Let's face it, with 18 co-op releases in June you are already broke.  I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but you are going to be spending more money on games over the next 10 days.  Why?  Because Steam is having their annual Summer Sale.  These Steam sales are legendary for amazing deals on games.  Come August you'll fire up your Steam client and see dozens of games, their names and origin a hazy memory.  Playtimes in the single digits.  You'll wonder how this happened.

We began the week with a mech video from Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon.  Sure, it was cool, but it didn't have that EDF: 2017 "feel."  I wasn't screaming "EDF! EDF! EDF!" at my screen as I watched it.  The latest video, appropriately titled "Destruction," really captures the essence and of EDF 2017.  The whole attitude says, "Insects are destroying the city?  Not if I destroy it first!"  Remember, buildings in EDF 2017 collapsed if you looked at them funny.  Looks like they'll be just as fragile in IA.  The video is right.  We can always rebuild New Detroit.  Maybe we'll call it Nuevo-New Detroit, or even Neo-New Detroit.  Either way, we're gonna blow some stuff up.

There's some new DLC available for Operation Flashpoint: Red River.  Titled "Valley of Death, " this content has eight new Fireteam Engagements.  You'll get an additional two missions for each FE mode, including Combat Sweep, CSAR, Last Stand, and Rolling Thunder.  These are 4 player online co-op scenarios with objectives like neutralizing all enemies, holding a position, or escort duty.  We were a little luke warm on Operation Flashpoint: Red River, giving it a 3.5 out of 5 in our Co-Op Review, due in some part to the character SSgt. Knox.  Luckily, the offensive military stereotype doesn't make an appearance in the Fireteam Engagements.  If you have three friends who are good at military shooters, there's a lot of fun to be had here.

Lucha Fury is a four player co-op beat em up set around luchador characters for Xbox Live Arcade.  No one on the Co-Opticrew heard about the game until it suddenly appeared last week on the European Xbox Live Marketplace and now this week on the US marketplace.  

Holy moly was June a busy month for co-op gaming.  Not only did we see 18 new co-op games released, we also had E3 2011 at the beginning of the month with over 40 titles previewed.  If that wasn't enough content for you how about 11 different reviews of co-op games like Hunted: The Demon's Forge, Trenched, and Jamestown.  

The Uncharted 3 Beta is underway with full support for the game's various co-op modes over its 3 week period. Not only can you enjoy the game online, but you can check out the split-screen addition as well. To celebrate the launch Naughty Dog has provided us with 20 beta codes to give away!

Go Go Gadget Price Reducer

It's been a while since we've heard anything about BattleBlock Theatre. The Behemoth's follow-up to their excellent co-op title, Castle Crashers, is still in production.  We expect to see this game sometime in 2011.  If you want to check out the gameplay, and get a little idea of the story, you can watch the trailer here.  The good folks over at The Behemoth have provided some more videos depicting how the numerous unlockable prisoners (rumored to number over 200) are spending some of their free time.  Prisoner #10325 is doing it right.  

The second Call of Duty: Black Ops map pack was released yesterday, and we gave it a run-through on Combat Training. The pack includes four new maps for multiplayer (and the aforementioned Combat Training co-op/bot mode), plus one new Zombies map that may be the creepiest one since Verrückt.

Back in March, we told you guys that a new remake of the Atari classic Warlords would be hitting the digital shelves this summer. Unlike the other iterations of the game, this version will have co-op modes in addition to the old school competitive ones. A character trailer was just released introducing the four warlords in the game: Restivo, Goelus, Kroi and Tarorthane, each of which focuses on a particular element. The trailer also serves to demonstrate the unique art direction of the game.

  Who wants to play outside?  No one, that's who.  It's frick'n hot out there. The summer doldrums are upon us.  The season is traditionally a gaming wasteland populated only by a few spartan releases.  Good thing the XBLA has the Summer of Arcade, version 4.0.  These downloadable titles wi...

So...as you know, we - the staff - been tasked by Nick to hop online in any co-op game to play with random people in public matches. The process is as simple as it sounds, thanks to plenty of games with matchmaking options. Since the news of Battlefield 3’s two-player co-op was still fresh, I decided to give the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Onslaught mode another spin.