Want to make Left 4 Dead PC assault you with more infected hordes, less boss infected, near-impossible difficulty, and zero AI or co-op players?

Rough economy got you down? Here's your chance to keep your money in your pocket and still acquire some new toys!

Poor framerate got you down in GTA IV on the PC?  Perhaps the latest patch for the game can alleviate your troubles.   Among numerous performance improvements across the board, there's now some additional graphical sliders in the options menu to get your Niko running as smooth as butter.  Now you can't blame your computer's performance lag when you crash the helicopter into Kenny during the Hangman's Noose co-op mode.  

Callling in sick today?  Perhaps you want to.  And maybe you should call a friend and have him do the same.  The Resident Evil 5 demo is now available on Xbox Live.  The demo features two full levels, all featuring 2 player co-op with drop-in/drop-out support.  Co-Op can be done either split-screen or via Xbox Live.

No, nobody got married on the Co-Opticast.  Your regular hosts Nick and Mike are both already married, and I don't mean to each other.  Nick and Mike did appear on Episode 83 of The Married Gamers Podcast, hosted by Chris and Kelly. The podcast takes a slightly unique approach to video game podcasts getting both the male and female perspective from a married couple.

Windows Vista got a pretty bad rap of being a poor gaming operating system.  Probably rightly so as it was a bit of a resource hog.  Microsoft hopes to correct this with Windows 7, which really, is a very streamlined version of Vista.

Pardon the lateness of this week's beyond co-op column.  Things are a bit hectic around Co-Optimus HQ.  I think our espresso machine is on the fritz. 

GoGamer is having a monster sale on the Guitar Hero: World Tour Bundle for the Wii and Xbox 360.  Right now you can get the full setup which includes guitar, drums, mic and game for $99.  That's a savings of $100!

It's not often we get to put up a link to Metallica's website, but that's our source for this news item.  We'd previously reported a rumored list of songs for the upcoming Metallica-centric Guitar hero title, but now we have it straight from the horses mouth.  If you like Metallica, you'd like the list.  I'm a fan, and I'll probably be picking it up at some point, as my love for "Battery" is greater than my dislike for giving Activision my money.  Also, "Fuel" is one of the songs, and my son, as a toddler, sang that song like this: "Gimme food, gimme fries, gimme something on the side!!"  I feel that memory is funny enough that I just have to pick that same song up in rhythm game form! 

Far be it from us to promote ignorant claims like the one you're about to read, but we just couldn't help it. In truth: palm-to-forehead stories like this belong in other, less scrupulous blogs. And yet, we felt compelled to let our readers in on the irony.

You know, I could have used a more appropriate image for this post...something that portrayed the usefulness of the new patch inbound for Burnout Paradise. A screenshot of the new "Restart" option...or the new optimized billboard visuals...pretty much anything besides this.

Two weeks ago, a rumor was on the loose -- a rumor that claimed that Ubisoft was cooking up new Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six titles to be release sometime in 2009.