It's a good time to be a frugal music game fan with an Xbox 360.  Not one, but two demos are now available on Xbox Live for upcoming rhythm game releases: DJ Hero 2 (hitting retail on October 19) and Guitar Hero Warriors of Rock (coming to stores September 28).  Each demo has four tracks for you to check out, ranging from The Pussycat Dolls and Kanye West to Black Sabbath and the Foo Fighters.  Check them out now, and decide if either game is deserving of your gaming dollar this crowded gaming season.

50 Episodes. 50 friggin episodes. Can you believe it? After almost two years we finally hit Episode 50 of the show! Mike and Nick go all out this episode with a jam packed 100 minutes of co-op game coverage. Can you say Duke Nukem Forever, Halo Reach, PAX 2010, and tons of other goodies? Of course the crew has to give their 83 cents on the Xbox Live price increase. After the news and commentary we preview this fall's co-op games and give our take on what you should be spending your money on. That is, if you have any left over after the price increase.

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It's been a few months since we've heard of the Fate of Carmine charity campaign for Gears of War 3.  The goal of the campaign was to raise money for Penny-Arcade's Child's Play Charity and have a little fun by having the community determine whether or not the latest Carmine brother in Gears of War 3 would live or die.

It's hard to believe, but Halo Reach is only a week away.  Millions of gamers will be getting their copies of the prequel to the one of the biggest selling and most popular video game trilogies of all time on September 14th, 2010.  Many places are having a midnight launch - including two special launches in New York City at Best Buy in Times Square and in Seattle at the Experience Music Project near the Space Needle.  

Xbox Live Gold Members can save a bunch of money on the Resident Evil 5 that was available.  The discount is 50% off and that includes the Untold Stories DLC pack which contains Desperate Escape and Lost in Nightmares co-op content (reviewed here) as well the versus mode.  

Square-Enix and Obsidian Entertainment have just released the first trailer for Dungeon Siege 3 showing in game footage.  The result is an action packed trailer with plenty of gorgeous looking locales and even some glimpses of co-op action.

Alliance of Valiant Arms is a free to play first person shooter on the PC by publisher ijji. Launching this week is the game's next co-op mode called Death Valley. This unique mode will challenge players and give the chance to earn some unique goodies. We have the exclusive first look and screens

Bernard the gun was born in the harsh winter of 1924

What's this?  A new LEGO video game based on the Lord of the Rings series?  Unfortunately, no; at least, not to our knowledge, though it sounds like a good idea to us.  We here at Co-Optimus have long been fans of the LEGO series, which has included co-op from the very beginning.  From Star Wars to Harry Potter, and everywhere in between, the LEGO games have provided hours of fun for gamers of all ages through the years. 

This month in MMO Co-Opportunities we focus on Guild Wars, a MMO/multi-player hybrid developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSoft.

It's now smooth sailing if you own or plan to purchase the Crackdown 2 "Toy Box" DLC pack.  After we previously reported the premium content was causing game crashes, an update has been issued.  All you need to do is delete the existing content and redownload it and you'll be good to go.

Not only has Gearbox taken up the reigns of development on Duke Nukem Forever, tasked with finishing a twelve year old title, they've actually gone out and purchased rights to the franchise.  That's right - all future Duke Nukem titles will be under a Gearbox banner.  This is coming from multiple sources at the Penny Arcade Expo who attended the Gearbox panel - an panel in which 165 pizzas were ordered to logo stuffed with pepperoni to look like Duke's radioactive logo.