I'm a huge SHMUP fan, specifically Raiden II is my all time favorite. I've been a fan of the series and have purchased every iteration I can think of - from the officially numbered games to the Fighters and Aces spin-offs too. Raiden V is the first totally new game in the series in almost 10 years. It's also what might be the biggest departure I've seen.

Short and not so sweet news today. Halo Spartan Assault can be purchased on Steam next week for $4.99, instead of being tied to the Windows App Store like it was previously. This means if you haven't made the jump to Windows 8, you can easily purchase the game and enjoy it unlike before. 

While browsing through Gamestop this weekend I picked up the box for the new Pokémon game, Pokémon X and Pokémon Y, and noticed that the title listed co-op play for 2 to 4 players on its features list. So I did what any good site owner would do, I bought the game (for science) to determine whether or not we should be covering it.

The Men in Black movies would seem like a natural fit for a good co-op shooter. Agents work in pairs, solving mysteries, getting into crazy shenanigans, and zapping more than their fair share of aliens, bug eyed or otherwise. This past May, to coincide with the third movie, a tie-in game was released for Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii. The best information we had at the time was that the game had split-screen co-op, and so we gave MIB: Alien Crisis a little coverage. 

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is out today in what is sure to be one of the biggest games of 2011.  Co-Developed by Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer the game is the full package of single player, co-op, and competitive versus gaming.  But with any new release like this we felt it was a good time to remind you of just what co-op features to expect from the game.

Just a friendly reminder that the PlayStation Network's "Welcome Back" program, a promotion which welcomed back PSN users after 3 weeks of service outage with free games and other discounts, expires tomorrow - July 3rd.  

One of the reasons I created Co-Optimus was because of the confusion that occurs simply by reading a game box and trying to determine what kind of co-op the game includes.  A perfect example of this is the recently released Red Faction: Armageddon, a game we gave a favorable review to here.  If you picked up the Xbox 360 game box you may have noticed the back of it states it has local "Co-Op 2-4 Players."

Possibly the worst thing that happened during the PlayStation Network outage of the past month was the theft of personal information.  This includes not only names and email addresses, but also credit card numbers.  While the data was encrypted it obviously doesn't mean its safe.  There's plenty of anecdotal evidence of people's credit cards being used for fraud, and many banks - mine included - decided to reissue new cards just to be on the safe side.

It was July that we saw the return of the DLC for Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 after it has mysteriously disappeared earlier in the year.  It was also at that time we told you the content would disappear forever come the end of the year.  Activision's marketing guru Dan Amrich reminds us of this in the latest post on his blog.

Halo Reach's first piece of downloadable content has hit the digital shelves today, showcasing three new multiplayer maps for the game.  Sadly - none of these maps feature co-op support for Firefight - they are a versus only affair.

Tonight we lay to rest the worlds first broad band gaming service for consoles.  Microsoft is flipping the switch on Xbox Live for the original Xbox, thereby killing access to dozens of games with online modes that nobody plays anymore.  

For the past few weeks we've been touting Death by Cube as an 8 player co-op title.  Released this past Wednesday I was eager to check it out and see what cooperative offerings it had.  Sadly it looks like we were mistaken and Death by Cube features no cooperative play.  All online modes are either deathmatch or team based versus.