It's true, as gamers, we love our swag. If it's a way to wear our favorite games, gimmegimemgimme, right? Well, now you can get your hands on some intriguing Left 4 Dead 2 apparel, and it's not just box art on the front of that shirt. Check 'em out, show us which ones interest you, and anticipate the games (very close) upcoming release.
Wizards of the Coast has just announced some future plans for Duels of the Planeswalkers, the video game version of Magic: the Gathering (if you don't count Magic Online that is). It looks like the spell slinging will continue on well into 2010.
We seem to really enjoy our Borderlands. Many of us have already finished the campaign and are leveling up their second and third characters. There's good news for those that wanted more; a new island will be available for download after November 24th. The DLC pack is called "Zombie Island of Dr. Ned" and will give players an additional 6-10 hours of gameplay time to complete the story here. IGN has stated that there are about "50 quests, and 5 new dungeons" on this new island, with a plethora of zombies accidentally created by a wacky Dr. Ned.
You've heard the tales, and you've been given a chance to play a twisted fighting fairy tale version of the classics. We've tried out the co-op in Fairytale Fights to ask Mirror, Mirror if this game is the fairest of them all, or deserves to be ground into bone-crunchy Giants bread.
Ah, Modern Warfare 2. The epitome of all that is unfair. Take a perfectly good formula, gimp it, insult the consumers...and then sit back and laugh as you sell 4.7 million copies in one day. Watch Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare crash the PlayStation Network in 2007, and then act surprised when it happens again in 2009. Tout your campaign as being so important that it can't support the interference of multiplayer co-op players, then copy/paste the same missions to a side mode called Special Ops...and furthermore encourage players to skip an integral plot point via the most controversial playable scene this year.
Hot on the heels of the success of Borderlands, Austin developer Gearbox hasn't forgotten about another co-op project they've been working on for some time now. Aliens: Colonial Marines, a 4 player co-op title due for release some time next year, has certainly gone through a rocky development cycle, but in an interview with Game Informer, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford assured fans that the game is still being developed.
Left 4 Dead 2 is releasing next week, and Amazon has a solid deal for you on the 360 version. You can pick the game up for $55 and you'll get $10 off future video game purchases. If you picked up any of their other deals recently, you probably already have some credit to burn!
When we found out that Halo 3: ODST's Firefight mode didn't support matchmaking, we were quite bummed to say the least. If you haven't fired up Modern Warfare 2's Spec-Ops cooperative mode yet on the 360 or PS3, we've got a bit of a downer for you - there's no matchmaking.
James Cameron's Avatar is supposed to be one of the biggest movie releases this winter. The concept of the film from the beginning was to create it side by side with the video game. As December 1st rolls near, more information is beginning to be unveiled about the game.
Overshadowed this week by Modern Warfare 2, Wii owners got their taste of the original Modern Warfare in the form of Modern Warfare: Reflex. Sporting a two player co-op mode where player two controls a cursor, the first person shooter is scaled down a bit for the Wii's hardware.
We've got a bit of bad news for fans of classic co-op. Remember the Genesis poll from a few months ago? ToeJam and Earl won that poll, and Sega promised that the alien duo would be headed to Xbox Live Arcade soon. It turns out that's not the case, according to the couple's creator, Greg Johnson. Apparently Sega forgot that they don't have publishing rights to ToeJam & Earl. Awkward, huh? The two uber-cool aliens won't be making an apearance in upcoming title Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing either.
As Mike and Nick discussed in the 28th episode of the Co-Opticast, there was a study conducted at the University of Missouri to compare competitive gaming to co-op gaming. While the study didn’t go to too great depths to test the effects of co-op vs competitive gaming, the summary suggested that aggressive games (and gaming) appeal to young men as it allows them to participate in that primal male-male competition for dominance. This phenomenon, unfortunately, isn’t always limited to competitive gaming. There is that occasional aggressive side to co-op, when the co-op experience turns from being a group working together to achieve a goal, to a group of individuals all attempting to achieve or prove something on their own. It is something that I myself was guilty of not that long ago.
