Beyond Co-Op is where we talk about other news around the industry that isn’t necessarily tied to co-operative gaming. Each week will see the subjects of the column listed on the front page with more in-depth discussion after the break. If you have any suggestions, please contact us at tips@co-optimus.com with a subject related to “Beyond Co-Op”.
The stories for this week:
- Warhammer Online Comes Out
- Burnout Paradise Sees Bikes Added
- LittleBigPlanet Goes Gold, Out Oct. 21st
- LEGO Batman/Brothers in Arms Out This Week
- Bungie’s ARG Starting Over Again?
Warhammer Online Comes Out
Although I never had a chance to play in the beta since I was busy with other stuff, probably the biggest news last week is that Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning finally came out to challenge the king of MMO games, World of Warcraft. Initial impressions seem to be pretty positive from what I’ve read. We’ll see what happens a few weeks from now whether people are still gung-ho about this game or if it will trail off like the other MMOs that have come out since WoW came out.
Source: Various sites reporting impressions
Burnout Paradise Sees Bikes Added
Criterion continues sending us free goodies in the form of new DLC for the fantastic Burnout Paradise game. This time around bikes are added to the mix as well as day/night cycles. I’ve downloaded the update, but have not found time to play it as of yet. What I’ve heard from various friends is that it is a cool addition and that at night it gets REALLY dark.
Criterion flies against Electronic Arts regular policy of nickel and diming us to death, although the next huge DLC from them is rumored to have a small price tag. I say given how much meat they’ve given us in prior DLC that putting a little down for another download isn’t the end of the world.
Source: Various people that have played with the new DLC
LittleBigPlanet Goes Gold, Out Oct. 21st
What is this, a co-op game in Beyond Co-Op? Yeah, it was a slow news week and honestly this is pretty big news since I know a lot of people are looking forward to this game, including myself. LittleBigPlanet is really still an unknown quantity to many of us and Sony has set it up well as their mass-market game for the year. I would expect gamers of all ages to want to play with Sackboy and his friends, but the question still remains how good will the game actually be versus the ability to create things on your own?
Source: Playstation Blog
LEGO Batman/Brothers in Arms Out This Week
September gives one last gasp of games worthy of a look before the October avalanche comes. This week the major releases are LEGO Batman and the really late Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway. It is unfortunate that in all this time the BiA game evidently doesn’t have any co-op play in it, however it is also being talked about as the best BiA game to this point.
LEGO Batman on the other hand should be fun to play, although once again we can only play it co-op locally and not over the internet. I personally can’t wait to see what this original story is and see all the stories surrounding the villains as you can play them this time around.
Source: The Weekly Release
Bungie’s ARG Starting Over Again?
The Superintendent is back. Wait, you don’t know who the Superintendent is? Well, this was the person who started the ARG (Alternate Reality Game) before E3 that was related to Bungie’s announcement that was supposed to happen at E3, but didn’t. Fingers began to point as it was found that Microsoft was the publisher of this new endeavor and they were the ones that pulled the plug on the announcement, supposedly pissing off people at Bungie. Well, with that all said, The Superintendent made a new post and here it is:
<\\> UNSC OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE
<\\> CLASSIFIED SIGNALS ARCHIVE [ONI.SEC.PRTCL-1A]
<\ OPENED PER OFFICIAL REQUEST [DARE.V.500341(S1)]
\ SOURCE: URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE A.I. [SUPERINTENDENT]
\ RECEPIENT: PROWLER “TOKYO RULES” [COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]
>> NOTATION KEYWORD SEARCH: “EMERGENCY” “DATA” “CORRUPTION” >> (...) ~ QUERY RUNNING >> (..) >> (.) \ VTT TRANSCRIPT AS FOLOWS...
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “METROPOLITAN EMERGENCY!”
[SUPERRINTENDENT]: “METROPOLITAN EMERGENCY!”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “METROPOLITAN EMER—!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “We know. Personnel are en route. Can you—”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “DETOUR! PROCEED WITH CAUTION!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “—put Kinsler on the line?”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: [UNITELLIGIBLE > DOG GROWLING(?)]
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Sorry, what?”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “BE A HERO! REPORT VIOLATORS!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Oh, come on... ”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “METROPOLITAN EMER—!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Listen. We have a report of core data corruption.”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “I need you to upload your—”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “PARDON OUR DUST!”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER] “—logs for the last twenty-four hours!”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “KEEP IT CLEAN!”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “KEEP IT CLEAN!”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “KEEP IT CLEAN!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: [UNINTELLIGIBLE > PROFANITY (?)]
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “We're sending a team, alright?”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Until they arrive, all additional comm needs to route through me.”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “Repeat and acknowledge.”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “OBEY POSTED LIMITS!”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “YIELD TO UPHILL TRAFFIC!”
[COMM.DUTY.OFFICER]: “I'll take that as a ‘yes’...”
[SUPERINTENDENT]: “PLEASE REMAIN CALM!”\ ~ QUERY COMPLETE
\ ARCHIVE CLOSED \>
All of you ARG obsessed people have fun with this one. Is this a new Halo game, is it a totally new IP? Who knows, but it will be fun to see the announcement actually get made.
Source: Bungie
*Note: Sorry about the lateness of this, I had a busy weekend and totally forgot about Beyond Co-Op.