During the mid 80s, the military genre was very popular in movies and television shows. Video games, too, followed this trend, and the military themed Ikari Warriors was one example, featuring two player co-op.

You've already seen the trailer for Splinter Cell Conviction's co-op mode, but now you can witness the co-op campaign in action.  

Just in time for the holidays, Square Enix is unleashing the destruction of our planet on Xbox Live Arcade in the form of 0 Day Attack on Earth.  The twin stick shooter allows for four players to cooperate over Xbox Live as they fend off an alien invasion in the cities of Tokyo, Paris and New York.

The stories for this week:

To round out a great co-op year, Game Informer took polls asking community members how they feel about specific co-op aspects in games, and asked a few key co-op developers how the co-op process works for them. Out of these community polls, statistics arose that made Co-Optimus.com very proud of the gaming community at large. For instance, 51.9% of all gamers surveyed responded that they'd rather play social games than single player. Of those social gamers, 64.5% of them prefer friendly co-op to competitive multiplayer.

Make a list, check it twice.  Then play every game you just wrote down.  It's time to find out what our staff will be playing as they gear up for the Christmas holiday and New Year!

There is a wealth of co-op opportunities out there for the co-op gamer that goes looking a little further. Muse Games' Guns of Icarus is one such title that offers a four-player co-op experience in an easy to access, and fun to play, web-browser based package.

If you read our hands on preview with Army of Two: The 40th Day on the PSP you'd know the game is quite a bit different than its console counterpart.  Now you can see it in action for yourself and the first vibe I get from the game is an updated Total Carnage.  

It's been sometime since the free online FPS Combat Arms added it's co-op mode called Fireteam.  The mode was, and is, a lot of fun - but with only one map available to play on things got stale.  Finally Nexon looks to remedy the situation not only adding a new map, but by changing things up a bit with Fireteam.

We were pretty surprised at how fun Killing Floor was when it was released earlier this year with its 6 player co-op gameplay.  At first we thought it was nothing more than a Left 4 Dead clone, but we soon came to realize the game did quite a bit to set itself apart.

Despite the demo being around since the Tokyo Game Show earlier this year, if you didn't know Japanese, you were left out in the cold from understanding the demo for Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker.  Now available for download on the PlayStation store as well as few sites scattered throughout the web, there's four missions to try in an updated version.

Also available on Xbox Live, the trailer for Splinter Cell: Conviction's co-op campaign is posted right here for you.  The trailer shows Archer and Kestrel of U.S. agency Third Echelon and Russian agency Voron - respectively - doing what they do best. Voiceovers give a synopsis, and the Splinter Cells kick rogue military personnel butt.