Board 8 > Boko's top 15 multiplayer video game experiences

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hello, all! You may have seen this topic on Board 8 recently before because I have lovingly stolen the idea from @Johnbobb with his permission. Reading through his past experiences gave me a huge rush of nostalgia and I felt compelled to rank my own top multiplayer video game experiences. After writing all of them down, I figured I would make my own topic.

in the words of JB himself:

Johnbobb posted...

to clarify, this is not the 25 multiplayer experiences I think are the best. It's not an objective ranking. These are 25 that had some sort of impact on me personally, either because I enjoyed them, or because they were significant to my life, etc.

anyway here we go

These are my personal 15+ favorite multiplayer video game experiences. I know that I'm missing some incredible multiplayer games on this list, but they probably didn't make a big impact on me. This list is going to have a lot of single screen couch co-op games, and after reviewing my list, way too many sports video games. And that's all totally okay!

I keep saying "video game" because I wanted to draw a strict line, or else this list would include trading card games, Mercenaries, and Board 8 Mafia and those things would all be in the top 5. If anybody thinks I should re-do the list to include Mercenaries and Mafia, speak quickly while you still can!

I've already pre-written all of the write-ups, so this will go rather quickly, I just need to tinker with the order of some of the games on my list. My next post will contain a handful of honorable mentions. It'll be games that didn't quite make the list and a few recent games that I don't think have that top 15 lifetime impact.

Anyway, here we go!

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1) mercenaries IV

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Honorable mentions:

16) DBZ Budokai
Played with: brother, friends from middle school
I didn't spend a ton of time playing fighting games, but I certainly played this one during a summer as a kid. I played it once with my brother and a friend of mine and we were immediately hooked. I grew up on DBZ, so playing as our favorite Z fighters was a huge bonus. DBZ Budokai didn't quite make the list.

The rest all have short little writeups and are in no ranked order besides the order they popped into my mind:

Among Us - helped me survive the pandemic and those 2 weeks I had covid.
DotA/HoN - I spent a lot of time playing this game, but to this day still cannot reliably last hit. Enjoyed playing Tree and supports with stuns.
Arena/Magic the Gathering Online - these barely count as video games, even though they are, but I was a HUGE MTG guy a decade ago and getting to do drafts online from time to time has been a lot of fun for me.
Brawl Brothers - the dumbest SNES beat 'em up game that I used to play with my brother growing up.
Wii Sports - Wii Tennis was such a good time when this game was all the rage. Wii Baseball and Bowling were both pretty fun as well, but I miss Wii Tennis the most. As an occupational therapist, I sometimes get the urge to set this up in my clinic as a fun warm-up activity for patients working on upper extremity weakness/strength/coordination.
Bomberman: Generation - just a quick, fun game that a bunch of people could play.

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budokai was a good game for sure

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15) Phantasy Star Online
Played with: brother, best friend from middle school, longtime family friends



There were multiple groups of friends that I played with this game all day long, building a character and fighting through the levels finding cool new gear. The funny thing about this is I really don't enjoy games like Destiny 2 or other looter shooters nowadays, but PSO was just different at that time. I'm pretty sure I spent the majority of my time grinding up a ranger character with a multi-shot gun. That thing was incredible.



Look at that beaut.

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probably my favorite game i absolutely didnt understand as a little lad

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14) NBA Jam
Played with: one of my best friends



This is a game that I played after my buddy and I were done for the night playing games where we would have to think and we would boot up an NBA Jam ROM on his Raspberry Pi and play this game. I don't think I ever played a single 1v1 game of NBA Jam. We always played together on the same team as the Utah Jazz; me as Karl Malone, and him as John Stockton. It took years before we were eventually able to beat each team. We would always play when we were already intoxicated, so that didn't help. Really fun times, though. Once my buddy learned how to reliably sink 3 point shots and I could handle playing defense a bit better, running the gauntlet through all of the teams became a little easier. I still remember the insane RNG this game had: if you ever had less than a 4 point lead in the last few seconds of the game, the computer team ALWAYS made the full-court 3 point shot to tie or win the game. Every damn time!



I'm not sure if they were the absolute best team, but Stockton was a beast from long-range, Malone could dunk all day and both players were +defenders. I goaltended a LOT of shots with that big man protecting the rim.

