Boom goes the dynamite, boom goes the ant hill.  

Epic Games have unveiled the Epic Edition (oh..I see what they did there) of Gears of War 3 today along with a limited version of of the game.  The limited version will set you back an extra $20 for a few goodies like a COG flag, an unlockable multiplayer character and the will of Adam Fenix.  The Epic edition will include all of the above as well as a Marcus Fenix statue and other goodies.  

Today, we take a look back at a unique co-op gem from the late 1980s. Highly cinematic, with a hefty dose of cheesy humor and a dollop of sex appeal, Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters is, in a word, interesting.

It's been down since the middle of April - and now over three week later it appears the Playstation Network is finally gaining some signs of life.  If you fire up your PlayStation 3 you'll be prompted to download system software version 3.61 - this mandatory update includes fixes and enhancements for when the PlayStation network comes back online - which appears to be sometime in the next few hours.

This months blog topic is challenging you to do what so few gaming websites do - find a balance between playing indoors, or outside while managing to maintain your gaming integrity. Co-optimus Community Voice: Gaming Inside And Out has seen an interesting GPS gaming challenge in the form of a treasure hunt, and now the wonderful world of portable gaming meets JRPG to bring one of our pale companions to the great outdoors.

Welcome to Beyond Co-Op, a weekly piece that talks about industry stories that may or may not be related to co-op gaming.

Brink has been out for less than a week, recieving mixed reviews.  Bethesda and Splash Damage have acted quickly to address some fan concerns.  Apparently, many gamers have experienced serious lag while playing online. To rectify this problem, a new update limits the amount of human players to 8 in Campaign and Freeplay modes. This applies to players "with lower upstream bandwith."  If you haven't noticed a problem with lag, you can connect via the "Big Teams" option in Free Play and Private matches, as seen above.  That will put you in 16 player games.  This update somehow requires no download, and is available now on the Xbox 360.  (I popped it in and it's there, as if by magic. No, no, don't tell me how they did it.  I like my world filled with wonder and amazement.)   It will go into effect on the PS3 when the PSN is up and running.  The PC versions is getting some fixes, as well.

This new Fear 3 video is for a four player survival mode aptly titled "F**ckng Run!".  You and three teammates must run from safe house to safe house in an attempt to outrun and encroaching "Wall of Death".  This wouldn't be so bad, but there are enemies in the way to make your life difficult.  You can revive fallen allies; actually, you must revive fallen allies.  If just one teammate is touched by the death cloud, it's game over, so you can't simply run ahead of everyone else.  The old "I don't have to outrun the tiger, I just have to outrun you!" philosophy won't help you here.  This is one of the two announced 4 player online co-op modes. The other is called "Contractions", and it seems to be a straight Call of Duty Zombies clone.  The game also features a co-op campaign which can be played via split screen or online.  Looks like Fear 3 will have plenty of co-op options for us when it comes out next month.

Saints Row: The Third has announced community sharing tool for your customized characters.  Now your friends can use your personally crafted persona in their own games.  The Initiation Station will offer players a chance to share each other's avatars:

The latest video for Hunted: The Demon's Forge places your foes in the spotlight.  This developer diary covers the different types of enemies you'll be battling when the game releases at the end of the month.  The minotaur race is looking particularly brutish.  If you want to check out more information on the title that has earned the moniker, "spears of war", you can read our hands on preview here.

Earlier this week an enormous patch was applied to the lately installment of the Total War series, Shogun 2. The bulk of the update seems to be fixes, but there's some unit tweaking, DirectX 11 support, and even four new multiplayer maps included as well. We found the game to be a great co-op strategy/RTS game, giving it an impressive 4.5 out of 5. For the full list of patch notes, read on: