Return to Castle Wolfenstein

For this blog I am going to be covering one game, Return to Castle Wolfenstein. This game, like Halo1 and 2, has an offline cooperative campaign mode. When I say it has an offline cooperative campaign mode, I mean that you can play through the actual game that you would normally play in single player mode, but instead with two people on the same xbox without needing xbox live. This game was actually pretty enjoyable. Its a game that is set in Europe during the World War II era. It revolves around the nazi campaign to discover the supernatural. The nazis apparently end up uncovering zombies and its your job to stop them. The gameplay is a lot like the original Call of Duty games except you'll mostly be fighting against zombies and spending most of your time exploring tombs and catacombs. There are a few different types of zombies you'll come across, some more annoying than others. The game isnt terrible difficult since who have an unlimited amount of lives. Each level has several checkpoints within them and everytime you or your partner dies you get placed at the last checkpoint you reached. The checkpoints are pretty well seperated so that you won't have to repeat very much. The only thing that is super annoying about the cooperative mode of this game is that you can't play with a partner until after you've completed the game in single player mode because you have to unlock each level and its checkpoints. This isn't necessarily a difficult task. I simply played through the game with a god mode cheat and it took me a couple of hours to complete but I was able to study each level and have an easier time completing them in cooperative mode. So if I had to rate this game I would give it an 8.5 out of 10 simply for the inconvience that is posed by being forced to play through the single player mode before enjoying the cooperative, but it is worth it to do this.

Halo 1 and 2

The Halo series has been one of great success. When the classic Xbox was released Halo was one of the first games for it. Its almost safe to say that Halo was one of the main reasons the Xbox did as well as it did. One of the reasons Halo did so well is because of its two player coop feature. For most people Halo is one of the first coop games they play. I played this game with my girlfriend and was hooked. Right after we finished the first one we started playing the second. Both games are extremely fun. I play games for they're stories. This game has incredible cut scenes that explain the story really well. There is really nothing you won't like about either of these games except maybe the ending of Halo 2. If you are one of those people who likes to play single player games and has never really tried any multiplayer cooperative, the Halo series is a great place to start. So on the off chance that you have a classic Xbox and have not played Halo then you should'nt wait any longer.

The List

Here are some of the cooperative games I will hopefully be playing and reviewing. I don't own all of them yet but I'm working on it and the next blog I'll review the first two games in the list Halo 1 and 2.

Halo
Halo 2
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Time Splitters Future Perfect
Medal of Honor Rising Sun
Hunter the Reckoning Redeemer
Psi Ops
Time Splitters 2
Batman Rise of Sin Tzu
Xmen Legends 1
Xmen Legends 2
Brute Force
First to Fight
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
Hunter the Reckoning
Men of Valor
Fantastic Four
Brother in Arms Earned in Blood
Blinx 2
Doom 3
Stubbs the Zombie
Justice League Heroes
Lego Star Wars
Lego Star Wars 2
Destroy All Humans 2

Reiteration

Let me explain in more detail exactly what my motive for creating this blogspot is. I was once just a normal Xbox owner who played games for their single player campaign. I enjoy playing games for their cinematics and the satisfaction of completing the game. The only multiplayer game I ever really played on Xbox was Halo 2. This was the first game I bought when I acquired my Xbox. I had never played through the single player campaign because I was waiting to get the first one. One day I finally bought Halo Combat Evolved. I asked my girlfriend if she wanted to play through the game with me. She always hates being forced to watch me play Xbox with my friends and without her, so this was a way that she could join in. Naturally she wasn't very good at first, but she was willing to work at getting better and I was willing to be patient with her for the sake of doing something we can both enjoy. So after we both battled throught the cooperative mode of both Halo 1 and 2 we were searching for more games that could provide us with a similar experience. Like everyone else I decided to google the words "Xbox Cooperative Games". I was slightly disappointed in the results. There were several forums where people had stated that they were in almost the same situation as I was. I felt the responses they received on the forums weren't sufficient. So I did a great amount of research on many gaming web sites such as GameSpot.com. My next blog will include a list of Xbox cooperative games for the Xbox that I will hopefully get around to playing if I haven't already. Each consecutive blog after the next one will cover a couple games at a time as I reveiw them and give people advice on whether or not they're worth the time. My hopes in creating these blogs are that people will have a place to go to if they get into the predicament I was in.

Classic Xbox for the Soul

Some people would probably proclaim that the Xbox (not 360) is an outdated system. Technically it is out of date, but one can still play several quality games for it. Most of the games that have had the biggest impact in the history of the Xbox were games that had outstanding multiplayer with plenty of gametype options. Thanks to Xbox live most of those multiplayer games could be experienced over the internet, but there were some that could also be played offline. Playing with someone over the internet that you may or may not know with only a microphone between you is just not the same as playing cooperatively or competetively against the person sitting right beside you. If you're one of those people who for some reason hasn't picked up an Xbox 360 yet and are still holding onto the classic Xbox I'm going to write several blogs about many offline cooperative games that can be fun for a small group of people. Lets face it you won't find many people to still playing online games that have been around for almost 8 years so this blogspot will be focused towards people looking to get 2 - 4 people settled in front of a tv for an excellent game experience that doesn't always require an ethernet cable.