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boom shackalacka

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I think I should mention at this point that this topic may contain MINOR SPOILERS for all of the games in the rankings in the write-ups. Especially the next post! Read on at your own risk!

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please use spoiler tags sir

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especially if you say you loved playing as mochael jordan and scotty pippen

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hell yeah utah jazz, good man

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Speak of the b8mafiastrikesback crew! Welcome to the fun, Naye.

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13) Don't Starve Together
Played with: One of the best dudes from board 8 AIM chat mafia. #b8mafiastrikesback



During the heyday of Covid, while I was furloughed from my job for 2 months, and I played the hell out of this game with a buddy of mine who was unemployed. I've also played it previously over the years with that same guy. It's a fun concept, and there is a steep learning curve, but enough replay ability to play a bunch with a friend if you both are down. I think the farthest we ever gotten was summer in the Day 60s, or so, when our entire based burned and we weren't prepared to put out all of the fires. My favorite spot to set up as a base was right next to a pig village or near a savannah with beefalo. You gotta get that renewable source of poop for your berry bushes! Guess which character was my favorite to play as.



This guy ended SO MANY of our runs until we finally learned how to survive the winter and overcome him. What a nightmare of an encounter.


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never played this, but im sure it was great

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12) Pokemon (series)
Played with: brother and friends growing up, random people online in Smogon? servers, best friend from grad school and family



I don't even know which one to pick. Pokemon is almost entirely a single player experience for me, although back in the RBY days I did make a few trades with a link cable. But there was a brief few months on two separate occasions where I dipped my toe into competitive pokemon battling. I don't even remember the software I used to use, but I got pretty into the entire team building process and playing games online for a little while. Pokemon Go, which I guess counts as a mobile video game, is included in this series because I spent a couple Summers playing that game a lot with friends. Pokemon on this list is an interesting inclusion because it's largely a single player game, at least for me, but that summer of RBY battles via link cable + trading for every Pokemon I couldn't find in red version, searching for pokemon in Pokemon Go and raiding with friends, and playing "competitive" Pokemon battles online (and largely losing) were so memorable to me. Fun fact: I was able to catch/trade for 149 of the original 150 pokemon on a single file as a kid. Which Pokemon do you think is the one I wasn't able to acquire? (Mew not included in this trivia question)



My favorite community day was Larvitar day. I don't really play much anymore, but man were there a couple of fun summers with this game.


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11) WWE: wrestling games on PS2
Played with: my brother, family friends growing up



I used to play these games with my brother every night after school. At this time, I can't remember which one I played the most, but they were all basically the same game, anyway. It looks like WWE: Smackdown vs Raw is the game that had the biggest impact on me because it is probably the reason I used GameFAQs a lot in high school, as I wanted to make FAQs for my favorite wrestlers. I'm pretty sure they're still linked to this account. Phenomenally fun moments while growing up with our PS2. My favorite wrestlers to use were my favorites on TV, and it was always fun to play in a room with friends. We spent countless hours creating new characters, playing against each other in all kinds of wonky match types. The occasional 4-man tag team matches with 4 kids in the same room using one of the PlayStation controller adaptors to add more controller ports created some hectic fun. Especially with a room full of four guys who would begin wrestling after wrestling in the video game, lmao.



The top ten will start tomorrow!


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Nice! Glad to see the topic went up, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised by some of what I have left to rank

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I think I'll just post a text dump of everything else tomorrow morning when I have some free time.

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Tagging. I ran a VGM category of multiplayer coop a few weeks ago during a Guessing Game, curious to see if any others from my list pop on yours apart from PSO (which did.)

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Hell yes to Phantasy Star Online. That's a game I played so much, but I don't think I could ever (nor would want to taint the memories of) play again. It was such a relaxing game. The atmospheres were so beautiful and the music combined with it was really unlike anything else of that era. That was some of the most fun to grind, and I had several IRL friends who were addicted to it, so we'd sometimes just bring over memory cards and have big play sessions. And nothing like those rare red item boxes, so pretty.

Also for NBA, a friend and I always used the Jazz too! Were their stats really that much better than every team? I really don't remember.

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Come on by!

I think the Jazz were pretty good, honestly. Two legends. Both great defenders. One amazing at shooting, the other great at dunking. At least in this game.

