Tales of Xillia, the latest Tales game released in the West, has been eagerly anticipated by JRPG fans due to its critical acclaim in the East. Does it live up to all the hype? Let’s take a look....

What is that scuttling noise?  Is it a squirrel in the attic?  Or perhaps a incompetent player controlling Sam Fisher in his latest adventure Splinter Cell: Blacklist, out 20th August?  If, like me, you end up playing the Splinter Cell games like a ham-fisted one man band (alerting every enemy to your presence) you may want to check out the new launch trailer for some tips.

We are constantly looking towards the library of co-op games we’ll be able to get for our next-gen consoles. Recently, a solid 3-player co-op game, Awesomenauts, has been announced for release on the PS4 sometime next year!

Welcome to Beyond Co-Op, the weekend column that takes a gander at the game industry news outside of the strictly co-op realm. This week we consider the Thief release date, the Project Phoenix kickstarter, and the new Witcher 3 trailer.

I'm sure some of you are still playing Soul Sacrifice. I know I am. Okay, maybe I'm not, and I'm pretty sure most of you have moved on, too. Hey, at least I'm downloading the new bosses Comcept keeps pumping out, because I plan on getting back into the dark fantasy spell shooter as soon as I finish a few other games on my backlog. 

Dead Rising 2, Capcom's cooperative zombie thrashing sandbox game, is available as a free download for Xbox Live Gold members. Players will take the role of Chuck Greene and, well, another Chuck Greene as they battle battle through scores of zombies in the overrun casino complex of Fortune City. 

Skyward Collapse, the 4x/RTS/god game from Arcen Games, will be receiving its first expansion at the end of the month. As a quick background, the game revolves around you, an omniscient being, overseeing the development of two warring races and keeping those races from completely wiping each other out. It's a different take on the whole "god game" genre and one that I found quite enjoyable, even if the co-op had a few problems. The game's already gone through a number of tweakings and improvements since it's May release, and now it's getting it's first official expansion: Nihon No Mura.

Some of us are playing games this weekend. Others are doing things like moving and wedding stuff. I think we all know who got the better deal. 

Payday 2 is what little kids dream of when they play cops and robbers. It is a criminal mastermind’s bank robbery fantasy come to life in the form of a four player co-op shooter....

...

I like games, but I also like charity and cheap stuff.  The team at Humble Bundle appear to have read my mind when they started combining great games and the ability to pay as much (or as little) as you wish between the developer/Humble/charity.  The latest bundle includes Dead Space 3 and Burnout Paradise for whatever you wish to pay. You also get Battlefield 3 if you pay a little more than the average.

Gamers who might have taken an extended break from good old Capcom titles will soon have a nice opportunity to play “catch up” with them. A sweet, new Capcom games bundle has been announced to arrive this October, titled as “Capcom Essentials”.