Beyond Co-Op is where we talk about other news around the industry that isn’t necessarily tied to co-operative gaming. Each week will see the subjects of the column listed on the front page with more in-depth discussion after the break. If you have any suggestions, please contact us at tips@co-optimus.com with a subject related to “Beyond Co-Op”.

The stories for this week:

- Halo 3: Recon Finally Announced

- Resistance 2 and Resistance: Retribution Connectivity Announcement

- Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3 Go Gold

- Beginning of the Fall Gaming Avalanche This Week

- Xbox Live Experience Week 5: Xbox Live Marketplace

Halo 3: Recon Finally Announced

About time is all I can say. It has been hard for me to keep in what I knew about Bungie’s next game even before the E3 pullout happened. Yes, Virginia, this will be a First-Person Shooter and it will be a standalone game. It will follow an as yet unnamed ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper) dropped in a city on Earth falling between the time of Halo 2 and Halo 3. It also looks like there will be some sort of AI companion or overseer guiding the trooper, most likely the Superintendent that has been sending the messages for the ARG that set this announcement up.

The most interesting thing is probably that you will no longer be a superpowered Spartan soldier who can jump high and do other things no normal human can. Bottom line is that even though Bungie went independent of Microsoft, they are still making at least one Halo based game and most likely have a deal in place that they will not be overseen to the extent they were on the other Halo games. No word on whether the Microsoft Halo Team is also involved with this game or not. Get ready, because Halo is about to become a multipronged frachise.

Source: Tokyo Game Show Announcement, Microsoft Fact Sheet on Game

Resistance 2 and Resistance: Retribution Connectivity Announcement

This was honestly pretty big news this week for anyone that is a fan of the Resistance games themselves or interested in connectivity between the Playstation 3 and Playstation Portable. There were two separate stories, both by Joystiq.

The first one is that the upcoming PSP game Resistance Retribution will be able to connect to the PS3 and allow you to play with a DualShock 3 controller. This will allow dual analog inputs as well as rumble in the PSP game. The gadget used to run it is called “PSP Plus” and so far this game is the only one to use it, but one would guess it will be used in the future as well.

The second story is that when Resistance Retribution comes out (early 2009 it sounds like) you will be able to hook the game up to your PS3 and if you have Resistance 2 you will be able to go into the R2 menu and choose to Infect the PSP game with the Chimeran virus. With the PSP game now infected, the main character will gain the abilities that Nathan Hale has in the console game such as being able to breathe underwater indefinitely and have regenerating health. This of course makes the game far different than if you were playing it as a non-infected title and with the PSP Plus technology you can play it on your PS3 with rumble and dual-analog support.

Source: Joystiq (PSP Plus), Joystiq (Infection story)

Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3 Go Gold

Two of the larger games coming out in the next month both went gold this week and one had the special bonus of being out on torrent sites the same day it was announced as gold. Fallout 3 was the unfortunate victim of the torrent unloading (on the 360 no less) and those out there playing it online should probably be a bit fearful for what Microsoft may do to them. I don’t know if 360 review units are out there yet. If not they can start plucking people off that are dumb enough to play it while online. Fallout 3 comes out October 28th on 360, PS3 and PC.

The bigger news was probably Gears of War 2 going gold this week. This is a highly anticipated game and probably Microsoft’s biggest holiday game for the 360. An ARG of some sort has started, as evidenced by this very site getting a cog with a code on it. Gears of War 2 will be released on Friday, November 7th.

Source: Press Releases Announcing Both

Beginning of the Fall Gaming Avalanche This Week

Although this week may not be as packed with excellent games as the upcoming weeks, the fact is we’re just entering the beginning stages of a wallet busting time in gaming depending on your likes. This week’s two major releases are probably Dead Space on the 360 and PS3 (PC version comes next week) and Saints Row 2 on the 360, PS3 and PC. There is also the world favorite FIFA 09 as well as SOCOM: Confrontation on the PS3, Blitz: The League II on 360 and PS3.

Now just wait until next week, your wallet will most likely be screaming!

Source: Release List by Week (Colony of Gamers, links support both CoG and Co-Optimus)

Xbox Live Experience Week 5: Xbox Live Marketplace

This one actually sounds pretty cool. With the NXE coming November 19th (they announced the date this week) you will be able to look at and purchase items using your computer on the Xbox Live Marketplace. This means you can sit at work and purchase new stuff on your computer, go home to turn on your Xbox and it will download the stuff you bought on your computer. Pretty cool if you ask me and much more streamlined than things are at this moment.

Source: Gamerscore Blog

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