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My PSO experience was solely on private servers (that ran the authentic experience, no boosted drops or anything) but I remember having so much fun being a FOnewm slinging fire everywhere.

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10) NCAA Football 14
Played with: my longtime friend



This game was fantastic. I used to meet up with my buddy every other weekend to play through a dynasty mode with this game. We were both Michigan fans, and instead of letting either player pick our favorite team, we made a deal that we each had to pick a team completely unrelated to our fandoms that were below 90 overall. He picked Auburn and I picked Boise State. From then on, we would play through the years with each of us playing our own individual games and scouting/recruiting kids to our teams. The ultimate goal was to eventually meet up in the NCAA Championship Game. When one person was playing games or recruiting, the other would fool around on their laptop. I probably spent a lot of my off-time hanging out on Board 8 and playing board mafia. With my cakewalk of a schedule, I had a legit shot of going undefeated every year. My buddy had to play against Alabama every year in a nightmare game. Eventually, I would schedule tough out of conference opponents throughout the year; those games were the toughest and most stressful. Your quarterback would be forgetting routes for the WRs on key plays and the controller was vibrating like crazy. I don't think we ever met in a championship game, lol. That blue turf brings back a lot of memories.


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9) Mario Party (series)
Played with: friends from middle school, friends now



I haven't played each of them enough to pick a single favorite. The picture above is the very first image that came up on a google search for an N64 version, I cannot even remember which version I played the most as a kid. I do know that this game is fun enough that I downloaded it on my Switch to play a few times this year with friends and even bought another JoyCon to support 4 players. But my primary memories enjoying this game are definitely from N64/GCN days. The more random the game outcomes and the better trash talk, the more fun. Absolutely love it when people are shouting and enjoying themselves going through the game. Even as an adult nowadays that does not game as much as I used to, every time I have played Mario Party on Switch (all 4 times) has been a blast. But I think playing it on N64 was more fun. I can still remember the pain in my palm playing some of those quick-press button games or joystick rotation games. What's your all-time favorite Mario Party map to play on? Do you have a specific character you always try to use?



Actually, I wasn't planning on asking this, but what are your thoughts on the Switch's characters? I've found that the custom dice can actually create an advantage and it's a little unfortunate that you need to pick your character with this knowledge in mind. I mean, you don't have to, but some are just plain better. I haven't looked them all up to know which is the best or worst, but I know I pick Koopa Troopa sometimes and he has a lot of 6s on his die.

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Since both of the next two games are football games, I decided to knock 'em both out at once. I really like playing sports games, I know, I know. Kind of boring. I just really enjoy the team building aspect of the games. For me, it's less about the actual playing the games, and more about building the best team through trades, drafting, and maxing my stats accordingly. I have never played any of these versus random players online for a ranking, just with friends in the same room mostly - except during the height of covid, where I started a brief 4-man online fantasy team.

7) NFL Street
Played with: my longtime friend, friends growing up, my brother



I can't actually remember if I played NFL street 1 or 2, but I loved this game. My favorite mode was where we each get to draft players. I loved the strategies in figuring out who was available and trying to assemble the best team while screwing over my opponent the best I could. Should I take the stud QB or take an amazing WR? The draft alone was tons of fun. The game itself was a riot, lots of stuff going on and I was pretty good. The perfect amount of wacky rules to be football but also a good time. It's been too long now, and I can't remember who my favorite players to take were. If I remember correctly, the OL barely mattered and you really didn't need to have an all-time QB; the most important positions were your DBs and WRs. Although if you could draft a top 2 LB or DL, they could be a game changer as well.

8) Madden (series)
Played with: everyone growing up, my co-worker



I can't pick just one because they all blur in my mind. My biggest memory with this game was playing with a co-worker of mine at my first ever full-time job after college. We would head over to his apartment after work, set up a fantasy draft and play games against each other with our fantasy teams. We would pick 2 teams in the same division and sim every game except the 2 we played per year. The ultimate goal was to assemble a team good enough to meet in the NFC or AFC championship game to play a 3rd time in the year, but I don't think this ever happened. During the pandemic, we played a little bit of this same format, but online. There were a group of 4 of us that played through a few seasons together. Beyond this, I played this game intermittently throughout the years while growing up. Playing with my brother, other friends. You always have to bust out Madden every so often to play versus the guys. I never played online, or used dumb cheesy strategies; I haven't spent the time to learn about that, I just try to play it like I'm an offensive coordinator and play a strategic game. OR JUST FOUR VERTCALS EVERY PLAY, YO.


