I’m a high school English teacher, writer, and ninja. My co-op gaming life started with the original Double Dragon arcade game in 1987. As I only owned an NES back then, my Sega Master System-owning friend used to get tired of me wanting to play through Double Dragon with him all the time. I still love cooperative beat-em-ups, including Final Fight, Castle Crashers, and Scott Pilgrim. I was once a competitive Saturn Bomberman player, but otherwise I have always been about the co-op.
My first experience with writing about games came in 2003 when I wrote a full walkthrough for Bomberman Land 2, an amazing Japanese Bomberman RPG. Over the next several years, I continued to write FAQs and Achievement guides for various games, culminating in an award-winning Bionic Commando Rearmed guide. I finally joined the gaming press after Windows Phone 7 launched, covering and reviewing games for Microsoft’s fledgling mobile platform. Now I’m on the console scene at Co-Optimus, one of the coolest and most unique gaming sites around.
Gal Guardians: Demon Purge was one of my favorite games of 2023, featuring tight Castlevania III-style gameplay and great local co-op. This must be my lucky day, as Inti Creates and PQUBE have just announced a sequel called Gal Guardians: Servants of the Dark. The new game will be a full-fledged Metroidvania platformer with support for both local and online co-op, and it's coming to all platforms in March.
Of all the nostalgic beat 'em ups to follow in TMNT: Shredder's Revenge's footsteps in the last couple of years, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind has been the most promising. It features excellent pixel art, 6-player local co-op, and online play. Rita's Rewind has finally arrived on consoles and Steam just in time for the holidays, and it's making good on most of its promises, though some versions don't have online play just yet.
In November, the console versions of River City Girls 2 received the much anticipated "Double Dragon" DLC, which adds Billy and Jimmy Lee from Double Dragon as playable characters. The Steam version, however, didn't get the DLC or the accompanying free update at that time. Thankfully, Steam gamers won't have to wait any longer: the DLC is out now on PC. Are you ready for some Double Dragon action?
Unrailed 2 is a chaotic party game in which players team up to build tracks for a train that never stops moving. The game recently launched on Steam Early Access, and it’s already lots of fun. To find out more about Unrailed 2, we interviewed Thomas Wolf, the founder of Indoor Astronaut. ...
The last few years have seen a bevy of beat ‘em ups based on classic shows and movies. There’s TMNT: Shredder’s Revenge and The Karate Kid: Street Rumble, as well as upcoming games like Toxic Crusaders and Lady Death: Demonicron. Canadian developer Maple Powered Games recently released their own nostalgic beat ‘em up in the ...
Both of the main River City Girls games from WayForward have featured cameos from the Double Dragon series in the form of shopkeepers. River City Girls 2 even made Marian an unlockable character. Still, fans have always longed for more Double Dragon content in RCG 2. Now they finally get their wish thanks to the "Double Dragon DLC." The paid DLC adds Billy and Jimmy Lee as playable characters, essentially transforming RCG 2 into a weird, awesome Double Dragon game.
Sometimes you get so busy that life just flies right past you. That's why it's important to stop and smell the roses. One game that looks very rosy is River City Saga: Three Kingdoms Next, the sequel to River City Saga: Three Kingdoms. The first game blended historical drama with the addictive beat 'em up/action RPG gameplay of the River City/Kunio-kun series, and the sequel promises throws in motorcycles for good measure. It's out now on PlayStation, Switch, and Steam.
The holiday season is a great time for two things: playing video games and petting cats. What better way to combine those two beloved activities than by playing Cat Quest III, the cat-themed cooperative action RPG? But there's only so much Cat Quest III to go around, so you can't just play it forever. That's where today's free update comes in. The Steam version of the game has just gotten a bunch of new content, and that content will come to consoles before long as well.
It has been a while since we checked in on Warframe, the space ninja-themed free to play MMO from Digital Extremes. Well, a quick glance shows that not only is Warframe still going strong, but the developer has a new game called Soulframe in development as well. Many of us have played Warframe at some point over the years, but far fewer gamers have tried Dark Sector, the single-player action game that takes place earlier in the Warframe timeline. Well, Dark Sector is free on Steam from November 27-30, so now's a great time to grab it up.
Since MultiVersus fully launched in May, the game has gone through 3 "seasons," adding new characters and content around a seasonal battle pass. Season 4 is due to start on November 12, and it will add Raven, a fan-favorite character from Teen Titans, and Marceline, the vampire queen from Adventure Time to the roster of unlockable characters. The update also promises a new team-based competitive mode called Arena and two new maps.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is a TMNT-themed roguelike from Super Evil Megacorp. Originally an Apple Arcade game, Splintered Fate made the jump to Switch back in July. Not long after, the Steam version was announced. Now it's finally here, and it's still a kick-butt Ninja Turtles experience. Splintered Fate supports 4-player local and online co-op, plus cross-play with existing versions, so finding a foursome will be cinch.
If you like the Kingdom series of 2D strategy/resource management games, you're in luck. Kingdom: Two Crowns recently got a DLC expansion, and now a developer called Brain Seal has released a similar game called Monarchy. In Monarchy, one or two local players will work to build a base, gather resources, and fend off raiders in a colorful 2D setting. It looks easy and the controls are simple, but there's a lot of depth behind this crown.
