Coop: Rollin' with my mf strap on the side of me..

Had a nice day out yesterday, went over to a mate's place to do some serious gaming. The presence of a Wii with an ample library plus the promise of a 360 in the horizon made it an attractive proposition, plus it was an opportunity to barter away (and by barter i mean donate) my Edge collection that turned out to weight about the same as an armor clad giant gorilla.

Anyhoo, we spun through a few Wii titles, a few of which were not too bad. Seriously though, Nintendo really need to get some juicier titles out real soon, the lack of killer apps is getting embarrasing.. especially considering the very high sales figures the system has seen since launch. Games like Cooking Mama are a fun idea but they drive me a little nuts after a while. More fun, however, was had when we came into possession of a 360 and sat down to grind through Rainbow Six Vegas in coop.

Traditionally I haven't been much into these kinds of titles with the notable exception of Splinter Cell. The realistic setting and war focused theme never appealed too much to me, but I was willing to give it a spin. Plus, coop gaming is usually good fun. It also helped that we were running the game on a big-ass hdtv and a surround sound system, split screen doesn't seem so bad when each split is as big as a regular TV. In contrast to my expectations this game turned out to be great fun! Whereas I am hardly the most talented FPS player out there we managed to apply good tactics and weapon choices in such a manner that the game stayed consistently enjoyable for several hours. Playing the game in coop also allows for nice tactical possibilities, with assaults orchestrated in a coordinated and structured fashion.

It runs on the Unreal 3 engine (same as Gears of War) so it was quite good looking, save a few attrocious textures. Ubisoft have also implemented cover-based gaming elements similar to Gears of War making it very nicely playable and also allowing for some more structured tactics. The setting was initially just OK but as we got to the Vegas part this really improved, changing both the feel and pace of the game quite substantially. What stuck out as the real star of the game was however the sound design. Excellent effects coupled with the environment affecting acoustics made it highly realistic and involving. The sound of a gunshot ringing through a large trainyard or between the walls of run-down mexican houses was at times truly astounding.

Yeah yeah, it's yet another franchise game but Ubisoft are cooler than EA and this one was easily worth the time.

As a sidenote I would like to mention Guitar Hero II for the 360. I played this a fair bit when I visited Oslo recently and that shit is seriously addictive when you get into it. The difference between this version and the one for PS2 are negligible but one cold hard benefit remains firmly with the 360 version: downloadable content baby, downloadable content.