Bang-on Balls: Chronicles is a ball-themed 3D platformer that is currently available in Steam Early Access and will eventually come to Xbox as well. In the meantime, developer Exit Plan Games continues to refine and add new content to the game. The latest addition to Bang-On Balls is two fun minigames that both support online co-op. To ...
Just over a week ago, Microsoft announced that the Xbox exclusive Space Jam: A New Legacy - The Game would launch first as a free perk for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Subscribers. Not surprisingly, that prediction has come to pass. Ultimate members can indeed download the new Space Jam game, a pretty good beat 'em up with 3-player lo...
Streets of Rage 4 floored classic gaming fans with its tight gameplay and amazing graphics and soundtrack when it arrived back in early 2020, but things have been quiet for DotEmu's beat 'em up since then. That will finally change when the 'Mr. X Nightmare' DLC and a separate, free title update arrive later this month. Not only do we have a release date and price for the DLC now, but we've also got a fresh trailer that showcases the new content.
Around this time last year (which only feels like 5 years ago), we heard about a new action-survival game called Tribes of Midgard, which showed players running around a world fighting monsters from Norse legends, collecting materials, and building a home base. The title looked promising - particularly as it supports up to 10 players online - and during this year's Summer Game Fest, we finally got news of an official release date. Fell giants and defend the Seed of Yggdrasil with your buddies on July 27, 2021.
Sea of Thieves Season 3 is a bit different than the first two, with a full fledged cross over with Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Included for free this year for all players are five brand new tall tales complete with fully voiced characters from the movies and a brand new story that melds the two worlds together. Nick and Jason team up to take on the first area - The Strange Shores in our latest Twitch Stream recap.
That was a wild month, huh? Seems like the industry has re-discovered how much fun a good PvE-co-op experience can be based on all those announcements made during the various E3- and Not-E3-showcases. Sadly our happiness is a bit dampened by the fact that many of those titles - especially the high profile ones - don't feature good old local couch multiplayer. Either the hardware requirements are too high for classic split-screen or connecting you with your friends through the series of tubes called the internet is the prefered way to go for the developers nowadays. We don't know and don't judge. We are just happy we have so much to look forward to even if our Database Master was sweating hard adding all those games. In the end our database saw an addition of 380 old, new and upcoming titles in June which also meant we breached the barrier of 9.000 entries!
Warhammer: Vermintide 2 employs a slightly staggered release schedule in which updates and DLC hit PC first, then Xbox, and eventually, PlayStation. Case in point: the 'Sister of the Thorn' DLC that launched on PC earlier this month has just arrived on Xbox and PlayStation. It adds a new career (class) for Kerillian the elf. Meanwhile, PlayStation also just received the free 'Chaos Wastes' expansion that already came out on the other platforms.
Does anyone remember Grounded? It was supposed to be developed by Obsidian as an Xbox exclusive. Did that game actually come out? It did seemingly launch as a Game Preview title last year. Since then, it appears that Grounded has continued to remain operational and even receive improvements. In fact, despite the game's questionable existence, it just received the major 'Doom & Shroom Update' today.
Back in the innocent days of 1993, LucasArts created a unique 16-bit co-op game called Zombies Ate My Neighbors. The game starred two goofy teenagers who must wield squirt guns and other improvised weapons to save their neighborhood from an invasion of monsters and aliens. It also spawned a less beloved sequel, Ghoul Patrol. Now both of those games...
Although Tetris Effect first launched as a PlayStation exclusive in 2018, the enhanced co-op version Tetris Effect: Connected that came along in late 2020 has been exclusive to Xbox and Windows 10 for quite a while now. A free PlayStation beta test version is currently available to download in advance of the full game's July release, giving players a taste of sweet cross-platform co-op.
Almighty: Kill Your Gods is an action RPG from Versus Evil and developer RUNWILD Entertainment that launched on Steam Early Access in May. Despite the Early Access tag, the game already features truly impressive (perhaps even Monster Hunter-esque) graphics and online co-op. Almighty just got even mightier thanks to an update that adds a challenging subterranean Hollows realm to explore.
In December 2021, Sega and a company called Zuiki released the Astro City Mini, a miniature arcade cabinet featuring 37 classic Sega arcade games. Now to be outdone, Taito recently announced its own mini arcade cabinet: the Egret II Mini. Scheduled for release in March 2022, the Egret II Mini will include 40 classic arcade games, 10 of which feature 2-player local co-op. Even better, the optional Paddle & Trackball Game Expansion Set adds 10 more games and a very special controller. That’s a lot of classic co-op goodness!
