by Nick Puleo 7
News

Activision Dissolves Guitar Hero Division

Today is the day the music died.  Activision has dissolved the Guitar Hero business unit within its company, laying off almost 500 employees and effectively ending the franchise...for now.  This decision affects both the Guitar Hero and DJ Hero games as well as all future DLC.  New songs will stopped being added to both games after this month.

by Andrew Gaskill 0
News
  • playstation 3
  • pc
  • couch
  • online

Call of Duty: Black Ops - First Strike DLC Coming to PS3

Dry your tears, PlayStation 3 owners. The first Call of Duty: Black Ops map pack will be making its way to the PS3 next month.  CoD:BO 'First Strike' will be released through the PlayStation Store on March 3rd.  Its MSRP is $14.99.  What will your fifteen bucks get you?  Four new multiplayer maps and a new Zombie level called Ascension, that's what.   You can see our co-op impressions of it here.  The DLC is also coming to PC before the end of Q1.  

by Nick Puleo 0
News
  • pc

Dawn of War II Midweek Steam Sale Gets You Retribution Beta Access

Steam's midweek madness sale this week is all about Dawn of War.  All Dawn of War titles are 50% off - this includes the two player co-op Dawn of War 2 and the game's expansion - Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising.  Another stand alone expansion pack is in the works as well titled Dawn of War II: Retribution, though this isn't offered at the 50% discount price.  You can snag all three games, plus  Dawn of War Gold, Dawn of War: Dark Crusade, and Dawn of War: Soulstorm all for $60. 

by Jim McLaughlin 7
News

Non-Profit Veterans' Group Says Call of Duty May Trigger Post-Traumatic Stress Episodes

You're running harder than you ever have before. You can hear yourself panting and the crunch of your boots on the snow-covered gravel. Snowflakes fall peacefully, a stark contrast to the close-quarters battle at hand. Death could be around the next corner. Toss a flashbang, or not? The sound would give you away, but you can't risk letting the enemy have the element of surprise. If there's someone waiting for you to step into their crosshairs, they'll put you down for sure. You hear the chatter of gunfire somewhere behind you and to your left. Two frag grenades can be heard exploding, and then relative quiet. It's enough of a distraction that you make your move, and dash around the corner-- only to stop in your tracks at the sight of two enemy combatants. One raises his rifle at you. Your breath catches in your chest. Your heart stops.

