We started "It takes two" last night. While not all that original it's a mix of a lot of games and movies for ideas. It's co-op like Brother's A tale of two sons with platforming that is not all that far of from Psychonauts 2. It's not quite as creative as that but close and the co-op part works well. It has vertical split screen so you don't need to stay right next to each other. It's full of sexual innuendo as well lol.

We played Alien nation / Dead nation, Streets 4. I'll check out the others, thanks!

@HoloDust Outward looks interesting but reviews like this "Outward is a fun and unique experience for those who desire the harder type of gameplay reminiscent of Souls like games." make me back off. I want to stay married :) My wife easily gets frustrated by the controls, something like BG Dark Alliance on PS2 pad is already enough buttons and combos to remember. Does Outward have an easy setting? Gears 5 on easy with auto-aim, that level of game play is too taxing already :/ We abandoned that, too many buttons and things to remember, just led to frustration.

@Spike503 Dragon's Crown looks like it's close to Dark Alliance. Does it have an easy mode though? "If you've ever played a Vanillaware game before (Odin Sphere and Muramasa: Rebirth spring to mind), you know the brutal difficulty the games are known for. We got the impression that a lot of people didn't feel Dragon's Crown was hard enough on the way to level 99, so now there's a brand new Ultimate difficulty level" Probably why I skipped it on the ps3 :/

I've heard of It Takes Two. It's been on my radar since it won GOTY at the Game Awards. I'll probably buy it soon.

Huntdown is a blast! Hope you like it :D

About Dragon's Crown, we've only played a few hours but so far? It's not really that difficult. It might get a bit more challenging later but I saw that you  can also get two additional CPU teammates to make a 4-member squad so that will probably balance any difficulty spikes later on. I'd say give it a shot if you're looking for a simple RPG/beat 'em up to play with your wife. My wife has been enjoying it a lot!

Huntdown is only $6 atm, easy buy :) I'll look for Dragon's Crown at my local shop, they might have it laying around. Plus I need an excuse to ask for PSVR2 again haha.

It's pretty old but Resident Evil 5 is still one the best co-op games ever made.

Yeah, I feel you, my wife has problems with serious lack of gamepad skills as well - even something not so taxing like Trine was, at times, too much for her.

That's, more or less, THE reason why we play so few video games together and spend most of our gameplay time either with boardgames or Pen&Paper RPGs (though getting her to GM/DM is a challenge on its own).

It Takes Two is still a hit, but beware the controls change during the game. It has different kinds of game styles (copying all the good ones at least) even a BG Dark Alliance section, top down with both on the same screen. I had to go into system accessibility options once for a boss fight since my L3 to sprint does not work for my wife. Swapping L1 (not used in the game) with L3 worked. She still often ground pounds when she wants to dash and vice versa. We get there in the end.

One level to look out for if you have/had migraines is the kaleidoscope level. We had to look away from the screen, too bright and the 'tears' effect looks too much like the onset of a migraine doh. Luckily that was just a short level. And luckily only one has to stay alive to keep going while the other quickly revives and 'death' is never far back. It ticks all the boxes apart from some needed accessibility settings in game.

We played Trine back on PS3, that was taxing as well. I finished that by myself and hated the end... Too frustrating. Our favorite board game was Settlers with lots of expansions. We kinda stopped playing board games once we got kids. First the danger of the baby/toddler getting the small pieces, then they wanted to play as well of course but something easier. So now we play Sorry, Battleship and Mario Checkers :/

I played AD&D with friends in university, never with my wife. We actually met in Everquest and later moved on to WoW before time became too constrained to keep on going with mmorpgs. We would love to go back to Everquest, but maybe it's better to just leave it at nostalgia. Perhaps after the kids move out we can try that again. The game is still going since '99, can it make another 7-8 years :)

Anyway It Takes Tow is the best co-op game we've played in a long time.

Yeah, my wife's oldest son bought It Takes Two specifically to play it with her, but he massively overestimated her gamepad skills...she really liked the idea, but was pretty much unable to play it...I guess I could try to install a few walking sims or such less stressful games and see if she'll get better in time.

Depending on your kids' age, there are plenty of games out there to play with them...I've dropped mine right into Settlers and Ticket to Ride when they were around 6-7, and they caught on fairly easy…not that I would recommend either game from my current POV, they are too long for such age (Ticket to Ride London/New York is a condensed version of TTR, which runs for about 20-25 minutes, so I would easily recommend that, or for even lighter game Ticket to Ride: First Journey US/Europe, which is kid's version of TTR).