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Top 7 incoming soon: MAKE YOUR PREDICTIONS NOW!

1. 2 player online
2. 2 player co-op, 4+ player multiplayer
3. 2-4 player couch "co-op"
4. 2 player co-op, online multiplayer
5. 2-4 player multiplayer
6. Online multiplayer
7. 2 player multiplayer

Some of these are a little bit misleading, sorry

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Is 6 Apex

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never played it

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6) League of Legends
Played with: three friends most weekends for a few years, people on board 8



I had a lot of fun for a few years playing this game a ton with my friends. Even though it was an online game, we would all meet up at my house with laptops and play together in the same room. There were 4 of us, and we never did pick up a 5th, but playing in the same room together was a great time. I think we only played from season 1 to season 4 or so. We all played every role, but my favorite was mid with Ahri. One of my friends played Cho'Gath a TON and was notorious for missing the skillshot stun. He got a lot of flack for that. My brother would almost exclusively play Master Yi top lane with a "1v1 me bro!" philosophy. We were really bad, probably middle bronze at best, but playing together with the boys was a good time. I played this game with some people on Board 8, and some other friends I know as well during those few years. At my peak, I think I ranked at Silver 5, lol. I never really played ranked games, but we took the normal games pretty seriously, in general. When I would play with other people, I enjoyed playing as a support. When I dabbled in ranked play for a while, I enjoyed supporting, warding, and laning with another person. My favorite part of League, and all of the MOBAs in the honorable mentions for this list, is the laning phase. Nothing beats a 2v2 with your starting items and those first few skills. Trying to set up a trade against the enemy laners, prepare for a gank from an incoming teammate, or anticipate an opposing attack/gank and preventing it when you can. Sure, plenty of games can be very unfun during this portion of the game, but early game laning was always my favorite.



I can almost remember the first time I thought to ult then charm an opponent to set up a combo with Q, W, ignite and deal a ton of damage in midlane. I didn't usually have the stones to attempt a flash+charm very often, and I'm not even sure if that's a good combo anyway. But it felt really fun to set up combos like that, and I loved the mobility with R and damage potential I had with Ahri. I'm not sure if this champion is any good anymore, and I barely follow this game during modern seasons, but my understanding is that dashes like Ahri's R are practically the norm now and most champions have some kind of increased mobility abilities.


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worst ezreal NA

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lets play league soon @greengravy294

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I still play this game often because I hate myself

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5) Super Smash Brothers: Melee
Played with: friends growing up, my longtime friend.



I never played this game competitively, but it didn't matter. I played it SO much growing up with my brother and family, and even years later would play the game all of the time with a buddy 1v1. We were very evenly matched, he was slightly better, but it was good times. My Jigglypuff and Game and Watch versus his Marth. We played this game together for years, well into the Wii lifespan and neither of us had a Wii U. Every so often, we will get together and play the Switch SSB game, but it isn't the same. I remember trying to play Jigglypuff in SSBs after Melee, and I've never felt like she was any good since those days. I don't know if it's lame or not, but my buddy and I always played with no items. Actually, I think most of my games of Melee were with items turned off.




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4) Halo 2
Played with: my brother, friends growing up online



My first actual online experience. I was always awful at this game in terms of ELO ranking, but meeting up with my friends online to play after school is one of my cherished memories. While I had pretty good map awareness after playing so much, I have pretty mediocre execution. Still a great time. I used to know where every weapon spawned, how many seconds were between each spawn so I would be ready to get a fresh rocket launcher right on the dot. When I wasn't timing the weapon spawns, it was all about the plasma pistol and battle rifle, aka "noob combo." I think my favorite map was either Ivory Tower or Lockout. While I wasn't ever really good at Slayer, I was at least serviceable in the objective matchups. I think my favorite game mode was CTF, especially on the enormous maps. There isn't a much more rewarding feeling than sneaking into the enemy base, stealing the flag, and sneaking out before they stop you and hopping on a vehicle to drive away to safety. To this day, I still remember the one game I ever had a kill streak of 30 games. It was king of the hill and my team easily lost because I did not try to win the match, I just tried to protect my kill streak once I reached a rampage. I just looked it up: 30 kills in a row is called Invincible. In order to achieve this feat, I heavily utilize rocket launchers and sniper rifles while people who were actually trying to win tried to gain time inside of the objective.


