We begin a new mini-series of articles today.  The purpose of "This Week In Co-Op" is to rant and rave a bit about what we've been playing, but, oddly, there hasn't really been much about staff team-ups.  That ends today, and for the next few weeks, you'll be finding an article written in true co-op fashion by two of our staff members.  This week, we've got Mike, artist extraordinaire, podcast host, and new daddy, and Marc, senior editor, retro gamer, and a somewhat older daddy.  So what did these two fellas get into this week?  Well, it turns out, being a daddy means it's hard to find free time to play co-op with each other.

Portal 2 has us anticipating a lot of awesome gameplay, but also leaves us with a lot of questions. Most importantly - how can the awesomeness of Portal be co-op capable? Joystiq and CVG have taken a look at the co-op gameplay as proposed by Valve software, and boy does it sound interesting.

There's a crazy glitch in the Crackdown 2 demo that will allow you to play as long as you want without hitting that pesky 30 minute time limit.  Even better - the glitch will work for a co-op game.

Brink has been a game I've been following with intense anticipation.  While I was immediately gripped by the style of the game, it was the 8 player cooperative promises that tickled my spidey sense.  Having played the game for a good 30 minutes at E3 - including checking out the myriad of customization options - I'm happy to say I think Brink will deliver when it launches early next year.

By now you've seen just about all that you need to know about Rock Band 3.  What we have here quite possibly the pentultimate music game for a wide range of players from beginners to actual musicians.  Harmonix has finally created a game that's not only a game for fun, but a learning tool for budding musicians.  But despite all that there is more than there appears to be on the surface with Rock Band 3.

If it wasn't obvious that Microsoft was pushing hard to capture the family demographic, what with Kinect and all its related software, today, it's even more clear.  Playing together as a family on your Xbox 360 is about to get a little easier.  The Xbox Live Gold Family Subscription Plan is coming this November.  For the price of two Gold memberships, the Family Plan will give you up to four individual memberships, all included under one family umbrella.  That could be a savings for families with 4 different gamers, but the real news is some extra options making it easy to manage each account.

Sony's E3 press conference was filled with games, games, and more games.  While there wasn't a whole lot of co-op games on display we did enter the world of co-op and 3D with Killzone 3 - which was quite impressive.  Along the way we got a peak at some new Move titles including an impressive demo of a game called Sorcery.   Of course the highlight was the aforementioned Kevin Butler appearance and speech - one that shouldn't be missed. 

The Nintendo Press Conference at E3 2010 was filled with classic titles updated for the Wii and DS and seeing the return of classic characters like Kirby and Donkey Kong - both with co-op options.  But the highlight was the reveal of the 3DS.  We've just posted a handful of pictures from the conference.

Rockstar Games has released six co-op missions today for Red Dead Redemption.  Called the Outlaws to the End mission pack, players will steal gold, rescue a heard of cattle, battle it out with gangs while crossing the river on a boat, and take on the Mexican army with cannons. 

Whenever you take the name of a popular franchise and then shape it to be that of your own, the controversy surrounding it usually speaks louder than the game itself.  It's a shame really because this is the field that XCOM has sowed as it's a first person shooter based on a classic PC turn based strategy franchise.  

When we first heard that the next entry in the F.E.A.R. series of games would feature co-op, and a form of co-op that the game's developer, Day 1 Studios, calls "divergent co-op," we were left with quite a few questions.  Early previews of the game helped clear up some of these, but we still were curious about how the game looked for ourselves.  Fortunately, Day 1 Studios and publisher Warner Bros. Interactive had a demonstration of the game's co-op in action at E3 and what we saw left us feeling a bit divergent already.  Specifically, how will we decide who gets to play as Fettel?

There were a lot of games to see during last week's E3; some of them co-op, others not so much.  Amidst all the announcements, demos, and chaos, though, there was one co-op title that Nick and I were eager to get our hands on and try out - inXile's upcoming co-op action/adventure/puzzle title, Hunted: The Demon's Forge.  Initial previews of the game likened it to "Gears of Warcraft" or "Spears of War," and those wouldn't be too far off, but the game certainly seems to promise more.