The House of the Dead Overkill - Extended Cut is sticking to its campy grindhouse roots.  This latest trailer invites us to the Bayou City County Hospital, a familiar level to anyone who played through the Wii version of the game.  The graphics are substantially better, as is to be expected.  The game features full Move support as well as 3D, which should add a nice level of immersion to the super violent, ultra-foul-mouthed, light gun game.  

This week, Co-Optimus staffers are sharing their thoughts on the Diablo 3 beta.  Every day, a new class will be covered, and today I've got all the details about a fun and flavorful hero, the witch doctor. 

Renegade Ops is already out on Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network, but the PC version remains to be seen.  We really enjoyed the game so there's good reason to be jealous if you've been anxiously awaiting the Avalanche Studio developed title for your precious computer.  Don't worry little sparrow, I've got good news.  

Xbox 360 gamers who enjoy co-op are in for quite a treat this week. Numerous co-op Xbox Live Arcade games are on sale for half of from now through Monday, October 3, including some that we never thought would go on sale (Trouble Witches Neo!).

The Eurogamer Expo 2011 was so packed with co-op titles that Co-Optimus had to separate the preview into three news items!  Part 2 sticks with the ‘mature’ theme and looks at Inversion, Saints Row: The Third and Starhawk.

While the Battlefield 3 beta won't contain any co-op, it is a good chance to get a feel for the game and check out the Battle Log online system.  The multiplayer beta for Battlefield 3 kicks off tomorrow on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC, and while the former two won't require any manual intervention to run other than downloading it, you might want to get your PC in shape today by updating your drivers.  

Dark Souls launched last week in Japan.  After dealing with some "early adopters" with swift and brutal justice, developer From Software had another problem on their hands:  Players were experiencing freezing issues while playing online.  I, for one, hope this happened while the game was on a close-up of an enemy's face, leaving some poor gamer to wonder if they had just entered into the most grueling staring match of all time.  From Software quickly took the servers offline, allowing players to continue the game solo.  A new patch that fixes these freezing issues should be up tomorrow. 

In a follow up to a story we brought you last month, Rage will be shipping on three discs for the Xbox 360.  This comes as no surprise, since the game requires 22 GB of memory if you want to install it on the hard drive.  The Xbox 360's DVD format can only hold a little over 8 GB, so with some simple math... carry the one... adjust for wind... yep.  Three DVD's are required for a 22 GB game.  Remember, the install is completely optional, but it really sounds like you're going to want to install this bad boy.  Time to delete some games!

The Lord of the Rings: War in the North has new trailer out.  It concentrates on the new fellowship of the three, and the whole "sum is greater than the parts" thing.  Basically, when you get a dude, a dwarf, and a female elf together, things get awesome.  Like we didn't already know that.  Still, the trailer is pretty cool.  It uses opera singers, spinning camera angles, and buckets of blood to great effect. 

Hi folks!  This week we have some niche games hitting the store shelves, along with a great downloadable co-op re-imaging of the Castlevania franchise.  It's a rather slow week for co-op launch titles.  This will let you catch up on the early glut of September games.  Consider this the eye of the fall gaming storm because October is almost here.

De-makes (2D or retro-style conversions of more recent games) are nothing terribly new, but adding elements of your favorite current-gen games to a classic platformer can turn up similarly awesome results.

Last Friday, Nick wrote up his overall impressions of the Diablo 3 Beta - which several of the staff members have been putting through its paces over the weekend. This week, we’ll be running through each class and how it feels to play, starting with the Wizard.