Last night my wife and I sat down to get back into Gears of War 3, only to discover that our Xbox LIVE Gold momberships had expired. We knew that was coming but it was still a surprise. But no worries, we thought. It's not like we were playing online. But we have been saving our progress to online storage for most games because we have a dinky harddrive. Well guess what...only Gold members get to use online storage, so we can't finish our game till we renew, and the budget won't allow that for at least another month. Poop.
Tonight we decided we'd start something new. How about Resident Evil: Revelations for the Wii U? Great idea! But it turns out that you can't actually play co-op through the campaign, even though your player has a partner almost the whole time. Raid mode is co-op but it just pulls levels from the campaign and we didn't want to spoil the game that way.
We did some more digging around and discovered that The Puppeteer is co-op. And it's free on PS+ this month! But a quick check of the PS Store shows that it hasn't hit for members yet. Dang it all!
So now we're going to bed without getting our game fix. It's not that we don't have other co-op games but you gotta be in the mood, ya know? Perhaps tomorrow we'll settle on something that's actually playable...
Raid mode ... Raid mode ... Damn I wanna see The Raid 2. So badly.
Hmm, would seem you have gone off on a tangent lol
More of a cosine, really.
will it save your saves even if you're not paying? They might delete them. Might as well start over. 
I sure hope it saves them! I'll wait and see though.
This promo from Skittles might get you over the hump (or at least allow you to move your save file to your local HDD).
Cool! We will check that out. Thanks, Nick!
That promo worked but Microsoft, it turns out, is extremely stingy. It's a 7-day trial membership and so basically all it lets you do it play multiplayer online. You can't get the free Games with Gold game, so I missed out on Dust: An Elysian Tale. That sucks but I do have it on my computer already thanks to the Humble Bundle. I would've have rather played it on the 360 though.
They also don't let you use the online storage with a trial membership. Thankfully, my wife found a way to transfer the saves to our harddrive, so at least we'll be able to continue with Gears 3. I just wish Microsoft would tell you these things. We had to do all this digging online in forums to figure out what came with the trial membership and that's how we found out how to move the saves too.
Well, that sucks man... This reminds me of why I am glad that my wife only likes Mario Kart and the Super Mario Bros games.
Hey, there a lot of pros about having a gaming wife 
I know there are, and there are definitely times that I wish she was more into gaming.
The Puppeteer is lots of fun. I bought it a while back and need to get back to it.
When it goes free for PS+ members, I'm sure we'll be all over it. My wife has wanted that game since it first came out.
Dang...that's tough man. Happy to hear that the wifey enjoys gaming with you though. Must be nice.
It is! Lol. Have you tried Animal Crossing with your wife? It's a great gateway into the hobby for women, in my opinion.
Wow I did nit realize your saves get locked out if you don't renew. But it makes sense in that it is a way they make you HAVE to renew.
Part of your membership must be to reserve that 500 MB cloud storage.
Yeah, it makes sense but it still sucks
I was always wary of those cloud saves for games on Xbox 360. I never want to be without my save if the internet is down, or in this case, not having Gold membership for a while.
We've put off getting a bigger harddrive for quite a while but this pushes that purchase up in priority.
I haven't felt the need for more space. Recently I went through my 360 and deleted all my full game installs. That freed up like 100 GB. So far, my XBLA games haven't filled up the 250 gigs yet. As for full game downloads. I've been purchasing and then not downloading them until I actually play them. It's all on my account. I just hope MS doesn't make any of those games unavailable. If they announce that, I'm going to have to get an external drive to store all that stuff.
We have the smallest possible harddrive for our 360 because that's what came with it. I think it's 20 gigs o_O
That's like the one I sold to my friend. Later, I upgraded my Halo 3 edition to a larger hard drive and gave my friend the older bigger one. I think it was 120 GB. The one I have now came with a 250 GB drive. My PS3 is still the 40 GB model. I ran out of space on that once. Another reason I want to get the slim with the 250 GB drive.
Yeah, I'm in the opposite situation. We have a slim PS3 and I've never had a space problem. I probably have at least 30 games downloaded on that thing lol
Hey Daftman I have a 120 GB left over of when I upgraded my 360 to 250Gb if you want it. I think I also have a data cable for it. I'd have to look for it in my closet.
Well I wouldn't say no if you're willing part with it
Sure I'll look for it this weekend when I take out my ACs.
i wish i could get my ol lady to play games with me. Last time we played video games together was either when the Wii first came out and we were bowling....or when she bought me SoulCalibur 4 and then beat me in front of my buddies
She beat you in Soul Calibur 4? Sounds like she's holding out on you lol.
Dude, that sucks. That is a really dodgy setup, and honestly I wonder how Microsoft gets away with charging for their online play.
My girlfriend and I are mostly solitary players, but I'm thinking I should change that next time she's down. What do you recommend? I mean, she's a gamer, but prefers story and art over gameplay, her favourite games being Kingdom Hearts, Okami, and Mass Effect.
My first thought is Dungeon Siege III. My wife and I played through that and she loved it. Lord of the Rings: War in the North is also a good co-op action RPG. I know you mainly play PC games, so I don't know what consoles you have access to, but I've heard that Tales of Xilia has good co-op (haven't played it though). Uh, Borderlands 2 maybe? My wife liked that one too. Oh, Child of Light! I hear that has co-op. But yeah, mainly Dungeon Siege III
I wanted to get Dungeon Siege III myself, but I found out that co-op guests don't share loot or xp with the host, or something like that. I forget exactly what the multiplayer limitations were, but I know it was a game breaker for me and I didn't get it day-one like I wanted to.
I think some things should simply be "free". I'm sure microsoft would label me "self entitled" but all this "pay for extra cloud storage and multi-player with friends!" is stuff you can usually do with no restrictions on a pc. However, I did read on one of my friend's blogs a standard silver membership will be getting a little better soon.
I think online multiplayer should be free but I don't that's in the cards for consoles. Sony made PS+ mandatory for multiplayer on PS4. As much as I love consoles (and I do), the PC will always be the bastion of player freedom 
So does that mean no more free games for you anymore? No!!!!!
No free Games with Gold for me for now I'm still getting games with PlayStation Plus though.