About a year ago, Dishwasher: Dead Samurai intrigued our artistic co-op interests. Now that Ska Studios has gotten a bit of a handle on what to do, a sequel has been born. Dishwasher Dead Samurai: Vampire Smile was on display at this years PAX East, and we got to try out how it plays, how it looks, and ask a few questions about how co-op is. We also took a look at Charlie Murder, which is a 4-player co-op beat-em-up for the Indie community of Xbox.

You'd think with a name like Mommy's Best Games we'd find a plethora of cake baking simulations and daycare running strategy games - you'd be wrong.  Instead Mommy's Best Games is an independent developer of such Xbox Live Indie titles like Weapon of Choice and the recent Shoot 1UP.  The latter is an interesting take on the top down shooter genre that involves players gathering 1UPs that immediately add extra ships instead of a pool of lives to use.

When the first Mafia game was released in 2002, it was easily one of the best PC games I played that year.  The characters and the story were extremely well done and more mature than they had been in other open-world games, and the fictional city of "Lost Heaven" felt like a real 1930s American city.  When the game's sequel was announced, I was eager to once again be taken back to a classical gangster time period and experience this more subversive slice of Americana.  Based on what I played at PAX East, though, it's a disappointing trip.

Four ordinary people picked to play Lost Planet 2 together in co-op.  This is their story.  

Western themed games have been one of the few video game genres that almost seem to be cursed.  Reception to titles like Gun and the Call of Juarez and Desperados series was luke warm at best, and it seemed as though no Western-themed game could ever do justice to the very sources (The Man With No Name Trilogy, John Wayne's films, and others) that inspired them.  After playing the game at PAX East, I feel very confident in saying that Red Dead Redemption may be the first Western-themed title I've ever played that lives up to its source material.

Feast your eyes on ten new screenshots of Crackdown 2.  The latest batch gives you a good idea of some of the upgrades the game has gotten, as well as a close up look at some of those baddies you'll be facing with four friends.

This Thursday was originally supposed to be a Left 4 Dead 2 co-op night featuring the new DLC, but we had to call in a substitute, and we found a good one. We're hitting up the desert with 50 Cent and the G-Unit to get back our diamond encrusted skull. It's 50 Cent: Blood on The Sand Co-Op Night.

March is almost over, and there's still no sign of the Left 4 Dead 2 DLC called The Passing.  It was originally slated for release by the "end of March."   We have it on good word that right now there's an expected release date of April 27th for the content, which has survivors from Left 4 Dead meeting those in Left 4 Dead 2...at least we hope to meet them.  Not only with content include new story missions, but will also include several new game modes.

Microsoft had two modes of Crackdown 2's multiplayer on display - sadly neither of which were co-op.  Rocket Tag and Team Deathmatch.  Nick and Jason each played one of the modes and came away with their impressions from PAX East.  How does multiplayer work in an open world game like Crackdown?  Read on to find out.

Some gamers out there may remember an XBox LIVE Arcade title called Hydrophobia that was teased a couple years ago at E3 2008.  Touted as having the most realistic water effects around, the project went utterly silent after that and not much was heard about it after that.  However, in the midst of the chaos at PAX East, sharing space with the much in-demand Crackdown 2 demo, was a playable version of a game that combines action-adventure, survival, and third-person shooter genres with one of the most amazing water physics engines I've ever seen.

We're inching ever closer to Splinter Cell Conviction's April 13th release date.  And while Gamestop may claim you'll be the first to play the game's co-op mode, we actually got our hands on it this weekend at PAX East...along with 50,000 other gamers.  

I snagged a handful of pictures from around the show floor of the first ever PAX East in Boston, MA this weekend.  Sadly I didn't get as many as I would have liked because we were busy navigating crowds, finding great games to play, listening to panels, and chatting it up with developers.