Happy Monday, folks! This week we have a very nice selection of PlayStation 3 co-op titles, along with some fine multiplatform offerings. Stay tuned to Co-Optimus for Co-Op Reviews on all of these upcoming cooperative titles.
At a recent EA event in NYC I got to go hands on with Shank 2 and it's new survival based co-op mode. While the first Shank offered a short co-op campaign, developer Klei wanted to make something that had a bit more legs and replayability. Alongside creating this brand new co-op mode with a bunch of different characters to choose from, rather than just two like the first game, the team managed to add online co-op to the mix.
This month we take a look at quite a few titles, most of which are HD remakes of classic games. What you say? Whether it's Resident Evil 4, RE: Code Veronica or Ico and Shadow of the Colossus - we review last gen's biggest games today in HD. Also on tap - FIFA 2012, Hard Reset, and the PSN game Rochard.
I am a Transformer purist at heart, enjoying the original teams of Autobots and Decepticons the most. As the years progressed more and more strange Transformer types were added; from Dinobots to Fairytwinklecons. One group that stood out were the Combaticons and their ability to form into the giant Bruticus. According to GameStop, Bruticus will stomp his way into Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. As an added bonus High Moon Studios have also released a teaser trailer for the game.
Microsoft’s contract with South Park Digital Studios calls for two Xbox Live Arcade-exclusive South Park titles. The first, 2009’s Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! is an absolutely fantastic tower defense game with 4-player co-op. Just over two years later, we’ll finally get a sequel of sorts: South Park: Tenorman’s Revenge. The developer this time is Other Ocean Interactive, makers of the unfortunately buggy Mortal Kombat Arcade Kollection as well as the NES-talgic platformer, Dark Void Zero.
It looks like Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken won’t be the only PSN-exclusive co-op game coming out on Tuesday. Handcircus’s lovely and different Okabu will launch this week as well. It tells the story of two cloud-brothers, Kumulo and Nimbe, who set out to defeat an evil empire.
I just got back from this year's New York Comic-Con. This three day event takes place at the Javitz center right in midtown Manhattan and features plenty of geeky goodness in the form of comics, video games, board games and much more. This year's NYCC was the biggest yet - taking up almost the entire convention center show floor. It was JAM PACKED with people, I was amazed at just how crowded it was. Perhaps...a little too crowded as it was tough to get in to look at all the goods on display.
This month is full of exciting PSN-exclusive releases. Next up on that list is Rocketbird: Hardboiled Chicken, which lands on Tuesday. Based on the Flash game Rocketbirds Revolution, Hardboiled Chicken is a cinematic puzzle platformer. Think of classic games like Flashback: Quest for Identity or the original Oddworld games, only this time with militant chickens. The Playstation 3 version has all of the original title’s content, plus “new characters, missions, puzzles, exclusive music videos, retro cut scenes, stereoscopic 3D support and more.” Most interestingly for us, it also brings two-player co-op into the mix.
Before Gears of War 3’s revised horde mode mixed tower defense elements with third-person shooter gameplay, PC game Sanctum had already fully combined tower defense and (first-person) shooting. Since Sanctum’s release, Coffee Stain Studios has issued a steady stream of free downloadable updates. Now they’re adding paid DLC to the mix, and thankfully it’s not much of a strain on the wallet.
Two Worlds II is a rough-edged but robust RPG, filled to the brim with things to do in single-player as well as separate online co-op missions. In case that wasn’t enough, developer Reality Pump recently released a full expansion pack, titled ‘Pirates of the Flying Fortress.’ They also plan to release a Game of the Year Edition that will include both the main game and the expansion later this year.
Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon may have been something of a letdown to fans of its predecessor, fixing only a few of 2017’s faults and introducing plenty of new ones. A recent title update attempts to rectify some of those problems, but once again it breaks a few things of its own.
The second installment of a popular 90s era co-op series was released on the Playstation Network this past week. Metal Slug 2, which first hit the arcades in 1998, is available for download for $8.99. That's a fair price for an excellent sequel, which added a host of new weapons to the formula, including the powerful laser gun and better armor piercing shells for the Metal Slug itself. A better deal might be Metal Slug Anthology, which is available for Wii and PS2. If you have a backwards-compatible PS3, you might look into that game, which includes no less than seven Metal Slug titles on one disc, including 2. In any event, Metal Slug 2 is a great game, and certainly worthy of a playthrough for fans of classic co-op.
