Star Wars fans seem to be divided into two camps.  There are old timers like me, who are original trilogy purists, and look down a bit on the newer material, including the prequels.  Then, there are the newer fans, who realize Star Wars is cool no matter what; come on, lightsabers, the Force, robots, spaceships, aliens, what's not to like? (Except Jar-Jar.)  The latest Star Wars game, The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes, may tend to please the latter group, but even for us oldies, it looks like fun, with the inclusion of co-op.

One of the biggest surprises so far this year has been Trine.  A charming puzzle platformer, the PC version of Trine earned a solid review from us.  We've been looking forward to the game's release on consoles.  The PS3 version is coming first, but it being held back by quality testing.  The additional rigors of testing for the PSN release are taking more time than expected, according to Frozenbyte CEO Lauri Hyvärinen.

The Co-Opticrew has their gear together and are ready to take flight to PAX 2009! Above you can see the motley assortment of gadgets, books, stickers, and underwear in prep for the next five days.

Guitar Hero 5 hit the streets yesterday, and now we now a bit more about the game.  We were specifically curious about the import features.  Rock Band 2 supported the import of the Rock Band disc songs last year.  We loved this feature, and when it was announced that it was finally being added to Guitar Hero, we were quite pleased.  Last night, I was unable to contact the servers to try the import, but USA Today has the info. Edit: Updated information below.

As the release of Halo 3: ODST rapidly approaches, we're getting a few more of the gritty details emerging from the woodwork. Unfortunately, we've got some disappointing details this time, specifically about the highly anticipated Firefight mode. Buckle your seatbelts, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

The Co-Optimus staff is descending upon Seattle, Washington to cover the biggest gaming show in North America, and we're going to bring you all the gaming coverage you can handle right here!  Even better - we're giving away an Xbox 360 console to celebrate!

Oh shaky cams!  You shake and cam and steal the videos when the publishers aren't looking.  Oh shaky cams,  look what you have for us now!  Leaked footage of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on display at a recent Game Crazy conference.  

Stardock and NVIDIA have announced a brand new version of Impulse today.  Dubbed the "NVIDIA Edition," it will provide NVIDIA graphics card owners seamless driver updates and other optimizations for their PC.  

With a month to go till the game's release, it looks like we are finally getting some solid gameplay footage of Operation Flashpoint 2: Dragon Rising's co-op mode.  The four player online co-op mode looks like a solid addition to the tactical shooter lineup like that of Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon.

While we at Co-Optimus do not generally condone the act of competitive gaming, which, by definition allows you to dominate another player; there is a kind of co-op that does include domination, one we would like to paste a label on. This type of co-op can, if used correctly, be used against that game-hog sibling, spouse or significant other. Co-optimus would like to proudly introduce: B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Bitch) co-op gaming. We've looked at a few examples of games that created the B.Y.O.B. co-op genre, all the way back to the days of the Sega Genesis, and culminate the list with recent entries on systems like the Xbox 360 and Wii.

It's barely September, and the fist major game release of the fall rush is here!  Guitar Hero 5 hits store shelves today, and is available for pretty much every console.  Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and PS2 gamers can rock out to the new and improved game engine today.  I'm eagerly anticipating this one, and it's scheduled for delivery today; look for our review later this week.

If you're fixing for some Splodin, you might notice a title update when `Splosion Man fires up.  Great you're thinking, finally the avatar awards and fixed lag issues are taken care of.  Sorry, no awards here, no lag fix to see.  Instead the update fixes a leaderboard exploit and clears off some cheaters who abused it to get obscene high scores.  This might be why your co-op score pales in comparison to quite a few people out there.