One downloadable game that may have snuck past everyone late last year in the holiday rush was Hoard. The PSN "dragons are the good guys" title was quite good, though the co-op was so limited as to be very disappointing, as you can read about in our review. It turns out slaying knights, kidnapping princesses, and burning down buildings with a co-op buddy gets a bit old when there's only a couple maps.
F.E.A.R. is a series of horror shooter games that I had an interest in to begin with, then it waned with time. I primarily blame the fact that I don’t normally enjoy shooters that leave me on my own. In the case of F.E.A.R. 3 that loneliness is not only gone, but you’ll end up terrified together quite effectively. Tally and I played through a bit of the F.E.A.R. demo at PAX East in a mode very fittingly titled “F**king Run!”
It was a few months back that Atom Zombie Smasher caught our attention with its three player co-op tower defense like gameplay. Players take control of a section of a city and use various methods to rescue as many citizens as they can. While we enjoyed the title it did have two downsides in our opinion -
PAX East 2011 is over, but the fun is heating up at the Intercontinental Hotel in Boston, MA. Mike, Nick and Kat strip down to their skivvies and record a special edition of our podcast bringing you gameplay impressions straight from the show floor. We've got Guild Wars 2, Duke Nukem Forever, Firefall, and many many others on tap. So sit back, crack open a beer, and enjoy the show.
I know what you’re thinking: “didn’t you guys just preview Section 8: Prejudice last month?” Why yes, yes we did. However, Nick hadn’t played the original for a solid comparison preview. The PAX East preview of Section 8 Prejudice is for both the experienced Section 8 players, and the people who just want to get into a game that offers some pretty hardcore strategy and shooter elements.
Get out your nickles and dimes, it's that time again. Konami has announced new DLC for the Contra-rific Hard Corps: Uprising. Now you can pick up Leviathan, armed with a Moonsault Grenade Throw and a Slide Attack. This is the third downloadable character for Hard Corps: Uprising. Sayuri the samurai (go figure!) and Harley the biker (you're not even trying now, Konami) were available as extra DLC characters on the game's release day, February 16th. If you love you some Hard Corps: Uprising, leveling up these characters will add some re-playability. They'll also cost you 200 MSP apiece. Anyone have the number to Shenaningans? I'd like to call them.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. Yup, I said it. Its a game that is often referenced but rarely replicated in the console world. Now it seems only fitting that the inspiration for the Baldur's Gate series has become the basis for the game that's going to replicate Dark Alliance's gameplay style. Understand the paradox? After getting some hands on time with Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale at PAX East, I can confidently say this game feels perfect for fans of the Dark Alliance series, action RPG fans, and people with only $10.
Halo: Reach came out way back in September of last year. Since then it has seen numerous free updates that have balanced and tweaked the gameplay. Map packs are a different story. These cost money, and the going rate for the Halo franchise has been ten bucks for three maps. The Noble Map Pack DLC came out near the end of last November, and sadly, no co-op-friendly Firefight maps were included. Tomorrow, March 15th, marks the release of the Defiant Map Pack DLC, and this time, a brand-spanking-new Firefight map is part of the deal. We got our hands on the new co-op map called Unearthed and here are our impressions on how it stacks up.
PAX East 2011 has come and gone. The Co-Opticrew are now home and recovering, but their work is hardly done. Over the next couple of days expect plenty of hands-on impressions from numerous co-op titles. We were pleasantly surprised over and over again at the sheer amount of quality cooperative content available on the show floor.
On the last day of PAX East I wandered the show floor looking for anything interesting that I may have missed during the many co-op filled appointments we had the rest of the time. One of these stops was a visually unique title with a side-scrolling twin-stick shooter style gameplay called Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet by developer FuelCell games. To my shock and surprise, one of the staff on the game actually mentioned that the game will be Four-player online and offline co-op. How did we miss this, you ask? It's simple really, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet wasn't given the green-light for a co-op announcement until March 13 on the PAX East showfloor!
The Behemoth has always been one of the most co-op friendly developers out there and our hands-on time with Battleblock Theater confirms that the trend will continue. While we've seen some details of BBT creep out over the past months, this was the first time we could get some concrete details about the game's co-op adventure mode.
The first game in the Dishwasher series, Dead Samurai, was a fast-paced action game with an only slightly insane premise. It was absurdly violent, and had an art style closely resembling the notebook sketches of your average 8th grade social outcast. While it did have co-op, it was restricted to a survival mode, and left us wanting to see it in the story mode. Luckily, Ska Studios was kind enough to develop a sequel called The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile, and not only does it include two-player co-op in the story, it also allows for some good old-fashioned BYOB co-op.
