Racing Games with multiplayer career mode?

GoogalyMoogaly · 20 Feb 2011 at 18:29

Hey guys,

Are there any racing games for the XBOX 360 that allow 2 (or more) players to play a Career mode together?

I remember in days gone by me and a friend used to play an International Rally game (by Sierra I think) and Fatal Racing. They both allowed to to race on the same team. This was nice because he was better than me (mostly) and so racing against him got boring, but if we were on the same team it seemed more like we were working together so it kept it interesting.

I was just wondering if there was anything like that out now?
Also, needs to be doable over XBOX LIVE rather than split screen on the same console.

Thanks.

SonicUK · 23 Feb 2011 at 00:15

The only racing games I remember like that are old.

The original Toca and Toca 2 are actually the newest (in terms of release date) racing games I've played to have a co-op career mode. Other gems I remember include the Lotus Turbo Challenge series on Atari St, Amiga and Megadrive, Road Rash 2 and 3 on Megadrive (I own both and highly recommend them to anyone not bothered about modern graphics as the co-op mode is really good fun and surprizingly deep) and Jaguar Xj220 on Amiga and MegaCd (I own this on the MegaCd and its a great co-op racing game).

In a world where more and more devs seem to shoehorn unecessary multiplayer modes into predominately single player games (thus often making the single player experience shorter or worse than it could be by devoting valuable resources to uneeded multiplayer vs modes (Bioshock 2/Assassins Creed Brotherhood I'm looking at you) it seems strange how the last racing games I can think of to have a co-op mode are at least a decade old. Its funny how no one so far had picked up the torch and reused/refined this frankly excellent idea that was once used very successfully. Can you imagine playing Forza or Gt co-op with a mate? That would be awesome!

K1LLSW1TCH · 23 Feb 2011 at 08:29

Wow, Toca and Toca 2, that's a blast from the past, I remember playing it with my cousin when it came out, I was only 8 and we always used to put the cheat in for the tank.

SonicUK · 23 Feb 2011 at 11:17

Yeah, sure is old, as are the other games I've mentioned, but it seems strange that you have to go back in time that far to remember a co-op racing game. Why hasn't anyone else picked up on this idea and made a modern racing game that features co-op?

K1LLSW1TCH · 23 Feb 2011 at 11:23

SonicUK said:
Yeah, sure is old, as are the other games I've mentioned, but it seems strange that you have to go back in time that far to remember a co-op racing game. Why hasn't anyone else picked up on this idea and made a modern racing game that features co-op?

It's probably because there's more of a focus on multiplayer over the net instead of local multiplayer. Shame because games like Micro Machines V3 are what shaped my childhood.

SonicUK · 24 Feb 2011 at 00:14

I hear ya. I grew up with the likes of Centipede, Moon Patrol, etc and in my teenage years Streets Of Rage, Double Dragon, Sonic 2 etc. It was the norm for the vast majority of big name games to have two player co-op regardless of genre. In fact, most games I played back then didn't have a Vs mode, most Multiplayer experiences were co-op. Like the racing games I mentioned before, it seems funny how co-op seems to have mainly been relegated to shooters nowadays.

Multiplayer Vs as I like to call it is all very well and good but depends heavily on the actual game itself for it to be any fun or not. Shoehorning it into every release is becoming increasingly common and in my eyes both unecessary and sometimes detrimental to the games Single Player mode, which I've always maintained is the primary reason for my purchase and a good Online mode is just an added bonus if included at all - on the provision it dosnt make the campaign shorter or worse than it would have otherwise been without it.

Certain games I must admit just wouldnt work with co-op, but equally certain games I'd much rather have a co-op mode than yet another Multiplayer Vs mode I'm not interested in as I already have (and will be getting upon release) many other games that offer a far superior Multiplayer Vs experience than one that has just had a Multiplayer Vs mode chucked in for the sake of it/because devs seem to think that's what's expected nowadays. Driving games especially are lacking in co-op, although in this particular genre I would like the option of both Multiplayer Vs and co-op as both work well in driving games on past experience, and as I said before, I can't believe how devs havn't re-thought about this recently.