With Left 4 Dead releasing this week, sporting fancy zombified 4 player co-op, we figured now was a good a time as ever to launch a Steam group for Co-Optimus.com and Co-Op gaming in general!

Our group is a public group, so anyone can join, and it's a great way to meet up with other co-op gamers on the PC!  We'll also be launching official co-op nights in the near future via Steam, and this is a great way to get involved with them.

So feel free to join, tell your friends, tell your mom - just join up to help stop the pending zombie apocalypse.  Simply follow this link.

Vote Co-Op

It's Election Day in America, and there's going to be long lines, frustrated people, and lots of folks on edge.  Just remember that when all is said and done, we'll return to our homes and do the things we love most - namely co-op gaming.

So get out there and vote, have a great day, and vote co-op!

 We know that in the world of games journalism that it’s usually the journalist who sits down with someone in the gaming industry to do the interview. But this week, we thought we’d have some fun and let the game industry interview us! Sackboy, of LittleBigPlanet fame, swung by to grill the staff and contributors of Co-Optimus about their first co-op moments, their favorite co-op games, and more. Want to know whose gaming life was changed by playing Contra? Read on!

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In an effort to continue our plans for world dom...social networking, we've launched our very own Twitter Feed today!  If you don't know what Twitter is...well...it's kind of hard to explain.  It's like a cross between blog posts and status messages.  It's an insanely popular service used by anyone.  Seriously, there are corporate CEOs that use the service and of course there are 10 year olds.  

If you are really looking to beef up your Twitter feed, some of our staff uses the service - quite often actually!  

Here's the list. 

Nick "bapenguin" Puleo - http://twitter.com/bapenguin - Owner, Managing Editor and Podcast Host

Marc "DjinniMan" Allie - http://twitter.com/djinniman - Editor and Podcast Host

Mike "pheriannath" Katsufrakis - http://twitter.com/pheriannath - Artist and Podcast Host

You can follow the site's feed right here:  http://twitter.com/cooptimus

One of the truly great things about the advent of online networks like Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network is the ability to play cooperatively not only with your wife or son in the same room, but with your brother or sister across the country.  Sometimes though your co-op partner might not always be available, this is where Co-Optimus.com can help!

The following article will show you how to use the built in tools on the Co-Optimus website to find other gamers playing the same co-op games as yourself - and how you can set up sessions and more with them!

For those of you that don't know, GameDaily is a website from AOL that covers everything gaming and includes partner sites like Big Download and Joystiq.  The GameDaily HUD is a brand new feature on the website which features the most intelligent, important and sexiest voices in the games industry.  Will you look at that...there's me!

Every week I'll be taking part in the GameDaily HUD answering the burning questions going on in the world of gaming.  Well, that and telling you fine folks what I'm playing.

It's all about Geometry Wars 2 for me. It's totally addictive. The way Bizarre added the leaderboards right on the menu system is ingenious. I still have 2 achievements to go, but I'm constantly improving my score and competing against friends. Can I go back and play now?

So be on the lookout for the GameDaily HUD every week, because if you don't - well - you'll make Billy cry.

bapenguin says YOU should buy official Co-Optimus Gear. 

We all know you love Co-Optimus, I mean...who doesn't?  So why not support the site by purchasing some totally hawt gear?   T-Shirts?  Check.  Keychains?  Check.  Ties?  Check.  It's all in our Zazzle Store!  What's even better is you can even customize the look of the shirt to your need - or choose one of our premade designs.  Best of all - every purchase goes towards supporting this site.  So be sure to check it out, I'll post some pictures after the jump of our two official T-Shirts.  And yes...we have Billy!

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If there's one thing every guy always dreams of, it's playing video games with his wife or girlfriend.  Ok, so maybe "dream of" isn't the right term, but you know what I mean fellas.  Dream might be gaming with your wife, her girlfriend and yourself...ahhh yeah.  Um..anyway, believe it or not there's a whole lot of couples out there that game together, and most of that gaming is done cooperatively.  

At Co-Optimus, we want to hear about your experiences as a couple gaming.  So we are putting out a call for writers that game with their significant other.  If you are interested send an email to npuleo@co-optimus.com and tell us a bit about yourselves and a small writing sample.

As you can probably see, things are a bit different around here (if not hit control-f5).  We've been hard at work behind the scenes to bring you a cleaner more easier to use Co-Optimus.com.  More changes are on the way in terms of functionality - so sit tight!

In the meantime we'd like to know what you think!  Tell us the good or the bad as a comment to this post.  Be sure to let us know of any problems you see.  We'll be giving away 1600 MS Points to one lucky poster, and another will win a co-op game of their choice!

The fine folks over at 1UP are taking a look at the Co-Op Bill of Rights again; this time interviewing the author of it, Andre Vrignaud. 

1UP discusses just how well received this document was within the gaming community, as well as at Andre's own Microsoft.  Of course everyone wants to know the feasibility of making something like this stick.  "It's up to the game developers to innovate on the platform as they see fit," says Vrignaud, "If we can help with ideas... great!"

Another interesting topic brought up is something of a new phenomina, something that I say is nice to have.  We are seeing some high profile games claiming to have 4 and 8 person co-op (like Resistance 2), but is more always better?  Probably not says Vrignaud, as you add more people communication begins to break down with people talking over each other.  "If the communication aspect is breaking down, maybe they need to rethink whether or not it's really a co-op experience."

It's good to see our Bill of Rights as co-op gamers getting such attention from high profile sites like 1UP.com.  This year has been an amazing year so far for fans of co-op with more and more games including it standard - lets just hope they begin to do it properly instead of adding it for a bullet point on the back of their box.