The spiritual successor to Contra: Hard Corps was available on the E3 show floor for some hands on time, and I was lucky enough to co-op through a few levels with the game's associate producer.  

Welcome to Beyond Co-Op E3 Edition where I link up all I can from sister site Colony of Gamers and other trusted locations about single-player games that have little to nothing in relation to co-op gaming.

From the E3 2010 showfloor we got a peek at the Crackdown 2 demo, complete with some great news for co-op gamers. First up, the demo will feature 4 player co-op so you can run around the giant sandbox world with 3 of your buddies. The demo drops June 21st, so you'll have several weeks to get your skills honed in for the official release. Finally, and this is new to the demo world, the demo will allow you to unlock achievements and carry them over to the full game.

Sony's Press conference was highlighted by many great games, but one of the truly epic moments is one the Company's VP of Everything - Kevin Butler - came out and gave a speech about loving games.  The speech proclaimed how great it is to be a gamer, why we love games, and why everyone is a gamer that wants to play together.  

Following in the tradition of the dungeon crawler/action-RPG vein, with a bit of Gas Powered Games' own added flair, the Dungeon Siege series has provided quality gameplay and co-op experiences on the PC for some time and fans of the series have been eagerly awaiting Gas Powered to announce the next entry.  It came as some surprise, then, when the third game was announced as being developed by Obsidian Entertainment, a company best known for the Knights of the Old Republic sequel, the recent Alpha Protocol, and the upcoming Fallout: New Vegas game.  With a track record that's hit-or-miss, depending on with whom you talk, I went into the Dungeon Siege 3 demo a bit apprehensive, but left very eager to play.  Indeed, this may be the first co-op action-RPG I've seen that will be just as fun to play on a console as it will on a PC.

The Co-Opticrew is still trying to catch up today from the events we've attended.  Mostly this is due to some extremely crappy internet at our hotel.  Fret not!  Our coverage is continuing to come and Marc, Jim, Kat, and Loren are doing an excellent job holding down the home front.

If you missed Microsoft's Press conference, you missed the first gameplay footage of Gears of War 3's four player co-op campaign.  Luckily for you we were there with a camera to record it.  We'll see Marcus and crew take on the new lambent enemies which definitely don't look like push overs.  So sit back, grab some popcorn, and enjoy the full 5 minutes of gameplay.

The House of the Dead franchise is familiar to many gamers, though a lot of folks might not remember the quirky game Typing of the Dead set in the same world.  If you do remember it, you have a pretty good idea of what Rock of the Dead is like already - though Rock of the Dead is not a license HoTD game.  

One of the most-hyped titles from this year's E3 has to be Gears of War 3.  A new gameplay mode for the game was revealed, called "Beast Mode".  It is described as the opposite of Gears 2's Horde Mode.  Instead of a group of COGs teaming up against the invading aliens, players will actually take on the role of the Locust, cooperating to take down the humans!  It sounds quite similar to Left 4 Dead's Vs. Mode, but apparently Beast Mode is more like Horde Mode in that the enemy is controlled by AI, not human opponents. 

As no doubt hundreds of adoring fans are finding out at the E3 Halo: Reach event tonight, Halo 3: ODST's popular Firefight co-op survival mode is being confirmed for final Bungie chapter, due this September. Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb and the Halo Waypoint have both broadcast via Twitter that Firefight 2.0 will be a featured mode.

Welcome to Beyond Co-Op E3 Edition where I link up all I can from sister site Colony of Gamers about single-player games that have little to nothing in relation to co-op gaming.

Valve has made their E3 debut appearance, giving us the wildly brilliant official trailer for Portal 2, complete with a familiar voice, turret buddies, some interesting game modifications, and a lot to look forward to when Portal 2 unleashes co-op shooter-puzzle action on us. Having Valve appear during the Sony press conference also implies that the once-Xbox 360 and PC exclusive title will be appearing for PS3 owners as well.