Couch Co-op more fun than online?

I have been playing online with friends and random people for years. Recently after getting the Wii U (which I love) I have been brought back in time it feels like to the days where couch co-op ruled supreme. For me...it has been a reminder of how much more fun games can be while in the same room playing with friends and interacting together. Made a video of me playing 3D world with my girlfriend and sister, check it out!

I'll check out the video but I agree couch co op will always be better in ny opinion. It's just much more fun playing with someone there than simply communicating via headset.

After watching the video I'm reminded of the people complaining of the chaotic multiplayer of 3D World and how it's hard to get things done. But after playing it myself a few times I feel like that's the point of it. Not meant to be a serious way to play or beat the game but just have a blast.

Couch co-op was better when I was ten. Now my friends have full time jobs, are married, some have kids, and the whole "come over and play video games" thing doesn't exist anymore. It's much better to just jump online with a headset for a game or two then get back to other stuff that needs to be done.

@ttualumni13:

Wow you must be really busy, because where I come from people have at least 1 or 2 days free per month or week or something. I tried to play a game with a friend I never see due to marriage and work and such.

It was such a hassle to get each other online in the same room and get everything working properly... Plus the connection issues just ruined the whole thing...

One of us couldve just drove to the others house, played a quick game or 2 no hassle and went back to our normal lives..

I didn't say it was more convenient, or accessible. Just stated that I think it's more fun. If the option was presented, what do you think would be more "FUN".

Let's see, having to share the screen instead of having it all to yourself

Yeah, that's something a 9 year old would be happy with, no one over the age of 10 thinks couch co op is fun.

What's next? Want to make a YouTube video that shows how dial up internet is way more fun than broadband?

Most great co-op games, like 3D World don't split the screen... not sure what your talking about here.... FPS games?!?

Yep couch co-op is more fun indeed but the issue is, WiiU doesn't have many local multiplayer games albeit them advertising themselves as the local co op family gaming company.

I wish it did because I have friends and family coming over all the time and we really don't have much of a selection for local multiplayer on WiiU yet.

This is the reason 3D Worlds lack of online really hurt the overall package for me. Getting gaming friends together at this point in my life to play in person is impossible, and my family couldn't care less about games.

Hanging out in a public area and playing Mario Kart 7 with seven other friends can be hilariously amazing and chaotic, but that's becoming a rarity because of conflicting schedules, responsibilities, and distance issues. Local co-op may be much more fun, but online co-op is much more accessible, and I really wish more games offered both options.

@big_mak523: Even online gaming on the Wii wasnt that huge of a hassle... if it was a huge trouble for you to figure out you've got bigger problems lol..

And yeah, many people are too busy with things that actually matter to meet up just to play video games on the same screen when a quick jump online has the same effect. I'd much rather spend my leisure time on hobbies and doing things instead of sitting on a couch all day :P

the most fun i ever had gamming was playing couch coop with my 2 friends on mario kart64 battle.

and we were all 16 or 17 years old jasonguy...not 9.

playing call of duty online is the closest i have come...its close but not quite there.

Sitting next to the ones you're playing with is always more fun to me. I want to see and hear the expressions of my friends when I kill them.

Couch multiplayer is definitely more fun the online multiplayer, but unfortunately, the days of me getting together with friends after school to play video games are gone.

Now that I'm an adult it is very difficult to get friends together under the same roof to play video games. I can count on my fingers the number of times that I'm able to play couch multiplayer a year; that's why online gaming has become very important to me over this last generation.

Couch co-op is way better than on-line any day. Absolutely no contest. Playing in the same room with your friends and enjoying their company is the best. But these days that may not be possible. So there is on-line to make do.

Having one half or one quarter of a TV is better how?

Being stuck in one portion of the screen because the other player doesn't move quickly enough is fun how?

Having the other player know what set of plays your next play is coming from is good how?

Ok folks, in reality, BOTH are excellent methods of multiplayer gaming. The only time one is better then the other is circumstantial. Cant always drive over to a friends house, cant always get online at the same time as a friend, so depending on which the case may be would explain why one person may prefer one over the other. I like both options and feel there is great need for both, I am slightly saddened that couch co-op does seem to be a thing of the past anything outside of Nintendo games, but oh well, I enjoyed my youth behind the controller, but I dont opine for it to be like it was in the old days because again, here in reality, "Time pass's, things change, like a rivers flow it never ends"-Sheik (LoZOoT)

I say keep up with whatever's most prudent for you personally, and let others do as they will also. I dont understand why everything has to be an internet argument as opposed to a discussion. Jasonguy you seem to take everything personally, and consider all others Mongoloid in their opinions, relax chief, you also don't seem to care much for human contact if your that adamant about giving up half your screen so a real human being could sit next to you and enjoy playing a game, lol.

