Volition - creator of Saints Row 2 - spilled the beans on just how difficult crafting an open-world co-op game can be. Doing so without implementing tethers (like in Mercenaries 2: World in Flames) is apparently more of a technical achievement than most of us realized, according to designer David Bowring. "Pain and suffering" were the words David used to describe the process, but followed shortly by "gratifying". In fact, he went so far as to claim that a game's shelf life is extended by cooperative play, thanks to the inherently social nature of co-op.

iPhone-exclusive shooter Eliminate received an update recently, and beyond just adding a co-op mode to the competitive versus game, the update is completely free.

Last year we posted a review for EA Sports Active: Personal Trainer, a Nintendo Wii fitness title that worked surprisingly well and had some mediocre co-op tacked on. It's not a bad game, really - it just snazzes up the activities that we generally either avoid...or pay good money for better effectiveness.

In addition to providing us with a guided tour of Tragnarion Studio's upcoming four player co-op title, The Scourge Project, Game Director Omar Salleh allowed us to pick his brain some. We discovered that, like many of us, he's just looking for a quality co-op experience.

It's been sometime since we announced that Doom 2 would hit Xbox Live Arcade.  Well over half a year in fact.  But all is not forgotten for the game, as Destructoid managed to hit up Bethesda about the game.  

Yeah, yeah, I'm like a broken record.  My last entry for this column was for the same game, but what can you do?  I love super heroes, I love co-op, and I usually game with my 8 year old son, so Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is getting lots of playtime in our house.  We are nearly at the end of  our second replay, and I've been focusing on unlocking alternate costumes for many different characters.  The costumes are like the characters themselves: some are very nice, but some totally suck.  I'll let you know which are which.

This Friday kicks off the first ever PAX East Expo.  The three day convention in Boston will be full of the biggest and baddest upcoming games as well as plenty of general geek goodness.  The Co-Opticrew will be on hand to bring you guys coverage straight from the show floor.

Although he has a never-exhausted archive of classic gaming stories at any given time, Marc is taking a break from Co-Op Classics today to let Jim reminisce and appreciate Konami's Jackal.

Halo: Reach is on the horizon, and any time we can scrounge up some news pertaining to co-op...we jump on it like a Grunt on a crate of plasma grenades. Unfortunately, just about all of our co-op details so far have come from interviews, hints, and speculations. Today is no different, but bringing Reach back to the front page is a treat anyway - seeing Bungie so focused on bringing a true Halo opus to fans gives Co-Optimus hope for a seamlessly epic co-op game.

We recently had the chance to play through a few levels of the upcoming four-player co-op shooter, The Scourge Project. While we didn't get to see as much as we would have liked, what we did see made us eager for more.

The Virtual Boy jokes will be a plenty until someone actually gets some hands on time with the device, but Nintendo has announced a brand new Nintendo DS coming sometime in Fiscal Year 2011 called the the Nintendo 3DS.   The device will be fully compatible with DS and DSi games but sport a 3D display that will require no glasses to experience.

Valve has currently slashed the price of the Steam version of Left 4 Dead 2 fifty percent, making the cost to you just $25.  Even the four pack of the game, which is normally $150, is half off, making each copy cost you just $18.75.   Xbox 360 owners, you aren't left out to die though paying full price, Amazon currently has the game on sale for $36.  Both sales end tomorrow though.