If you purchased the new PC release of Dark Souls, the Prepare to Die Edition of the game, you may have not been prepared for just how ugly the game looks. PC owners are a proud bunch and we like our games to run silky smooth and look great while doing it. Instead gamers were greeted with a blocky, pixelated mess when they attempted to play the game at its locked 1024x768 resolution.
If Assassin's Creed Revelations taught us anything, it's that not all games need tower defence. Despite one major franchise failing, this has not stopped Insomniac Games from incorporating the gameplay style into their upcoming Ratchet and Clank: Full Frontal Assault (Q-Force in Europe as FF sounds too rude!). Check out the new trailer and decide for yourself whether defending a tower within a 3rd person game can work.
This month, we're taking a bit of a different spin for Tabletop Co-Op. Typically, I don't think of this series of articles as reviews. There is no scoring system of any kind, and generally speaking, I try to concentrate on the mechanics, theme, and cooperative nature of the mechanics without too much critique one way or the other. But for Red November, I can't help but look at it from a more critical angle. I wanted to like this game, but I didn't. Why?
Curious about what 343 Industries has in store for Halo 4 players and their Gamerscores? Recently, they have released the title’s hefty list of Achievements. From these alone, we’ve been given some slight insight as to what else this FPS will have to offer come November. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.
Spelunker HD is getting some new content. Now, before you get all excited, take note that I'm referring to Spelunker HD, not the recently released Spelunky. I've played both games, and I can honestly say Spelunker HD is like Spelunky's older, uglier, drunker, and more abusive brother. If you want more insight checkout my Co-Op Review from a few years ago. It was brutal.
People used to say wizard as an adjective, all by itself, just as we now use the word cool. It's true; I saw it in a movie once. But nowadays calling something wizard would just elicit looks of confusion. "Is he saying that Double Dragon: Neon's Achievements wear long robes and cast magic spells?" they might wonder. But what other noun used as an adjective could be more appropriate for an Achievement list that actually references Fred Savage's 1989 magnum opus film The Wizard? None, I say! As it turns out, pretty much all of Neon's Achievements overflow with the game's tongue-in-cheek style of humor and machismo.
Oh thank goodness! This week marks the end of August. September is upon us. Kids go back to school, the summer lull is over, and one of the biggest co-op games of the year is only a few weeks away. This week isn't really offering up too much in the way of new releases but we do have some quality titles expanding their availability.
Robot Entertainment have announced their first piece of DLC for Orcs Must Die! 2 on the PC. The content is being called a booster pack, specifically "Fire & Water" and features new levels, new enemies and new challenges for players to experience in both single player and co-op.
Japanese shoot-em-up makers CAVE have recently expressed interest in leaving the console market for the mobile market's greener pastures. Yet it turns out they have another Xbox 360 release in store for us after all. Dodonpachi Saidaioujou (a title which is extremely unpleasant to type and has no direct English translation) , the latest in CAVE's long-running Dodonpachi series, will make the transition from arcades to 360 next year.
On PC and mobile phones, freemium or free-to-play games are all the rage. Freemium games cost nothing up front, instead making their money from optional microtranactions. For whatever reason, console manufacturers Microsoft and Sony have only really started opening up to the free-to-play business model this year, with multiple titles in the works for both systems. Now Microsoft has announced that massive online action game Happy Wars will be the very first Xbox 360 freemium game when it launches in fall 2012.
Welcome to Beyond Co-Op, the weekly column that takes a look at what's going on in the industry outside of the co-op side of things that are near and dear to our hearts. This week, we get excited about the International, sympathize with the layoffs at Funcom, and speculate about the resurrection of the much loved Black Isle studio.
It's early access weekend for those of you that pre-ordered Guild Wars 2. Get a few day head start on the rest of the unwashed masses as you jump into the sequel to the MMO that changed MMOs. I know a few of the Co-Optimus staff will be playing, will you?
