When we first heard that the next entry in the F.E.A.R. series of games would feature co-op, and a form of co-op that the game's developer, Day 1 Studios, calls "divergent co-op," we were left with quite a few questions.  Early previews of the game helped clear up some of these, but we still were curious about how the game looked for ourselves.  Fortunately, Day 1 Studios and publisher Warner Bros. Interactive had a demonstration of the game's co-op in action at E3 and what we saw left us feeling a bit divergent already.  Specifically, how will we decide who gets to play as Fettel?

There were a lot of games to see during last week's E3; some of them co-op, others not so much.  Amidst all the announcements, demos, and chaos, though, there was one co-op title that Nick and I were eager to get our hands on and try out - inXile's upcoming co-op action/adventure/puzzle title, Hunted: The Demon's Forge.  Initial previews of the game likened it to "Gears of Warcraft" or "Spears of War," and those wouldn't be too far off, but the game certainly seems to promise more.

E3 2010 gave us a release date and Firefight 2.0 for Halo Reach.  It also gave us the first glimpse at the gameplay and music.  We gotta say, we're pretty excited to see the game in motion - and the co-op nature of the gameplay looked fantastic.  One surprise to us was the new music, a slight departure from the amazing Halo soundtracks of the past.

Apologies readers of Co-Optimus for not getting this and other various articles of E3 up sooner.  It seems that cataclysmic events of epic proportions all decided to happen in a seven day timespan - combined with the lack of stable or ANY internet - and I'm way behind on my duties for Co-Optimus.

There's only one significant co-op video game release this week, and it's perfect for fans of giant freakin' robots.  Transformers War for Cybertron appears to be the best Transformers game yet.  Three player online co-op is available for the two campaigns (Autobots and Decepticons), plus there are co-op skirmish modes, as well.  As a major Transformers nerd, I've got high hopes for this one; maybe it'll erase the painful memories of the last movie?  Who knows, but we'll have our hands on this game soon enough.  Anyone else planning to pick this up?  If you are, use the links above for a $10 credit at Amazon, and you'll help support other famous robots: namely, Billy, #1 and #2.

Amidst all of the Beast Mode hoopla last week, you might have missed the demonstration of Gears of War 3's Campaign Mode.  Cliff Bleszinksi presented (and played through) the demo, which shows off the female Gears, some sweet visuals, the Lambent enemies, and a particularly nasty death scene (or twenty).  It's pretty impressive stuff.  Looks like the story mode of Gears 3 will be just as good (dare we say great) as that of its predecessors.

Fat Princess has been a hit on the PSN for 2 years now. Friends competing to weigh down their princess so they can't be stolen, sort of a twisted take on capture the flag. The goal is to "rescue" the princess from the other team, but that team can steal her back if you're not careful. Best way to prevent that? Feed her cake, so the fat princess is harder to reclaim.

Okay, yeah...I went overboard with that title. But overboard can be a good thing - like when Ruffian Games decided to go overboard with the Crackdown 2 demo, which is available for download right now. Not only does the 30-minute timed demo support 4-player online co-op, but any Achievements unlocked while playing will be automatically applied if you decide to play the full retail version (which will be in stores in two weeks, by the way).

The world of music games has certainly grown and expanded since the days of the first Guitar Hero and Rock Band.  Games like DJ Hero now let players try their hand at spinning up their favorite tracks in a night club, while others like Def Jam Rapstar lets you live out the fantasy of being a major hip-hop artist.  In all of this, then, it seems like the next logical progression is to allow gamers to move into the world of mixing audio tracks and getting behind the producer boards, and JamParty: Be the Music, initially for the PC only but hopes for XBLA/PSN later on, is setting itself up to be just that kind of music game.

Back in April, Capcom held their Captivate event in April to show off a few titles they've been working on as well as reveal some exciting new titles.  One of the titles revealed at the event is a sequel to the popular remake of a classic NES game, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, which included a co-op mode that, while fun, wasn't all we were exactly hoping for in terms of a co-op experience.  As if reading our thoughts, Capcom followed up on this announcement with some official details were released that teased that the "co-op is back and better than ever."  So with that in mind, we were eager to finally get our hands on Bionic Commando: Rearmed 2.

As Kat pointed out earlier in the week, The Conduit 2 is doing a lot for a sequel to a game that many considered the first succesful first-person shooter on the Wii.  Among these additions is the inclusion of a new co-op mode where up to four players will fight off waves of enemies, and is now confirmed as being playable either locally or online over the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.  Nick and I had a chance to see a hands-off demo of the game at E3, and while the multiplayer/co-op modes weren't being discussed (a running theme for many of our appointments, it felt like), we did walk away with some pretty favorable overall impressions of what we saw.

The last time we heard from the folks at Twisted Pixel Games about their upcoming title, Comic Jumper, was at PAX 2009 when they announced the new title, along with a patch to fix some of the on-line issues with their co-op friendly 'Splosion Man.  While they had a new trailer of the game at PAX East, we were able to get our hands on the game and give it a test run at this year's E3.  So, despite the lack of co-op in this title, what are our thoughts on Twisted Pixel's latest title?  In two words: pure enjoyment.