It would be nice to see more couch co-operable games, developers should keep in mind gamers do enjoy both. :-)

that's what Nintendo wants you to believe..till of course they move to online multiplayer then it will be "yeah! online multiplay is SO much fun!!!!" :P

I prefer couch co-op any day. Wii U makes it easier with the Gamepad acting as a screen for one of the players. I like being able to interact with the other playing in the same space. Online is fine, but I never found it to have the same magic.

If you have people to play with locally frequently then yes it is more fun. But if you don't, obviously online is better.

Couch co op is leagues better and more fun.

It's good that some games still have good local co-op, especially games where all of the players can share the same screen, and not have to use split-screen. Of course with the Wii-U gamepad, I imagine developers could really give two players their own game screen for the game, so they could run around and explore stuff without making each other go off of the screen.

@Jaysonguy: BTW couch gaming is more fun cause think about the joy of having a friend over and eating pizza and drinking coke, you obviously dont know that joy but oh well.

Doing anything with someone you know is more enjoyable than doing it with a stranger.

Sounds like you never had a proper online multiplay with friends, you can set up online multiplay with "friends"..couch co-op is not more fun than online multiplay..they're both as fun as each other.

@superbuuman: Which is more fun than doing it with a stranger. It was a pretty vague and open-ended statement.

@neonakaa: No flaming. Jayson has his way of posting, and it is not against the ToS of the site. Just ignore him if you don't like it.

@Randolph: Fine, ill try. Its just plain annoying how he ''trolls'' (to put it lightly) every thread.

I prefer same room co-op, its always nice when a game supports both options. I particularly hate it when a game omits same room multiplayer in favor of online only.

I guess since this has become a sort of debate about whether offline co-op or online play is more fun, I'd like to weigh in a bit.

Personally, I think both can be enjoyable. But I think I've had negative experiences with both as well, and much of the time I'd just rather play a single-player game.

With online gaming, I think some of you raised good points about it being easier to play games with people and not having to go to their house to play a game. If you have like two hours in the evening to sit down and play a game with a buddy, you can call them up and get a game going and jump right into things. You don't have to share an Internet connection or hardware, you have your own screen, and you can chat over a mic or keyboard.

With couch co-op, I especially prefer it when both players share the screen and don't have to play split-screen, and it's more fun when you're playing a co-op game with your spouse or friend right there. Couch co-op can be more spontaneous - you usually don't have to plan it out, and both of you just decide to play some games sometime during a visit. And a lot of the time, you don't even need to go online to play couch co-op.

I think playing games online with friends is more fun than playing with strangers. However, there may be some debate to this, since some of my best online gaming experiences were had when I played Halo 3 campaign and Halo 3 ODST firefight online with groups of complete strangers, who were surprisingly polite I might add. By contrast, I usually had a really difficult time gathering around all of my friends and convincing them to play games with me. WOW is a good example - usually there would only be like one other friend around at a time and they'd hang out with me, but nobody else would want to play in a group with us. We also had trouble finding polite strangers to play in groups with on WOW. I think good teamwork is much harder to achieve with more than two players.

I guess I've always been really partial to handheld game systems like the 3DS because you have your own game system, controller and screen in one device, and you can do offline co-op much more efficiently. Having your own screen is nice, but being right there near the people you're playing a game with is also really nice. I remember on Advance Wars you could play a multiplayer match with one game system and one game card, and take turns commanding your units with your friend and the CPU. That was really cool. It reminds me of the days back on the NES, Genesis and SNES when player 1 and player 2 would take turns in games - also a really nice alternative to split-screen sometimes. It gave games a more 'arcade-like' feel. And that works out alright when you're hanging out with a pal and shooting the breeze, and taking turns to get through a really tough game on a day off.

Couch co-op > all

Life is always more fun with a friend or two.

You're trying way too hard now.

Of course couch co-op is the best. But TC, whether you want to deny the fact that it's impractical in this day and age for the majority of people with busy lives, it is. Nintendo's admirable in their philosophy here, but they're not being realists, and they are suffering for it.