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MajinZidane posted...

I didn't usually have the stones to attempt a flash+charm very often, and I'm not even sure if that's a good combo anyway

It's not. The value of a flash engage is the reduced time it gives people to respond, but Ahri's charm projectile is still way too slow and gives them time to react.

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Well, then I'm glad I didn't try it very often! Ult-charm is still good, tho

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Aecioo posted...

I still play this game often because I hate myself

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I used to play with both @Aecioo and @Peace___Frog , but how many years ago was that? I definitely remember duoing with Aecioo a looooooooong time ago.

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3) Guitar Hero and Rock Band (serires)
Played with: friends growing up, still playing with friends now



This game was a huge part of my young adulthood. I used to play this game all of the time with friends while having parties. It was blast; whoever is singing gets to pick the song, everyone else plays an instrument if they want to, and you just play. Gotta turn on no-fail modes so everyone just has a good time, though. I used to play guitar/bass on expert, except for the super challenging songs. I could get by with drums on hard. Drums were fun, but the bass pedal on higher difficulties just made it so much less fun. I think one of the newer games lets you complete ignore the bass pedal on expert, which is pretty cool. I think that my best feat playing this game was finishing Green Grass and High Tides on expert without failing on guitar. But the most fun was picking my favorite songs and singing with 3 friends. I've played this game a few times every year, as recently as last Saturday. I don't try to play on expert anymore, though. I've lost the ability to beat songs on that difficulty, unfortunately. I think that my favorite thing to do nowadays, and really it has been for a long time, is to sing. When we play now, it's basically everyone takes turns on every instrument so everyone sings. Rock Band is basically just karaoke with extra steps, but man is it fun. What's your favorite song to sing when you play Rock Band?

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2) Halo: Combat Evolved
Played with: friends growing up via system-link, co-operative with my brother and other friends, 1v1 with a longtime friend



I used to play 4 xbox system linked in different rooms of a house with a bunch of guys on various slayer and team slayer maps. It was awesome. Definitely one of my best memories of playing games growing up as a kid. I also used to play the game very often 1v1 with my best friend in high school when we hung out every weekend. He and I even got into playing Halo 1 system linked online to give me some of my first every online multiplayer experiences. I still remember a lot of hours spent on Blood Gulch and Hang 'Em High. In high school debate class, I was in a group of 4 and we got to pick any topic we wanted to debate; naturally, we selected the topic Halo 2 > Halo. My group simply had to prove that Halo was just as good as if not better than Halo 2, which was easy enough. Getting four different Xboxes set up in a single house and playing with a bunch of people was such a novel, incredible experience. At the time, online gaming didn't exist, or it barely did. I had never experienced something similar to it. But it was so much fun. I don't think we ever had a full 16 people playing, and 4 on one single xbox was annoying, anyway. I think the most we were getting was 2 on each Xbox total, so the game nights would range from between 7-9 people. Co-operative mode was also fun, too. While a very different experience, going through the campaign was a lot more relaxing, but still pretty fun.


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I'm gonna do #1 a little later, maybe tonight. I want to give at least one person a chance to guess! I'll drop a few hints, though:

• I started playing this game about 7 years ago
• I still play this game about once per month

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Gunbound obv

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My money is on Neopets.

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its nba 2k15
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can't believe we both ended up with Here Comes the Pain in our lists

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Halo 2 is better than halo 1

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Ive already won that debate!

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Aecioo posted...

Gunbound obv

I don't even know what this is. It's also not Neopets.

X_Dante_X posted...

its nba 2k15

NBA2K series is a good guess, and I've actually played it a ton. I just only really play it single player, lol.

Johnbobb posted...

can't believe we both ended up with Here Comes the Pain in our lists

@Johnbobb LEGEND. Great list, dude.

Okay, so here are a couple more hints:

• It's a 1v1 game that you can play online.
• It's a game where a second person can be sitting next to you, watching you play, and help you make decisions. They can be basically playing with you without ever touching anything.

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i can't believe my cheating failed me
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