by Marc Allie 7
News
  • xbox 360
  • couch
  • online

This Week In Co-Op: Monday Night Combat

  Andrew's Take The Super Bowl has come and gone and my awesome manly team crushed your pathetic sissy team. Just kidding! I’m a Bengals fan; therefore, I hate football, but love to watch it. With the waning of yet another season I was left with a quandary. Whatever would I do with my Monday nights?  I’m sure as hell not going to listen to the fluctuating accents on The Chicago Code. Luckily for me, it’s time for another round of This Week in Co-Op, and Marc had a brilliant idea.   MONDAY NIGHT COMBAT! And the sick thing was, it wasn’t even a Monday.  It was a Tuesday! Bizarre, I know.  But then what was all that about The Chicago Code? I don’t know, that was a whole day ago!     Marc had sent me a simple Xbox LIVE text message, “loading mnc patch. that ok?” This was going to be my first gaming session with Marc.  I know he’s been with the site for a while, so I wanted to make a good first impression.  I saw that he was online but his status said “Away.” I decided to send him a voice message over Xbox LIVE, and it went a little something like this:   “Hello, Marc.  This is Andrew, Cubninja, from Co-Optimus.  I think Monday Night Combat is a great choice.  I see that you are away.  If you are looking for me, I’ll appear offline because my status...” End of recording.  Xbox LIVE only gives you about fifteen seconds to record, so you have to be succinct, which I detest. “Hey, Marc, this is Andrew.  Good choice on the Monday Night Combat.  I have to download the new DLC, too.  I’m going to appear offline because I get too many notifications from...” Dammit. “Hi, Marc, it’s Andrew.  Monday Night Combat sounds good.  Downloading the DLC now.  My status will say “offline” to keep the notifications from...” Shoot. “Marc, Andrew. MNC is cool.  Downloading DLC now.  Status offline to keep notifications down. Too many notifications enrage me. Let’s play when you’re ready.” Close enough.     That might not be exactly what I said, (I’m 100% sure it’s not even remotely accurate.  I think I just grunted into the mic for 15 seconds.) but I had finally recorded a message that didn’t suck that bad. (Why don’t I just turn the notifications off?  That’s a good question...)   Did I mention my wife was sitting next to me on the couch?  She was.  I probably recorded and discarded a dozen messages right next to her.  I looked over, somewhat ashamed.  She tilted her head sympathetically and said to me: “Tell me, did you have a hard time leaving messages for girls, or is this waaaay more important?” Burn!   DLC downloaded and confidence crushed, I started the matchmaking process.   Marc's Take If only I had known how much was at stake, I might have listened to Andrew's message a little closer.  As Andrew's sense of self-worth had been destroyed quicker than a level 1 laser turret, we began our evening with the simplest of challenges, the Exhibition mode, with only ten levels of action.  This was good for both of us, as it had been many months since either of us had played.  Andrew played as the Tank, while I chose the Gunner, which I thought would be a good counterpart.  Indeed, the two did work together well, and as I recall neither one of us even died at any point.  As the action was so easy, we chatted a bit and got to know each other better.     We decided to step up the challenge a bit, choosing a 20 round season Blitz game.  Andrew stayed with the tank, and swapped to the balanced assault class.  I was really unimpressed with this guy, feeling like the benefits of flying and such didn't outweigh the short reload time.  Of course, that's probably just a playstyle thing on my part.  Andrew and I worked together quite well, and the chatting kept up.  I learned he grew up in Ohio, and he asked me how I got started with Co-Optimus (it's a long story, but it's pretty funny that my first news post was almost three years ago, for Aliens Colonial Marines, which STILL hasn't been released).  The going was somewhat tougher, with a couple deaths and even a moneyball breach at one point, but we lasted until round 20, victorious.   Until this evening, I had not played MNC with anyone except my 9 year old son, and we had never made it to the end of playoff Blitz, a rather more difficult 30 rounds.  However, we felt confident in our abilities, and so Andrew fired it up.  I went back to my favored gunner class this time around, and it seemed to work out far better.  The action was so intense that Andrew and I didn't get to chit chat much; our communications were related to "died again" and "I'll cover the right" and the like.  We had a couple nasty break throughs when we both died to Bouncers, and the Jackbots were extremely tough.  A coupel Gap Shots, left alive too long, decimated our defenses, and it looked pretty bleak.  However, we managed to barely scrape through the entire 30 round set.  The familar, coveted "Achievement Unlocked" blip sounded for me, and on that note, we decided to call it a night.     I had a great time, due to the excellent company and the fantastic game.  Monday Night Combat is one of the better titles available on Xbox Live Arcade, and to me, that is really saying something.  Andrew may have been nervous about wanting to make a good first impression, but really, he had nothing to worry about.  He had already impressed me when I learned he was a fan of Fist of the North Star as a kid!  

by Andrew Gaskill 0
News
  • playstation 3
  • xbox 360
  • pc
  • nintendo wii
  • couch
  • online

New Trailer for Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars

We recently let you know about the small delay for the release of  Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars.  Today, to help dry your tears,  we bring you a new pre-launch trailer.  It covers some of the epic battles from both The Clone Wars and Attack of the Clones.  The new, more 'realistic' enviroments are all on display in their non-Lego glory.  The upgraded engine should allow for more blocks on screen than ever, which means more droid fodder for your humming light saber.  At one point a decapitated droid head is used as a weapon.  No word yet on whether or not this game will be ripped from store shelves for its graphic depiction of Lego violence. 

by Nick Puleo 4
News
  • pc

Torchlight 2 Delayed Till July

The original Torchlight's official Xbox Live release date was just announced for March 9th with a price tag of 1200 .  By all accounts Runic Games spent a lot of time tweaking and balancing the game for gamepads.  It seems this extra care caused the development to take longer than expected and took more resources away from the development of Torchlight 2 than Runic Games expected.   Because of this the game is going to get a slight delay.

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