The Co-Opticrew has their gear together and are ready to take flight to PAX 2009! Above you can see the motley assortment of gadgets, books, stickers, and underwear in prep for the next five days.

Guitar Hero 5 hit the streets yesterday, and now we now a bit more about the game.  We were specifically curious about the import features.  Rock Band 2 supported the import of the Rock Band disc songs last year.  We loved this feature, and when it was announced that it was finally being added to Guitar Hero, we were quite pleased.  Last night, I was unable to contact the servers to try the import, but USA Today has the info. Edit: Updated information below.

As the release of Halo 3: ODST rapidly approaches, we're getting a few more of the gritty details emerging from the woodwork. Unfortunately, we've got some disappointing details this time, specifically about the highly anticipated Firefight mode. Buckle your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

The Co-Optimus staff is descending upon Seattle, Washington to cover the biggest gaming show in North America, and we're going to bring you all the gaming coverage you can handle right here!  Even better - we're giving away an Xbox 360 console to celebrate!

Oh shaky cams!  You shake and cam and steal the videos when the publishers aren't looking.  Oh shaky cams,  look what you have for us now!  Leaked footage of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on display at a recent Game Crazy conference.  

Stardock and NVIDIA have announced a brand new version of Impulse today.  Dubbed the "NVIDIA Edition," it will provide NVIDIA graphics card owners seamless driver updates and other optimizations for their PC.  

With a month to go till the game's release, it looks like we are finally getting some solid gameplay footage of Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising's co-op mode.  The four player online co-op mode looks like a solid addition to the tactical shooter lineup like that of Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon.

While we at Co-Optimus do not generally condone the act of competitive gaming, which, by definition allows you to dominate another player; there is a kind of co-op that does include domination, one we would like to paste a label on. This type of co-op can, if used correctly, be used against that game-hog sibling, spouse or significant other. Co-optimus would like to proudly introduce: B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Bitch) co-op gaming. We've looked at a few examples of games that created the B.Y.O.B. co-op genre, all the way back to the days of the Sega Genesis, and culminate the list with recent entries on systems like the Xbox 360 and Wii.

It's barely September, and the fist major game release of the fall rush is here!  Guitar Hero 5 hits store shelves today, and is available for pretty much every console.  Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and PS2 gamers can rock out to the new and improved game engine today.  I'm eagerly anticipating this one, and it's scheduled for delivery today; look for our review later this week.

If you're fixing for some Splodin, you might notice a title update when `Splosion Man fires up.  Great you're thinking, finally the avatar awards and fixed lag issues are taken care of.  Sorry, no awards here, no lag fix to see.  Instead the update fixes a leaderboard exploit and clears off some cheaters who abused it to get obscene high scores.  This might be why your co-op score pales in comparison to quite a few people out there.

PC owners can get their hands on some Madballs action this September when Madballs in... Babo Invasion hits Steam on the 17th.  Announced via the official blog, the team is bringing the surprisingly deep game to PCs after their Xbox Live Arcade version released earlier this year.

The PlayStation 3 Firmware update has just gone live, bringing the system's XMB interface to version 3.0.  With it you'll get a “What’s New” section, a redesigned status indicator and Friends List, and support for new avatars and dynamic themes.