If you're reading this, you love co-op.  Apparently, so do many others, including IGN.  They have released a Top 10 : Where's My DLC? list.  Of the top ten, seven of them are co-op titles.  That's a rather impressive ratio, don't you think?  Our thoughts on each below.

9. Too Human - There are lots of cool armors and weapons already, but there's always room for more, or maybe even a new chapter.

8. Viva Pinata 2 - Follow the Pokemon model and give us more cute little critters to raise, please!

7. Gears of War 2 - Dominant already, imagine what a few new maps and such would do for the longevity of the game.

6. Saint's Row 2 - From the IGN article: "Cat and Mouse is easily some of the most fun you'll have with the game, so why not add other modes like it to co-op?"  Yeah, why not?

5. Fable 2 - The big tease is coming soon, and might be DLC...

4. Castle Crashers - More  characters please!  But fix the network issues and bugs first.

1. Grand Theft Auto 4 - This wish has already been granted!

With all the avatars and Netflix and overall slickness, you might have forgotten one long-awaited feature of the New Xbox Experience(tm).  Installing games to the hard drive to speed up loading was certainly overdue.  I know there are a few games I have that make the disc drive on my 360 sound like a jet engine.  It seems to be a good thing that Halo 3 isn't one of them.  Installing the game to the hard drive actually increases load times!  Wonder how that works?  Bungie's Chief Caching Officer Mat Noguchi (there's a catchy title) explains.

So when Halo 3 runs, if a HDD is present, we copy maps from the DVD to the utility partition (on the HDD). Think of it as an on demand install of Halo 3 to some scratch space on the HDD. Halo 3 doesn’t actually know where it’s running from, so it always assumes it’s running from a DVD. This is an unfortunate consequence of new features (namely, install to HDD) being added to the Xbox 360 after Halo 3 shipped. And as a result, it means that even if Halo 3 is already installed to the HDD, it will still copy maps to the utility partition.

Basically, it's having to read and write to the hard drive at the same time, as opposed to reading from the DVD drive and writing to the hard drive.  It all makes sense now, doesn't it?  Next time you're up for a little Co-Op Master Chief action, pop in the DVD and call it good.  And hope your 360 doesn't take off into the atmosphere.

Echoing our earlier post about LBP levels being pulled, it appears the first round of user created songs has been pulled from GHTunes in Guitar Hero World Tour.  A few songs that were made available shortly after the games launch, such as the Legend of Zelda theme, and some music based on Super Mario Bros. tunes, are now gone.  We all knew this would be happening, as we were warned about it before the game was even released.  It's still sad, however, and I'm glad I was able to download a few cool tunes before they were pulled.  I still don't think cell phone ringtone style music makes for good rock and roll, but it was fun while it lasted.  Isn't it too bad that we live in such a lawsuit-prone world?  We hope to have a nice interview and editorial about user created content up soon here at Co-Optimus, so keep your eyes peeled for that.  In the meantime, download what tunes you can!

I went to school with a fellow named Austin Rushing.  That'd be a perfect name for a football player, wouldn't it?  Almost as good as a snowboarder named Shaun White.  Speaking of Shaun, his games have just been released.   The 360 and PS3 versions are basically the same game, but the Wii version is a totally different experience, and supports the Wii Balance Board.  Buy using the links below to support Co-Optimus.com!  You'll be dreaming of a (Shaun) White Christmas, for sure!

Shaun White Snowboarding (Xbox 360)

Shaun White Snowboarding (Playstation 3)

Shaun White Snowboarding Road Trip (Wii)

Just a few days ago, the folks over at the Guitar Hero World Tour community site posted a set of charts.  The charts show which instruments work in which games, for both Activision's offerings, and those of competitor Harmonix.  (It'd be better for gamers if there was no need for such a chart, but I digress.)  Obviously, knowing which instruments to buy for maximum compatibility is important this busy, hit-packed season.

However, there are a few problems and inaccuracies with the charts, as you can read about in Wired's post.  In a somewhat shocking turn of events, the official post from the GH community forums with the charts seems to have disappeared; at the very least, it has been moved and the links are broken.  (If you can find it, please let us know by posting here!)  Curiouser and curiouser, as a certain young lady once said.

In the meantime, if you need to know if that PS3 Rock Band drum kit will work with Guitar Hero World Tour, or if your old reliable X-Plorer will allow shredding with your buddies in Rock Band 2, we suggest Joystiq's Instrument Compatibility Matrix.  It's quite an impressive piece of work, and goes to show you sometimes the fans know better than the publishers!

