IGN has posted their impressions from some hands-on time with Call of Duty: World at War.  As we reported to you earlier this summer, the fifth Call of Duty title will feature co-op play, for the first time in the series.  The WWII-themed title will let players drive vehicles and work together as a squad, teaming up to achieve objectives.  However, there is an interesting twist to the co-op play that is referred to as "competitive co-op".  This feature adds individual scoring to the game; at the end of each round, the winner is the one who has accumulated the most points for kills, head shots, etc.  This little snippet from the article is particularly interesting:

Blizzard has just sent out a fresh batch of screen shots for Diablo 3.   Currently the game is set to support five players in the co-op based story.   But the biggest revelation from the screen shots is the fact that each class has both a male and a female version of the character - furthering adding onto the MMO-esque nature of the latest Action RPG.   We see both a male and female Barbarian, and some other screens show a Female Witchdoctor (we previously saw a male one). 

If you haven't heard, there's a giant game festival going on in Leipzig, Germany right now.  Capcom has released what can best be described as a "kick ass" trailer for the upcoming co-op friendly Resident Evil 5.  How kick ass?  Well it's got: explosions, dirt bikes, mini guns, zombies, some big executionor with an axe and a weird dude in a bird mask.  Shall I go on?  Ok, there's exploding heads, slimy worm like creatures, decaptations, and a hot girl in a nurse outfit.  Yeah, I think that about covers it.

Link's Crossbow Training meets Sunset Riders in the recent WiiWare release, Wild West Guns.  Load up your sixshooter and call in a "pahdnuh" to defend the innocent townsfolk from flying sombreros, dynamite filled balloons, and a whole slew of bandits.  Does Wild West Guns ride off into a grand sunset, or does it leave a burr under your saddle?  Read the review to find out!

Castle Crashers is one of the games we gush about a lot. The game is a darling to the Co-Optimus crew and, to be fair, we have a good reason to be excited about the game. It is a four player, Golden Axe-style game made by the Alien Hominid guys. That alone should get your heart a flutter. Our constant coverage of the game has made us (and hopefully you) more excited. We've discovered that the game will have 22 unlockable characters, fun stat-boosting "Animal Orbs," and both a cost and a release date.

Good news folks!  Not only did Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise get an significant feature upgrade with 4 player online and offline co-op, but it got a price reduction as well! 

Gamasutra recently interviewed the producer and director of Resident Evil 5.  The RE series is reknowned for its high quality, and the previous installment in the series, RE4, was many folks' choice for Game of the Year in 2005.  Resident Evil 5 will be the first RE for next gen (or is it current gen?) systems, which is notable in and of itself.  However, RE5 will feature co-op gameplay, which is a first for the series (not counting the two player co-op in the lightgun style offshoot RE: Umbrella Chronicles).  You might expect co-op to be a last minute afterthought, merely tacked on to the primary single player experience for such a title.  However, in this interview, the creators state that this is NOT the case:

It looks like somebody just ran out of gum.  As previously rumored it's now official; Duke Nukem 3D will be hitting Xbox Live Arcade "soon." 

And so the day is finally here when we can say that Too Human will be hitting store shelves tomorrow, August 19th.   Too Human is an Action/RPG title from Silicon Knights that features 2 player co-op through the entire story.  The game is very centered around character building and item collection which is sure to be right up any Diablo fan's alley.

Some of you might know the famous "odd and even rule" in the Star Trek movies, where the odd-numbered movies are inferior to the even-numbered ones. Well, Call of Duty has a similar type of rule, with the Infinity Ward games being rather good and the Treyarch ones being not so good. However, Treyarch is trying to bridge the gap with Call of Duty: World At War and are making some decent strides. One of the strides is co-op, which pleases the crew here at Co-Optimus. The game is still set in WWII, but a recent article by 1up sounds promising. The article discusses some of the featTures, like a destructive flamethrower (and flammable things, like grass huts and people) and an exotic locale (the Pacific).

A mere week ago, we reported a rumor via a leaked achievements list from Viva Pinata: Trouble In Paradise.  Today, that rumor has been confirmed: Viva Pinata 2 will support up to four co-op players, either locally or online.  This news makes the little gardener inside of me get a little woozy, I must admit.  The first game was great fun, and even my wife and kids liked to watch me play.  However, with up to four people being able to participate at once, I imagine this little game will stay in our 360's disc tray for quite a while.

Last week Lionhead's Fable 2 Pub Games were made available via Xbox Live.  While the games themselves will set you back 800 MS Points, those that pre-order the title receive them for free.  The games themselves don't offer any sort of co-op, but what happens in Pub Games is completely transferable to the 2 player co-op Fable 2 game when it's released in October.