10 Awesome Old-School Video Game Features We Don't See Anymore

The term “Couch co-op” is itself a relatively recent creation which distinguishes this brand of multiplayer action from the more prevalent online play.

Back in the good old days, couch co-op was simply co-op, as there existed no other method for playing games in a group or duo.

Handing your brother or sister a second controller (usually the cheap third party one held together with sellotape), you would sit side by side, unblinking as you worked together to take down waves of grunts in Streets of Rage or, playing as Sonic and Tails, speeding through zones and collecting rings to put an end to Dr Robotnik's dastardly schemes.

From a hardware point of view, this interpersonal gaming model is the very reason consoles shipped with two controllers out of the box and housed multiple controller ports.

Today, such social teamwork is practically extinct outside of the Lego games from Traveller's Tales, and a select few which use the drop in/drop out feature as seen recently in the Pokémon Let's Go games on Switch, where a second player can join the action to aid the main protagonist.

Whilst this should not necessarily paint a lamentable picture, as global connectivity is truly wondrous and indicative of the rapid advancement of modern technology, the virtual extinction of couch co-op has left a huge hole in the overall gaming portfolio, despite the best efforts of indie developers and good old Nintendo to keep this genre alive.