Overrun by quality titles this holiday season?  How about a few new screenshots from what could be one of next year's must buy holiday titles?  Atari recently picked up the new hostbusters game, which had previously been a Vivendi, and then an Activision title.  The important thing is, it's being released.  Though the game will lack a co-op campaign mode, it will still feature four player co-op action.  This snippet from a new press release makes me think that just maybe the game might end up a winner despite its troubled history.

What's this you see?  That's right we bring you our very first Games for Windows Co-Op night in partnership with the great folks on the Games For Windows team.  Up first?  Gears of War!

The Playstation Home Beta is in full swing, and Co-Optimus user Torg001 has posted a lengthy set of impressions from his experience.  All in all, it looks pretty neat, and fairly polished, especially for a beta.  Here are some of the highlights, and you can check out the full post right here.

Starting next year, finding a PS3 game with support for trophies won't be shocking anymore.  Videogamer reports that beginning in 2009, all new Playstation 3 titles will be required to have trophy support.  I think we can all agree this is a good thing.  There have been lots of problems with "patch it in later" trophies.  If you had earned a trophy before the patch, you were out of luck and had to earn it again.  Not a good thing!  Whether you like achievments and trophies or not, it's good to see Sony keeping up with Microsoft as far as this type of feature is concerned.

Well the "Big" announcement is finally here, and really, it's not all that big.  Lionhead has announced a premium DLC pack called Knothole Island that unlocks new quests, armor, weapons and areas to explore and gain.  The download is set to come out December 12th for a price of 800 MS Points, which seems to be the standard run of the mill pricing for DLC these days.

It's really great when video games can get a player so immersed he actually feels like he's part of the game.  It's a tough thing for a game to accomplish, but when it executes this feat, the outcome is usually amazing.  And of course, it's probably YouTube worthy.

 Layoffs in the industry are never a good thing, so it's unfortunate we have to report that developer Gearbox has recently laid off 26 employees in an effort to "adjust internal strategy."

Someone went really deep into the depth of 80's licensing to find this one, but what they've come up with actually looks pretty damn cool.  Remember the MadBalls?  Squishy little disgusting nerf balls that your teachers hated?  Yeah, took me a minute too.  But guess what?  They're back in a brand new game from developer PlayBrains. 

You're on a dark street, all alone.  Suddenly, hideous screams pierce the silence.  The ground beneath you starts to tremble.  Suddenly, you see them: a huge horde of ravenous figures with glazed eyes, shambling towards the light.  You try to run, but they are too strong.  You are knocked off your feet and totally incapacitated by the pale-faced swarm.

We've got Zombies on the brain this week.  (Maybe that should be "on our BRAAAAIIINNSSS"?)  It was quite easy to tie the theme in to Co-Op Classics this week, as there is a sweet little gem from the early 90s featuring the shambling undead: Zombies Ate My Neighbors.  Besides having one of the best names of any game, ever, it has quite a bit in common with the recent blockbuster co-op zombiefest, Left 4 Dead.  Sacrilege, you say?  Read on to see what I mean.

The stories for this week:

If you listened to the latest Co-Opticast, you'll know that one of the things I talked about was the expandability of Left 4 Dead, specifically in the case of "zombie scenarios."  I talked about the fact we'd probably see a Dead Rising style mall, and sure enough, there's one already in the works based on the Dawn of the Dead mall.