LittleBigPlanet has been out for several weeks now.  You've likely played through the clever and quite well done story mode.  The meat of the game, a virtual cornucopia of user created content, is spread out before you like a Sackboy buffet.  You check a few out, find a few favorites, and then, the next time you log in, you find they are gone.  Poofed.  Disappeared.

You would expect some levels to be deleted, certainly.  All the countless Mario levels, for instance.  Mirror's Edge, Metal Gear Solid, and many other games have been "reimagined" in Sackboy form.  It's no surprise that these types of levels are being pulled.  (Personally, I don't think they hurt anyone, but I suppose the threat of a lawsuit is too much.)  But what about this report from AeroRant?

I booted up today and two of my levels had been taken down. They deleted my Election level, which had over 20,000 plays and had been hearted a lot. I can almost understand them taking that one down because of the use of images, but it still hurts. The one I don’t understand is my Object Creation Station level. This was just a bunch of objects that I have made in which you can collect them all for personal use. This level did not use any copyrighted materials at all. When I tried to republish any of my levels I found myself locked out of publishing any new levels at all.

Most uncool.  Particularly upsetting is the last bit there, about not being able to publish new levels.  In response to reports like these, Sony has released an official set of guidelines as to what is and is not allowed in LBP user created content.  First, inappropriate content will be removed (no phallus monsters, a la Spore).  Secondly, "don't use images, brands or logos that you're not entitled to use".  That's about as open ended as it gets.  Technically, can we even make a Sackboy object, for example?  It seems the proverbial can of worms has opened here. The official press release from Sony is after the break.

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The holiday season is just around the corner, and you know what that means: less dough for the latest co-op games!  It's especially bad for co-op gamer parents.  Check out our handy guide to managing the kids, your spouse, and all those great games while keeping the wallet fat this year!

The final boss of Guitar Hero 3 was Lou, pictured above.  We thought the inclusion of the devil himself was just for fun, but it appears Activision's involvement with the forces of Hell go a little bit deeper.  What's that?  You need proof of this unholy alliance?  Look no further than this quote from Activision CEO Bobby Kotick.

"The ability to offer these songs on a subscription basis may very well result in the newest subscription opportunity in our portfolio."

You're probably thinking, no big deal, they've been talking about a subscription based model for Guitar Hero DLC for some time now.  However, the songs he's talking about are not new tunes from established bands.  He's referring to user created, downloadable content available from GHTunes in Guitar Hero World Tour!  Yes, that's right; the suits running the Guitar Hero franchise now are thinking about charging other people for YOUR user created content.  This whole notion is preposterous on so many levels.  You can expect to hear more about this kind of thing from Co-Optimus in the future, I assure you.

What say you, readers?  Do you think Activision making money off of user content is a great opportunity, like Bobby Kotick?

The latest issue of Game Informer has some details on upcoming Halo 3 expansion, Recon.  We don't have the actual issue in our hands yet, but halo.bungie.org has a few details from the article, and I do mean few.  It turns out Recon may be shorter than many would like.  We're talking about "a three to five-hour expansion pack", according to Paul Betone.  Before you get all up in arms, consider this quote:

Bungie's Joe Staten says "we do not view this as a $60 title".

It's a good thing, isn't it?  I wonder if he sees it as a $40 title?  Even that seems like too much for such a short experience.  It'll sell like hotcakes either way, I'm sure.  You can check out the other bits (what little there are) at the link below.

The music studio feature was one of the most highly anticipated things about recently released Guitar Hero World Tour.  If you read our review, you know that we found the studio a bit lacking, to say the least.  It may not be quite what we were promised, but hey, the competition doesn't have it at all right?  Videogamer recently spoke to Rock Band 2 lead designer Dan Teasdale about GH WT's music creation tools.  What did he have to say?

"We've dabbled around with stuff like that before, with Frequency and Amplitude, and we learned a lot of lessons from it," he said. "The main one is that you can't do it half-arsed. If you want to do a way to let players create and distribute music, you have to go all-in - not just do it as a bullet on the back of a box."

He added: "We actually want to find a way to for people to create music and express themselves, but when we do we want to make sure that people can sing, or the songs can be longer than three minutes, or that you can have more than 1200 notes, or that you're not tied to some dodgy sample somewhere. We want to make sure it's an authentic experience and it fits on the platform."

File this quote under brutal, but correct.  It may be that a solid music creation tool just isn't feasible, given the sue-happy world in which we live in.  I'd love to see Harmonix take a stab at it, for sure; maybe they could come up with something whole-arsed!