It's been a few years since the "great milking" of the Lord of the Rings franchise.  In fact, I believe it's been well over a year since the last LOTR game was release, which would have been LOTR: Online. 

Left 4 Dead has a soft spot in the hearts of the team here at Co-Optimus. Maybe it is because of the four-player co-op, maybe it's the ability to play as zombies. No matter the reason, we have given the title a good deal of interest. So has Shacknews, which recently featured an interview with Valve's Doug Lombardi. The interview does not just concern Left 4 Dead, but there are some good tidbits of information. First, the game has a probable release date: November 2008. Secondly, the game will likely have a demo, though of course details in the interview are scarce.  There is more in the interview, which you might want to check out.

We've had our eye on 'World of Goo' for some time now, and the latest revelation about the upcoming WiiWare title has us even more excited.  Though the game will be released for PC, Mac, and Linux, as well, the Wii version will have an exclusive two player co-operative mode!  You and a buddy will be able to sling goo to overcome all sorts of obstacles together.  'World of Goo' still has no release date, and no details of the co-op have been released, whether it be split screen or online.  Either way, we're eagerly anticipating this one!

There's nothing better than getting more co-op content for an already superb cooperative game.  Ok, there is something better, getting free content for an already superb cooperative game!

Haze was released last week and featured an integrated 4-player co-op mode.  And while normally this would excited us greatly, it appears as though the reviews have been less than favorable. 

We review the biggest game of the year in a way only Co-Optimus can. So what's the low down on the co-op modes of GTA IV, and just how do you get to said modes? We let you know what they are and where they are in our co-op review of Grand Theft Auto IV for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

We hate to use Gamestop as a source of information, but news is news.  The preorder page for the fourth Guitar Hero title, World Tour, is up.  Several interesting details are revealed.  First of all, the release date is listed as October 27th.  This might be accurate or it might be totally made up, knowing Gamestop's track record.  It sounds about right, though, given the history of the series.  The price is listed as $190, a full twenty bucks more than Rock Band's bundle.  I guess those cymbals cost a lot more to make?  Most interesting is a screenshot showing the game's "create a song" mode.  It looks to be pretty deep, maybe even too deep for the average user, or the above average user who is lazy (that would be us).  Still, the thought of playing the theme song from the old Transformers cartoon in Guitar Hero is very tempting.  (What?  I'm the only one to think of that?)

We've got one co-op game coming out this, and it's on the Wii.  Death Jr. Root of Evil is a sequel to a popular PSP title which sets the player in the role of the grim reaper's son.

We've had several stories regarding the long delayed Too Human, but forgive us if we are excited about any news about the title.  After all, we've been looking forward to it for almost a decade!  IGN has posted a video preview for the game, showing off some truly impressive co-op gameplay.  The trailer is narrated by a talking head who explains the reasons why the team dropped co-op from 4 to 2 players.  While this is disappointing, for sure, it will likely not bother players too much.  It's hard to be angry when you are burying your lance in a giant mech's head and exploding it into smithereens (2:30 in the video).  Is it August yet?

We here at Co-Optimus.com are always on the lookout for content for our users.  This article is the first of a new column, "Co-Op Classics", that will come your way every Friday.  The focus of this series is great co-op games of the past.  We'll be looking at all sorts of older games that featured co-op, from the golden age of the arcades up to the last generation of home consoles.  Some of the titles we feature might be available today, perhaps on XBLA or Virtual Console.  For those games we feature that aren't available, well, perhaps we can get the powers that be to do something about it!  As soon as I knew I'd be writing this weekly column, my favorite arcade game came to mind instantly.  I knew I had to use it for the first Co-Op Classic!  Older gamers likely have fond memories of video arcades.  Back in their heyday, arcades were wildly popular, filled to the brim with video games of all types.  These days, there are few arcades, and those that remain are focussed on DDR, Claw machines, and light gun games, for the most part.  But back then, it was different.  There was no feeling like walking into an arcade with a pocketful of quarters, and spending an afternoon with a buddy trying to beat high scores and talking trash to each other.  In all my time in the arcades, though, there was no other experience like that of X-Men: The Arcade Game.

Every once and a while we get a nice surprise announcement.  Today that comes from this GamesRadar preview of Resident Evil 5.  So what's the surprise?  How about the fact that a franchise that has been traditionally single player and about lone survival will add full featured cooperative play!  Yup - drop-in/drop-out support, full integration of the 2nd character into the story, and all playable online with the AI taking over if your buddy runs away from the game in terror.

We've covered Fable 2 in the past, what with the revelation that the game would feature co-op of some sort. However, video proof of said co-op gameplay is always nicer than just discussion about co-op gameplay. Thankfully, the team at Xbox360 Fanboy have discovered a Peter Molyneux interview (on Gamespot) where he discusses various aspects of the game. The relevance? In between Molyneux discussing Fable 2, there are gameplay snippets featuring two characters fighting together.