I'm not so up to date on what's good for very young kids these days (I have heard of Dragomino, Rhino Hero, Karak, Brandon the Brave, Icecool, Zombie Kids Evolution and few others, but have no experience with any of them), but if you have time (and interest), BGG list is great jump off point:

https://boardgamegeek.com/childrensgames/browse/boardgame?sort=rank&sortdir=asc

As for P&P RPGs (my roots are in AD&D as well, played it back in 80s) I got my wife hooked on them a few years ago with DnD 5e, though she never played anything like that in her life and was somewhat reluctant at first (and now she likes to play elf wizard exclusively, which is a problem on its own, since we moved away from DnD) and I started with my kids when they were around 4-5 years old with Hero Kids, which has very simple resolution system of comparing D6 dice, which is quite easy even for very young kids if you use dice with pips (plus pdf comes with grid maps and standees)....so maybe you can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/106605/Hero-Kids--Fantasy-RPG

Having to control the camera at the same time as the character is a big hurdle. When I look at my wife's side of the screen, 90% of the time the camera is at a 90 degree angle to the action :/ Zelda always got me annoyed by not giving you control over the camera but I see the advantage of that. She does do well with twin stick shooters, yet movement plus camera is a hurdle.

And you really need to know the layout of the gamepad. I can help here with instructions like X X Square for double jump air dash. But she's only familiar with the PS layout, hence we didn't get far in Gears 5. A at the bottom instead of X and X on the left is just too much while trying to get to grips with a new game. So we'll stick to PS5 for co-op games. (Plus the prompts are color coded on XBox which doesn't help at all)

They are past the age that Settlers and Ticket to Ride were interesting to them. We played those but now they're 11 and 13 and far more interested in playing online with their friends (Terraria, Rust, Fortnite, Roblox). It's hard to get them to play couch co-op. The new generation is all about online co-op. The pandemic cemented their online habits, destroyed the last ounce of couch fun. (cabin fever was a pain) So now the first question is, how long does it take... Hence Battleship and Sorry. (And even those last too long for their liking lol) Carcassone used to be a hit as well, too long now. Very different from when I was their age. Then it was all about going to friend's houses to play!

Maybe one day I can get them into 1830. It's my favorite game after all, played it so much back in the day. My wife doesn't like it as it takes 5-6 hours for a full game. I've wasted many many hours of sleep on that, made extra tiles, alternative rules and still have it all in the original box. The follow ups were fun as well yet the first one is still my favorite. Another great board game was Dune (1979). My friend had it and I ended up painstakingly copying the game as we couldn't find it anywhere in a shop (before online shopping). I see there is an updated version now, might be fun to play again. (Of course young me copied everything but the instructions since we knew them by heart lol plus it's kind of a faded mess now) Civilization board game was good as well. Oh well can't compete with their online school buddies...

Cards against humanity is what our teenager wanted to play with us... (Picked it up at a garage sale) It's racist/sexist with lots of smut, not recommended. And no clue why you would want to play that with your mother lol. We played it once. Sure it got the laughs going, but relies too much on 'shock' value. Probably why it was just a toony at a garage sale haha.

Oh, I thought your kids were much younger, hence some of my previous suggestions for games... I feel your pain, mine are 16 and 14, and they've lost interest in board games a few years ago, apart from some very light and quick games (like King of Tokyo) or party games (like Codename Pictures, Dixit and Pictures) - though I had success with 2 player tactical games like Memoir 44 and Summoner wars. Now it's all about online games with friends as well, though they do still play single player games as well. The last thing we played together as couch co-op were Outward and Minecraft Dungeons, though only at 2 player count, and the last thing that was 4 player couch coop (with my brother) was Helldivers (twinstick shooter), but that was quite a bit ago. I don't know, maybe they'll get around to board games again, my wife's eldest son (18) is not far from their age, growing up with the same online mentality as them, yet he loves playing boardgames, especially mid-weight Euros.

Cards Against Humanity is, for some reason, a massively popular game, along with Exploding Kittens... I must say, I don't find appeal in either (though honestly, I'm not that big on party board/card games in general), but hey, to each their own, I guess.

If you have some time, maybe take a look at Shadowdark P&P RPG. It's a throwback to early D&D, it has free starter kit, digest size pdf, so it fits great on 10 inch tablets (if you don't want to print), with exceptionally quick character creation and very light rules - you can read all the rules in 20-30 minutes and has one dungeon crawl included, so it's great for pick up and play kind of thing.

https://www.thearcanelibrary.com/pages/shadowdark

I suggest ratchet and clanck all 4 one . It is on PS3, just played it with my kids 6 and 8 years old and we have had a lot of fun.
Why not sackboy a big adventure too.