Activision have just announced a release date for Apache: Air Assault - a two player co-op helicopter action/sim for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.  That date?  November 9th.  

It's been an age long battle in the PC gaming world.  ATI vs. NVidia.  Not since the early days of 3DFX and the birth of the 3D acclerator card has there been two steadfast competitors for consumer hardware dollars.  Sadly that battle is about to change again, after AMD's purchase of ATI in 2006, many wondered what would happen to the graphics maker.  Since that time ATI has managed to snag over 50% of the discrete graphics market share with it's 5000 series of cards, mostly due to NVidia's rough showing of its FERMI series of processors.  

At E3 we were shown a cool preview of a game that literally rocks the dead. Rock of the Dead is a co-op title that pits rockers with plastic guitars against the dead - you literally rock the dead. The idea is to "survive" the zombies by playing various notes in the correct order - think House of the Dead only with less guns and more guitar.

In a move that will surely incite riots on the internet, but will shortly be followed by - "I guess we'll pay it" - Microsoft is raising the price of an Xbox Live Gold Subscription for the first time since Xbox Live launched back in 2002.  

Gamasutra user Isaiah Taylor - featured numerous times recently for his popular blog postings - earlier highlighted a back-of-the-box trend that causes the Co-Optimus community a fair amount of distress: the decline of split screen and shared screen co-op.

Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest is only a few weeks away from release.  The PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii versions of the game include both motion control and two player co-op play.  In co-op, player two controls the wizard Gandalf while player one is the ranger Aragorn.

Combat Arms has gotten a new content updated called Operation: Dredge, and with it comes the ability to capture video inside the game and upload it seamlessly to YouTube.  For most PC games this process usually requires a third party program to run, some of which actually costs extra money.  Also included with the update is a new versus map as well as a set of weapons from the FS2000 family.

Two classic Sega arcade titles have hit the Nintendo Wii in Gunblade NY: Special Air Assault Force and L.A Machineguns: Rage of the Machines - Arcade Hits Pack.   Ok, so the name might be a mouthful - but fans of light gun shooters will fondly remember the machine gun action of these games in the arcade.  What set them apart from other lightgun shooters at the time was instead of a loose pistol attached by a cord, players leaned up against the machine to a mounted machine gun with force feedback.  

See this little Saints Row 2 gem? The .45-firing Omar Epps wannabe dressed up like a hot dog? Well, it may be standard fare to Volition fans, but nonetheless I call it nuttiness. And according to publisher THQ, Volition is making Saints Row 3's nuttiness is being enhanced visually.

Yup, DJ Hero 2 is a-comin' for all of you guys who want to mix up some new songs. We gave you guys a heads up a bit over a month ago of the artists that would be featured in the game. Now we have the actual song list here for your perusal:

For Co-Op Classics this week, we are taking a look at Aerosmith's lightgun-style shooter, Revolution X.

Welcome to Beyond Co-Op, a weekly piece that talks about industry stories that may or may not be related to co-op gaming.