Needed co-op because: we would have had an excuse to run through the campaign yet again.

Make no mistake, CoD 4 suffered naught by excluding co-op. The tightly constructed missions and acutely focused level design made the solo experience one of our favorite campaigns of all time. However… you are surrounded by a crew for the vast majority of the game, and if those guys were controlled by friends instead of AI that faded into the background, replayability for the single-player game could have rivaled that of the epidemically popular multiplayer. Then again, we already gave the game a 10/10, so it’s not like there’s room to grow.

Aside from the obvious longevity boost, co-op in Modern Warfare seemed like the rational thing to do in 2007. Consider that Gears was a year old at that point, known for its deeply entrenched cooperative storyline, and that Modern Warfare went up against Halo 3, which sported four-player co-op. After all that buddy-watch-my-back time with the other games, playing a one-man-army story in CoD 4 felt, at least initially, a little empty.

The good news is that last year’s Call of Duty: World at War added a four-player co-op mode, so it stands to reason this year’s Modern Warfare 2 will follow suit. Consider our free time preemptively allotted.

Needed co-op because: it’s part of a beat-‘em-up franchise that’s practically synonymous with multiplayer co-op.

Not pictured: The other two guys who were part of this franchise

OK, so Sega wanted to jump start one of its long lost franchises, one that hadn’t seen real action since 1993. We’re fine with that. Problem is, Sega decided to take Golden Axe down a single-player road it had no business traversing alone.

Ax Battler and the fine-bearded Gilius Thunderhead were nixed from Beast Rider, leaving only a super-slutted-up version of Tyris Flare, the series’ sword-swinging Amazon. Again, we’re sort of fine with that – it’s a chance to re-invent the series for a new age, maybe even position it as competition against God of War or Heavenly Sword. Instead, all the attention went to Tyris and her barely covered man magnets.

Beast Rider is presently in intensive care, recovering from a savage beating at the hands of nefarious games journalists. Shit controls and bad-for-2005 gameplay torpedoed any hopes that the franchise could make a triumphant return. The last Golden Axe game was a Saturn-only fighter that sucked a generously large pile of balls – didn’t anyone want to make a better impression this time around?

Worst of all, the devs knew this was a bad move and have already said the (probably dead) sequel will “have all the characters in co-op.” Um, maybe if you had done that the first time, you’d have a chance to make a sequel.