15 Most Memorable Co-op Games from the Sega Genesis to the Xbox

What's the finest co-op experience you remember?

I used to run Payday 2 levels with my friends for hours after school. Does anyone have anything similar?

I know that people aren’t as fond on these Resident Evil titles as much as the older ones, but I had a blast playing Resident Evil 5 and 6 with my brother. Scared to death while trying to solve puzzles is something I look back at fondly.

I remember watching Youtubers play Resident Evil and 6 always seemed like it went between tense horror and emulating a Michael Bay film

Went to a barcade event and a friend and I finally Spider-Man: The Arcade game. It took quite a few quarters.

Without a doubt it would be playing Toe Jam and Earl on the Sega Genesis. The game takes a lot of inspiration from rogue-likes with it's randomly generated levels, random presents are like unidentified items, you can level up to get more life. You need to explore uncharted levels to find all your spaceships parts to get back home. The levels are like dungeon floors, but you take an elevator upwards and can fall off the side of levels and drop back down a level. It has great music, sfx, art and animation. Really goofy and light-hearted fun for all ages.

Also from the same era, for the Super Nintendo Entertainment system was Zombies Ate My Neighbors.. similar aesthetics even more visually appealing I'd say. Loads of great artwork are in this one. Lots of secrets to discover. It's more about shooting baddies up a bit like Smash TV or Gauntlet.

The Sven Co-op mod for the original Half-Life was a good time too, could host a lot more friends and randoms to play through the levels that required team work to get through the levels and unlock gates to allow other players to continue.

New Super Mario bros on the ds or lego star wars. I loved both coop experiences, having played countless hrs with my sister playing both games.

I've never head of those games, richard-kubina. I notice that both of these games have very strong exploration mechanics that were absent in many of the co-op games I've played. Was it a staple of co-op games during that era?

good question! I reckon there was a good mix. Like I can think of other "co-op" games that didn't really have you explore and were more like a single track ride, but maybe those are hardly considered co-op since you didn't really have to work together as much as just take out all the baddies... games like like streets of rage, teenage mutant ninja turtles, sunset riders.

the only other co-op that had you exploring I can think of is Secret of Mana, that was a full blown JRPG experience!

Great question!!!! There are so many answers here. I'd say Halo 2, Army of Two, Castle Crashers, and just basic Call of Duty co-op campaigns have been really fun for me.

Playing couch co-op castle crashers with 3 of my cousins on the xbox 360 is one of my fondest gaming memories.

I remember watching people play Army of Two on YouTube! I even remember scissors-paper-stone being used as a minigame in the sequel. I didn't get the chance to play it myself, but I can imagine why it's up there on your list