right now we are in the 3rd Mission set, which are Light Bridges. It is a pretty cool idea, there are bridges of light that come from a bulb, and extend until it hits an opaque surface. Using portals, you can extend the bridge "indefinitely." The bridge will also protect you against turret fire if it is veritcal. It still takes us a bit of time to clear a level even with the "advantage" of talking about it face to face. Hey, we're noobs so we're allowed to take our time.

Figuring out how to do that probably took us 15 minutes.

The game is surprisingly good. Portal always had a bit of comedy behind its characters, so when I bought it for Chelsea, I was afraid she wouldn't get into it. Luckily for me, she was laughing in the first 10 minutes of the game. If any of you readers have a gamer girlfriend who has very strict tastes, try out Portal 2.

Her favorite game is Legend of Mana, even though we have lots of other great games she could choose from. Mana is also a Co-op game and it is from Squaresoft, back before they became Square Enix(whatever that means). The premise of this game is that you have a character, and there are just tons of quests and content to go through. You sort of "build" the world and quests based on your interactions with other characters. If you kill off someone, you may miss a quest or a whole town later. If you befriend a certain character, you may be able to quest with them whenever you want, which brings the co-op element in. Many of the quests give you a character who will help you complete it, usually the one that gave you the quest in the first place. You can set an option in-game so that the 2nd character is controlled by the 2nd controller. This way, the first player will always play the main character, and control the skills, magic and weapons he uses and the second player will be using many different characters, all with different weapons and abilities. In between quests you get to breed pets! (Gift Idea Go!). Your pet will fight alongside the two of you, well if it isn't timid, and comes in many shapes and sizes. If quests and pets aren't enough for you, there is "legendary item hunting and crafting" in the form of spirits and instruments. Spirits are found on dungeon maps, based on how you create your world map(town and dungeon placement.) If I remember correctly, you trade in spirits that you find for coins. Those coins are used with items you collect to create magical instruments. Each instrument does radically different things and I haven't played the game nearly enough to know what they do. Basically, Legend of Mana is an original sand-box dream and there aren't too many games out there like it. Especially ones that allow 2 people to play.

No one is home right now and PSN is still down. I won't be able to play co-op anything. In other gaming news, I am about half way through the last trophy in Bayonetta. That is beating the game on Infinity Climax difficulty. It isn't the most difficult thing in the entire world, but it is pretty tough. The key is using counter attacks with the Moon accessory and Dodge Offsets to extend your combos. Remember, I am not using cheat codes to platinum this game, as it is not necessary. After that, if the PSN is still down, I am tempted to go back to Sonic Unleashed or Mirror's Edge. We all know why I'm having trouble with Unleashed(Eggmanland), but Mirror's Edge is a different story. I'll get some news on those as they unfold.