Ten Four-Player Greats

Online multiplayer is arguably the most significant advancement that
games have made in modern times. But online play is not a complete
substitution for the good old-fashioned local multiplayer experience. In
other words, to quote Monty Burns from The Simpsons, gaming still
requires occasions wherein we "can relish the sights, the sounds, and,
ah yes, the smells of other men."


(And women.)


That's why simultaneous four-player local multiplayer gaming is as
popular as ever. We've drawn up a list of ten of the best cooperative
and competitive four-player gaming experiences that you can have while
actually driving your elbows into the ribs of Player 2, swearing at
Player 3, and spitting on Player 4.

Gears of War 3 wraps up its current story arc with a whole lot of
shooting and blood-letting thanks in part to its offline four-player
cooperative campaign. This is a significant improvement from Gears of
War 2, which only allowed for a two-player cooperative campaign. Double
your pleasure, double your count of Locust hides.

Rayman: Origins
is a colorful, fun, four-player romp through magical ruins and forests.
Its multi-platform release ensures that everyone will have a chance at
bossing around Rayman and his pals. The Rabbids won't be on-hand as a
player option, though, as two or more Rabbids occupying the same space
on the screen would cause the whole adventure to implode upon itself.

In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, up to four players can cooperate to bring
Princess Peach back home from captivity. We suggest giving in to your
dark side by picking up Player 4 and throwing him or her into the
nearest lava pit, though. Pretty clever of Nintendo to implement the
gameplay options we wished we had as far back as the first day we played
two-player on Super Mario Bros.

Kirby, bad-ass though he may be, occasionally needs a little help from
his friends. In Return to Dreamland, he teams up with King Dedede, a
spear-toting Waddle Dee, and Metaknight to help a stranded alien
re-assemble his smashed ship. Player One automatically defaults to
Kirby, but the good news is that everyone else can take up the mantle of
Metaknight and simply cut everything up until Dreamland is awesome
again.

For many of us, our first local multiplayer experience happened before
we were tall enough to peer over the controls of Konami's various
four-player arcade consoles. But dammit, we tried, and it was worth the
strain on our ligaments. Konami arcade classics like Turtles in Time,
The Simpsons, and X-Men are still celebrated as some of the best
side-scrolling beat-em-ups of all time. The small details granted to
each franchise, like the Turtles' trademark weapons and the X-Men's
mutant powers, only made the experience more awesome. And, hey, we got
some good quotes out of the deal, too. Welcome to die!

Sometimes, a Lombax needs some help in life--even if he didn't ask for
it. All 4 One is a cooperative platforming game that teams up Ratchet,
his pal Clank, the chicken-hearted Qwark, and the nefarious Dr.
Nefarious as all four attempt to save themselves and the universe from
certain disaster.

Since its initial release for Xbox Live Arcade in 2008, Castle Crashers
has been regarded as the "go-to" game for hack-n-slash side-scrolling
local multiplayer fun. Four knights set out on a cartoony but
blood-soaked adventure to rescue four princesses from an evil
maiden-napping wizard who also has a thing for stealing gems that don't
belong to him. If you and your pals manage to save the day, you're in
luck: There is one princess for each of you. Hope you enjoy comedy in
the bedroom.

Forget everything action movies told you. If you get stuck in the middle
of a zombie outbreak, there's no way you're going to avoid winding up
with a big, gangrenous bite mark on the side of your head. If you want
to escape with your brainmeat intact, you'll need help. Valve's Left 4 Dead
is a first-person shooter that thrusts you in the middle of a disease
outbreak that inspires its victims to behave in a zombie-like manner.
You're teamed up with three survivors/friends who (hopefully) want to
survive as badly as you do. Your survival depends on their will to live:
If they're overtaken by apathy, you might have a problem.

GoldenEye is a little different from the rest of the games on this list.
Its four-player local multiplayer was strictly competitive; any
cooperation was limited to helping each other pump lead into each
others' kneecaps. Nevertheless, Rare's classic first-person shooter
deserves a pat on the back for revolutionizing console-based local
multiplayer. Thank you, Rare
and Nintendo, for demonstrating that the power of socialization and
"friendship" will always trump silly things like deadlines, exams, and
assignments.

Though the original 2002 release of Zelda: Four Swords for the Game Boy
Advance was a lot of fun, it was difficult to scrape together the play
requirements (four Game Boy Advance units, four copies of the game, four
friends--oh, don't have four of those, do you? Nyuk nyuk!). Nintendo's
re-release of the game for the Nintendo 3DS and DSi makes it much easier
for you and your buddies to compete for Princess Zelda's love. For one
thing, the game is free to download until next year. You can't make it
any easier than that.