The fifth playable update for Happy Wars was recently announced by Toylogic Inc. This time around, in collaboration with another game developer, The Behemoth, Happy Wars will be gaining some Castle Crashers items to adorn players warriors with, along with an all new game mode to do battle!

Castle Crashers is finally gracing the PC with a proper release.  The Behemoth masterpiece co-op game is now out on Steam with full four player local and online co-op support.  It's available on both Mac and PC for $14.99 today and comes complete with all the personality, weapons, and colorful characters as the 360 and PS3 release of the game.

In 2008, one of the greatest beat-em-ups of all time was released on Xbox Live Arcade. It went on to become a smash hit, one of the best selling games on the service. In 2010, that same game was released on the Playstation Network, allowing PS3 owners to enjoy it. Now, more than four years after its initial release, non-console gamers can get their hands on Castle Crashers. 

It seems like porting downloadable console games to Steam is the cool thing to do these days. Iron Brigade just came out on PC this week, and now The Behemoth has announced a Steam port of their popular co-op brawl-PG Castle Crashers. With the relative scarcity of local co-op in PC games, we're pleased to report this one will feature both online and offline 4-player co-op. Plus it boasts such modest system requirements, even Co-Optimus' own Andrew Gaskill should be able to run it! Check out those requirements and the feature list after the break.

There's a handful of game sales going on this week, the first of which is occurring over on the PlayStation Network for Ubisoft titles.  Included in that sale are co-op games Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Outland.  PlayStation Plus members can get those games for 50% off - or $4.89.  Everyone else can get it for 30% off - or $6.99.  Scott Pilgrim features 4 player local co-op while Outland features two player online co-op.

Castle Crashers is probably the best side-scrolling beat-em-up in recent memory, if not all time. The XBLA version just got a little better as The Behemoth has finally published a second title update, fixing many of the game’s longstanding issues. The update also introduces a new piece of DLC, the Pink Knight pack. And it’s free! (The Pink Knight has been available as paid DLC in the PSN version since February.)

Deals of the Week, One Day Sales, Special Offers, Gold Membership pricing, the list goes on.  There is a ton of content for sale over at the Xbox LIVE Marketplace, and much of it supports co-op.  Lists get awfully boring, unless their designed to save you money.  Check out these sale items.

When looking at game design, a few things are necessary in order for co-op to work properly. Most of these things gamers don’t think about on a day to day basis - and it’s not covered in our Co-Op Terminology guide. It’s the core principles for getting players to work together, which Ubisoft designer Patrick Redding disclosed at GDC. He talks about moments where he is very satisfied with during the co-op test phase, and things that every developer (should) think about during co-op development.

This issue of On The Download gets to me so much I made up a word to best illustrate how this makes gamers feel. Have you noticed that when a game comes out on one system but doesn’t hit the other systems at the same time, the later port of the game often comes with different, improved features?

Awards season is over... or starting... or we're in the middle of it.  No one really knows, and no one really cares. We do care about the PlayStation Network Gamer's Choice Awards 2011, though. Why, you ask?  We'll tell you why.  The titles that win these awards go on sale to kick off Sony's Spring Fever Event.  So if you don't have Dead Nation, Castle Crashers, God of War: Ghost of Sparta, or Age of Zombies, now is your chance to pick them up for 30-50% off.  

Pink is the new black

The other day I was asked what I thought of Dragon Age by one of my buddies. I sat for a moment and finally admitted “I have it, but haven’t played...” Why would someone do that? I have a strange quirk where I don’t like starting games unless I have time to finish them...

The excellently awesome Castle Crashers has reached a gaming milestone.  The Xbox LIVE arcade title hit 2 million players on the leaderboards over Christmas weekend.  That's not including PSN players.  For those of you who don't know, 'excellently' awesome is the sixth highest level of awesome.  It only gets awesomer from there!  Official* Top Five Awesome Rankings from least to greatest: incredibly, fantastically, moderately (weird, I know) , co-operatively, and finally, epically. Awesomely awesome is the worst level of awesome, for obvious reasons (If you're oblivious to the obvious, see inverse ninja thoery.)

Microsoft is kicking off a countdown to New Years by discounting several titles from now until the end of the year.  In addition, each day a new set of content will be discounted for one day only.  So what's in store for today, December 21st:

The past two years that I’ve been here with Co-optimus I’ve noticed one very important trend: Co-op games are coming in nice, affordable, downloadable packages. That being said, I’ve also noticed my hard drives filling up quickly - Be it my Xbox 360 250gig, or my PS3 80gig, space is running out...