Gears of War has been around since early on in the life cycle of the Xbox 360. The first game was released in 2006, introducing the world to Marcus, Dom, and the glorious Lancer weapon. A smash hit, the original was followed up by two sequels, one in 2008 and another late last year. Each of these games took what made the first great, cranked it up a notch or three, and added in glorious features like Horde and Beast mode. Throughout the series, co-op options have been solid, culminating in four-player online campaign support in Gears of War 3. To say that it has been a successful series would be an understatement.

Welcome to Beyond Co-Op, the weekend column that rounds up some of the interesting stories from the week outside of the co-op sphere of interest.

Just about every member of our staff is completely addicted to Halo 4 - and with good reason.  Despite Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 releasing this week everyone is hooked on Master Chief and Cortana's story and of course some co-op Spartan-Ops.  

Every now and then I post a review, hop on over to Metacritic, and wonder what the hell everyone else was playing. Assassin's Creed 3 was one such review. There are a lot of stellar scores for Assassin's Creed 3 on Metacritic. Man, I wish they had their version of the game. Because my version is scheduled to be patched "by the end of next week." 

Skylanders Giants is the sequel to the insanely popular Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure. Beneath all the new action figures, inter-connectivity, PC mini-games, and Portals of Power, there's an actual game to play. Find out if it's worth playing in our Co-Op Review.

A new Skylanders game has hit the store shelves. Here's everything you need to know to keep your co-op partners happy, be they children, siblings, friends, significant others, or spouses. Co-Op tip: Buy a second "Giant" character immediately. This will preempt a lot of fights.  

Hmmm, this seems familiar.  Oh right, I just wrote about Halo 4 in terms of sales dollars.  Now it's the other big juggernaut's turn.  Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has sold over 500 Million dollars worth of product in the first 24 hours since launch across all three platforms: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

Halo 4 has sold a lot of copies since it launched a little over a week ago.  While the exact sales numbers are not available, Microsoft has decided to put the sales launch into dollar amounts.  So how much has Halo 4 sold?  In the first 24 hours over 220 Million dollars were spent on the game.  Let's say that the average selling price - when you take into account special editions, exchange rates, and everything else is $75.  That would mean the game has sold just shy of 3 million copies in one day.  Impressive to say the least.

We’ve been looking closely into the Nintendo Wii U hardware and seeing what sort of capabilities for co-op it can hold. One such game that immediately comes to our minds, Scribblenauts Unlimited, practically screams co-op potential. Though it does have pretty interesting co-op features, the ideal co-op gameplay we’ve wanted since the series’ inception won’t come to fruition until 2013.

Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two is right around the corner. If these screenshots, a new trailer, and information about the Collector’s Edition of this game don’t rouse you into buying this game, we don’t know what will.

Borderlands 2's second campaign DLC, "Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage," has been confirmed through a Gearbox Twitter account. The @ECHOcasts account was being used by the Mechromancer character until it was "hacked' by Mr. Torgue earlier today. After a poor choice of "explosion-based punctuation," Mr. Torgue went on to tweet:

Orgarhythm is a new hybrid video game for the PlayStation Vita. It mixes rhythm and strategy using the Vita's touch screen. After watching some of the videos, the game seems to have a Pikmin vibe. Players control a central figure who can dispatch three different types of soldiers which are governed by earth, fire, and water elemental strengths and weakness.  Two players can use an ad-hoc connection to share control of their soldiers and take on the forces of the God of Darkness. We've got two videos that show the game in action.