Sometime over the holidays we missed Microsoft posting Crackdown 2 onto the Xbox Live Games on Demand.  The four player co-op title features campaign co-op throughout - its a game with did quite the in depth review of - and for the most part - enjoyed what we got out of it.  Its currently priced at $29.99 which, surprisingly, is the price it goes for at retail.  This bucks the trend of digital releases on Xbox Live that seem to be priced higher than their retail counterparts.  

It’s a the dirty term to PC gamers everywhere: DRM (Digital Rights Management). Ubisoft has so far been the industry leader in limiting, locking, and generally DRMing your games to the point many gamers will steer clear of the publisher at all costs. It’s a new year now, and one of Ubisoft’s resolutions for 2011 is to “relax the DRM” they add to their games. Not perfect, but it’s a start.

There's a boat-load of new content for PlayStation Plus subscribers in January and February.  One of the new items is a full game trial of Borderlands, still one of the best co-op games around.  There are a ton of other deals and sales.  If you take advantage of all the savings it looks as if the Plus membership would almost pay for itself in just a few months.  If you sign up by Groundhog's Day (February 2nd, for those of you not dependent on archaic seasonal predictions) you can get 15 months for the price of 12. What are you waiting for?  As usual, non-paying PlayStation Network users will get nothing and like it.

Microsoft officially kicked off the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) last night in Las Vegas with their keynote address.  During the hour long presentation Microsoft CEO, Steve Balmer,  shed some light on just how popular Microsoft's Kinect is.  Originally estimated to sell around 5 Million units during the holiday season, Microsoft unveiled they actually sold 8 million units in the first sixty days of the device's existence.  Quite impressive.  

Never judge a game by its cover.  Take this advice from a gamer who has bought more than their fair share of awful experiences based on a shiny font or awesome illustration.  However, covers can help you work out what the developer is trying to push.  In the case of Portal 2 this would appear to be the co-op elements.  You could be forgiven for forgetting that Portal 2 has a solo campaign as Valve have continually looked to push the co-op campaign; releasing footage of the two metal auto bots in several trailers and screen shots.  This continues with the newly released box art that shows the dynamic duo tackling one of the many puzzles they will come across.

Jim and I made plans to play together last night, and I logged in a few minutes early, comparing our game lists in order to find a good match.  I had been hankering for some Monday Night Combat, but a large patch to be downloaded sank that ship before it even sailed.  So, back to Plan A, which, as you could likely surmise from the title, was Halo Reach.  I started a Firefight match, joined by the magic of Xbox Live to Jim as well as by couch to my 9 year old son, and the Covenant killing began. 

Although Guerrilla Games surely has the word "art" in mind as they painstakingly craft this beautiful game, I'm not so sure they meant to turn the Helghast into modern living room decor. Yet the soft filters and soothing light blooms of the latest batch of Killzone 3 screenshots lends it more to a lithogram than to expressing the inherent danger of other-worldly enemies.

Codemaster's Operation Flashpoint: Red River is set to release this spring. A new series of videos is out, introducing players to the new characters.  The first one profiles Staff Sergeant Knox, a wayward youth from Detroit, who now walks a path "paved with purpose."  The video is fun, even if it seems like a Marine Corps recruiting commercial.  The game will feature drop-in/drop-out 4 player co-op on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.

For fifty bucks you can get a music game developer.  That's way cheaper than buying a Rock Band or Guitar Hero bundle.  The investment group, Columbus Nova, reportedly paid Viacom $49.99 for Rock Band developer Harmonix.  The music game industry has been dying a pretty hard death over the past 18 months. When Viacom put Harmonix up for sale in November you could actually hear other publishers laughing at them. Viacom looked like that kid who is desperately trying to trade a banana for a snack pack at the lunch table. EA reps mentioned something to the extent of "catching a falling knife."  Clearly, Jack Burton doesn't work at EA.

Warriors: Legends of Troy was shaping up to be a fun new take on the well-worn (some would say threadbare) Dynasty Warriors formula. Instead of ancient Chinese warriors, samurai, or Gundam mechs, players were going to take control of ancient heroes of the Trojan War.  Greek gods were going to make an appearance, adding a supernatual element to the game.  Players can still look forward to Warriors: LoT, just don't expect to play together. A Tecmo-Koei representative confirmed that the developers originally planned to support co-op, but the game is a single player experience now.

ilomilo from SouthEnd Interactive and Microsoft Studios is a cute puzzler kicking off the new year on Xbox Live Arcade. Featuring two-player local co-op where players guide protagonists Ilo and Milo through complex cube worlds, does ilomilo live up to expectations or is it just for squares?

Over the years Co-optimus has seen the co-op gaming industry expand to include some unlikely sequels (Dead Rising 2) some new takes on old co-op (Gears of War 2's Horde mode) and all kinds of unique ways to bring gamers together. We know it's the co-op that gives these creations life, but what is it about the co-op that really makes it something that developers look forward to sharing with us? IGN chatted the co-op topic up with developer Jason Rohrer (of Sleep is Death) to discuss what makes co-op continue to bring us together.