LEGO Rock Band. It's a mix of two of the greatest casual game franchises. What could have been just a cookie cutter track pack is actually an innovative addtion to the Rock Band franchise. Adorable characters, hilarious cut scenes, and a fun song list will keep people of all ages interested.  For Co-Op Casual Friday this week, we bring you our full review!

Is Dad killing zombies or minotaurs in there?  Sounds fun.

If you have children, and are a gamer, you have probably run into some awkward situations.  There are some games that are perfectly acceptable for adults, and yet wildly inappropriate for children.  Some parents may disagree, and buy Grand Theft Auto for their first grader, but for most of us, there's a line between what's a "me" game, and what's a "kid" game.  This line varies from gamer family to gamer family, of course, and by child, as well.  For my youngest, who is eight, we have a higher tolerance of sci-fi violence (such as that in Halo's campaigns) than we do human on human violence (Call of Duty comes to mind).  Excessive realistic gore is a no-no (Left 4 Dead), but heavily stylized cartoon blood (Castle Crashers) is acceptable.  For our older son, fifteen, all the above games are probably OK, but I'd draw the line at games with strong sexual content or excessive language.  The point is, there are going to be some games on the shelf that your kids are not allowed to play.

LittleBIGPlanet is a natural choice for Co-Op Casual Friday.You'd be hard pressed to find a game more fun, enjoyable, and still appropriate for everyone, from the very young child who's never held a controller before to a seasoned gamer who has played it all.

You're probably thinking, hey, what's this?  A toy?  Isn't this a column about kid and family friendly video games?  Well, yes, it is.  But is there any thing more kid friendly than a toy?  Certainly there is not, especially when the toy is based on a fantastic video game.  As soon as we learned about the existence of Halo Wars Mega Bloks, it was a foregone conclusion that we'd own them.  Building our own Halo vehicles, with adorable little soldiers inside, is a lot of fun, and was certainly a cooperative effort!

This week, a major co-op release hit store shelves everywhere.  Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is the latest in an excellent series of action-RPGs, particularly enjoyable for comic book readers or general super hero fans.  We discussed the first game in the series, X-Men Legends, for a previous Co-Op Casual Friday.  Today, we turn our attention to X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse. 

There are two requirements that qualify a game for this column.  As long as the game meets just one of the criteria, I'll use it.  The first is appeal to a younger audience.  Movie and television tie-ins meet this requirement, but there are certainly many other kid-friendly games too.  Second, any game that appeals to the more casual crowd, or even non-gamers, can be covered.  The game we have under consideration today fulfills both of these criteria, and does so admirably.  Boom Blox is appealing to children, and great use of the Wii remote means non-gamers will love it too.

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In only a couple weeks, Wii Sports Resort has sold an astonishing numbers of units.  The first Wii Sports game was literally a system seller, and so the success of the sequel isn't really too surprising.  The new, improved motion controls, which are the real draw of theWii in the first place, are accomplished with the aid of Wii Motion Plus, an addon for your Wiimote.  The majority of the games are competitive, or single player only, as was the case with Wii Sports.  But there are a few sports included that involve co-op gameplay.  Wii lovers everywhere can now waggle and wiggle their way to victory with a friend, and not against them.

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Thirteen months, just over a year.  That's how long it has been since Guitar Hero Aerosmith was released.  I picked the game up as an impulse buy when it was heavily discounted a few months ago.  It lay in our game drawer until about a week ago, mostly unplayed.  When we moved, the games got shuffled around, and when I reached in to see what caught my eye one night, tired from opening box after box, GH Aerosmith caught my eye.  I summoned my 8 year old partner, and we grabbed our guitars and went for it.

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My, how things have changed since the original Space Invaders debuted more than thirty years ago!  Looking back, the game seems so simple, it's hard to believe it was a national obsession.  Move your ship beneath aliens, push the fire button, repeat, that's all there is to it.  When Space Invaders Extreme was released on Xbox Live Arcade, I knew I had to get it for nothing more than nostalgic purposes.  I was curious, too, at how my kids would react to it.  In this era of open world gameplay, realistic 3D graphics, and cinematic storytelling, would young gamers get bored too quickly?

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My family and I have been on vacation for just over a week now.  We've traveled from our home in Missouri to Florida, with a stop in Georgia in between.  Though I love my Nintendo DS, it just doesn't take the place of a 360 or PS3, or any game on a big screen.  So, to keep the gamer itch scratched while on the road, we've tried to hit every arcade we saw.  For Co-Op Casual Friday today, we'll take a look at the best and the worst of the games we played.  Naturally, they all feature co-op!

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