Bernard the gun was born in the harsh winter of 1924

What's this?  A new LEGO video game based on the Lord of the Rings series?  Unfortunately, no; at least, not to our knowledge, though it sounds like a good idea to us.  We here at Co-Optimus have long been fans of the LEGO series, which has included co-op from the very beginning.  From Star Wars to Harry Potter, and everywhere in between, the LEGO games have provided hours of fun for gamers of all ages through the years. 

This month in MMO Co-Opportunities we focus on Guild Wars, a MMO/multi-player hybrid developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSoft.

It's now smooth sailing if you own or plan to purchase the Crackdown 2 "Toy Box" DLC pack.  After we previously reported the premium content was causing game crashes, an update has been issued.  All you need to do is delete the existing content and redownload it and you'll be good to go.

Not only has Gearbox taken up the reigns of development on Duke Nukem Forever, tasked with finishing a twelve year old title, they've actually gone out and purchased rights to the franchise.  That's right - all future Duke Nukem titles will be under a Gearbox banner.  This is coming from multiple sources at the Penny Arcade Expo who attended the Gearbox panel - an panel in which 165 pizzas were ordered to logo stuffed with pepperoni to look like Duke's radioactive logo.

I think I see Aliens

Right now - this very instant - you can get 25x Experience Points in Gears of War 2, including Horde Mode. Epic Games promised a 1x multiplier for every thousand Facebook fans, and they're delivering. This trumps July's 20x XP weekend and lays track for the Gears of War 3 hype train - it's a good time to be a Gears fan.

"Saber Interactive's Inversion makes no bones about looking exactly like Gears of War," says EuroGamer's Tom Bramwell in their latest preview. According to the article, the controls are cloned over as well. Whether this works to Inversion's advantage or detriment remains to be seen. If nothing has changed since the last time we've given the game coverage, then it seems that the lack of splitscreen co-op (online only) is one thing that deviates from the Gears of War formula of success.

Welcome to Beyond Co-Op, a weekly piece that talks about industry stories that may or may not be related to co-op gaming.

I'm pretty sure there's a song about the triumph of love, if not, the above screenshot should inspire someone to write it - that is if GlaDOS hasn't already.  There's no lying about these Portal 2 screens - they look absolutely gorgeous showing off the game's co-op mode.

Sadly our PAX 2010 edition is free from the staff at PAX.  Babies, personal commitments, time and money all added to Co-Optimus not being at its favorite gaming show of the year.  To make matters worse, we're missing Duke.  Duke, friggin Nukem, fuggin Forever.  Gah!  We'll be bringing you coverage as we can this weekend of the goodies from the show.

There are those that said this day would never come.