My girlfriend and I have been thoroughly enjoying the Lego games (Star Wars/Indiana Jones/Batman) and I’ve been at a loss to find other similar games that are fun for two players. I have an Xbox, PS2, and Wii, so anything on those systems is fair game.
The trick here is something that is enjoyable across the gender gap. Gears of War, for example, is a great coop game, but not something she’d be interested in. So ideally something with a bit of story, but where the second player is not also a second-class citizen would be great.
We tried that around here and it was generally unsatisfying. There’s just too much downtime for anyone who isn’t guiding the story.
Around here the preferred co-op games are action RPG’s. There’s two major loosely connected series that I’d particularly point out. The first are the Marvel comics based ones which run X-Men Legends 1 & 2 (PS2, Gamecube, and XBox) then Marvel Ultimate Alliance (add the XBox 360 on there which is the version I’d go for) and there’s a sequel to that coming out in about two months. There obviously are some scaling problem if you want it to be comics accurate (Thor and Daredevil being equally effective, for example) but the games are fast paced, have a lot of interesting decisions for players to make, and are fun romps through most of the Marvel Universe. The other major series are Snowblind’s games which are Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 1 & 2 (PS2, Gamecube, and XBox) and Champions of Norrath 1 & 2 (PS2 only). They’re more traditional fantasy but don’t have anything close to the volumes of character options as the superhero games do.
If you want something a little more beat-'em-up I have my own peculiar fondness for the Dynasty Warriors series which runs into about two dozen games at this point (sadly I’m not exaggerating there; they’ve really milked this thing dry) but the four major lines are Dynasty Warriors (based on the novel Romance of Three Kingdoms), Samurai Warriors (based on the Japan’s Sengoku period), Gundam Warriors (obviously based on Gundam), and Warriors Orochi (which just says “Screw it!” to the concept of setting and mashes up everything). And when I say “based” I mean “loosely associated with the concept”. So you have an ancient warrior who is placed in a big open area that is something like a historical battle for the first two games and your characters have to beat up the opposing army. Some people find that it gets repetitive quickly though I’ve found in the more effective editions that the changing battle conditions makes it interesting (you’ll often have special goals if you want to repeat history or try to change it). If you’re concerned about your girlfriend I’ll tell you that I was introduced to the games by a woman and played through most of them with her. My personal favorite of the series is the first Samurai Warrior game (PS2, XBox) mainly because instead of having an obscenely high number of playable characters they concentrated on making the battles dynamic. The third game in the Dynasty Warriors series (PS2 only) also lets you play with history quite a bit. And watch out for the Empires series; they’re a hybrid strategy action game that’s really only for one player.
And hey, if you want to give a shooter a go the Ghostbusters game is going to be released tomorrow and I know for a fact that the Wii version will have a coop mode (that’s what we’re doing here next weekend). I’m not sure about the Xbox 360 version but I suspect it’s the same situation.
Well, the Vesperia style play isn’t for everyone, but I don’t know about too much “downtime”; Does it really -matter- who controls you when you run up to each person in town and talk to them? Non-combat time in most RPGs is pretty much downtime even when you’re -playing- it. Anyway, I suppose if you don’t like Vesperia’s multiplaying, you won’t like it in Tales of the Abyss either, since it’s the same style.
Outside of those, the obvious suggestion for me in this thread is Castle Crashers (XBLA) which is actually multiplayer with up to 4 folks, local or networked, though one could make a case for the co-op play in We <3 Katamari (PS2) (Two people driving one Katamari and screaming “LEFT! LEFT! No, no back up!!!” at one another) too.
It’s a safe bet that this suggestion is a gentle poke at the idea of non-competitive multiplayer games.
Nah, I’m just pullin’ your leg. Extreme Chicken Farming is a great game. (I was a bit disappointed with Extreme Chicken Farming II: Assault & Battery Hens, though.)
Sorry if you answered this and I missed it, but are you looking for single-box or multi-box co-op?
If the former, one of the funnest experiences you can have (in either co-op or single-player) is with Earth Defense Force 2017 for the Xbox 360. Most underrated game ever. The graphics are mediocre. There are technical glitches. The plot is laughable and the voice acting would make a B-movie actor scoff. Yet it’s just amazing, mind-blowing fun. You’re mowing down unbelievably large hordes of giant ants and spiders with a huge assortment of weapons, while being able to knock down every structure in sight. What could be better? (You might have a hard time finding it. It’s worth it.)
If the latter, I highly recommend Saints Row 2. Yes, it’s not exactly a chick game. Yes, it’s bloody and violent. But it’s a lot of fun, and also hilariously funny. There’s an amazing degree of freedom in character customization and activity options.
I’ve known this couple for 20 years. They’ve been married about that long. He’s always been a gamer, she’s a casual gamer at best and would play co-op games when we could find them (RPG’s mostly) and games like Tiger Woods golf are her speed. She has never, EVER liked first person shooters because she felt she had no skill and they were too violent.
I am a co-op fanatic. I love co-op games as does the husband in this couple. We’ve been gaming together since the days of KALI and Diablo on the PC. When L4D came out I was blown away. He was on the fence about it (zombies? really?) so I bought the jerk a copy on the spot and called it a christmas gift so we could play. He had so much fun he got a copy for his wife the next day and begged her to try it out. He didn’t force her to play mind you, but he told her how much fun it was because of the extreme cooperative nature of the game. We ended up spending the entire day playing, and she’s been playing regularly ever since.
Left 4 Dead is co-op with a capital CO. You must cooperate to win, have to watch each others’ backs, heal each other and pull each other from the grasp of the bad guys. You can be the ultimate badass zombie hunter if you like, but for her the big attraction of the game is saving the lives of her husband and friends. It’s very rewarding in a way most shooters aren’t.
Rent L4D and give it a shot, you never know. She might just go for it. The wife in the above scenario wouldn’t play Gears either. But she says she can’t wait for Left 4 Dead 2 to come out in November. It’s quite remarkable.
Then again your GF might be traumatized and never talk to you again, but hey at least you get to play Left 4 Dead.
I don’t mean to prosthletyze, but might I suggest Resident Evil 5? You can get it for Xbox 360, and the game is really designed for co-op play. It can be played by one person, but then your partner is controlled by the AI, which is uneven in its “I”.
Anyway, RE5 would be great fun for two people, in my humble opinion.
There’s also another one I’ve seen but never played–Army of Two I don’t really know other gamers where I am, so I never got interested in it. But it might be an option.
Oh, no, we loved it. It was a great game to play together - what did you dislike about it? We replayed it and replayed it and bought all the weapons and I blinged out everything I owned (over his sighs, of course).
IN fact I came in just to recommend that game. I have really liked two FPS in my life. Army of 2 was one. Modern Warfare (I think that’s the name) was the other.
Non-combat time in most RPGs is pretty much downtime even when you’re -playing- it. 
