The kind folks at Sumo offered to send Co-Optimus one of their giant bean bag chairs for a review. I’m an expert in leisure, so I nominated myself for the job. We've already covered the Sumo Couple, a chair designed for two, but up this time to check out was the Sumo Emperor.  I’ll admit I was disappointed when I first laid eyes on the Emperor. It wasn’t the chair itself, but the box it came in.

I was talking to Nick the other day and I let it slip that I had put around 25 hours into the Soul Sacrifice demo. And I don’t mean the Japanese version that came out months ago. Somehow, between playing and writing about all the games I’m supposed to be playing and writing about - and doing my part in the benevolent dictatorship my wife and I hold over a household full of pugs and children- I managed to play the Soul Sacrifice demo for an entire day (not in one sitting). It’s been out for less than a week. Embarassing, I know.

EA took a risk making Dead Space 3 a co-op affair - and for all intents and purposes - we found it a resounding success of how you make a co-op game without sacrificing the single player experience. But the game ends with a few questions left hanging, so it was inevitable that some DLC would be arriving. Andrew and I have played through the content , called Dead Space 3: Awakened, and feel the need to weigh in. Fair warning - there's going to be some minor spoilers here from Dead Space 3's main campaign. If you haven't finished it you may not want to proceed.

Dead Space 3 was a solid co-op experience, though it may not have been the frightening one that many had hoped it could be.  We had known well before launch that a new add-on campaign was in the works for the game, but today we have all the gory details of it.  It's called Dead Space 3: Awakened and it's a $9.99 piece of premium DLC that takes place after the events of the game.  We recently went hands on with the DLC and came back with some impressions of the much creepier and darker content you'll find.  There may be some minor spoilers ahead.

It was a little over a month ago I gave some impressions of KingsRoad - a free to play game from Rumble Entertainment that's playable through Facebook or Rumble's own online service. The browser based game is an action-rpg in the same vane as Diablo or Torchlight but is designed to be played in shorter sessions. Since last month, the team has added a new class, the Wizard, and made several enhancements to the game world. Today the game is available for anyone to try - though it's still technically in beta - and the team is treating it as a KingsRoad's coming out party.

The next game in the Army of Two series, called Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel is supposed to be somewhat of a reboot. Gone are the characters of Salem and Rios, in their place two new protagonists join the story of mercenaries in masks. After some recent hands on time with the game, fans of the series shouldn't worry about too much of a shift, as I felt right at home playing the two player co-op game.

It wasn't long ago we learned that the Wii U was getting a special version of Need for Speed Most Wanted, complete with a local co-op mode.  I recently went hands on with the game and checked out just how the co-op works, and while it's not a "true" co-op mode in the sense there are separate players working together for some sort of common progression, what is there is a family friendly way to play together.

If you read my beta impressions of SimCity, you know that EA has crafted a slick sequel to the series that refines things just enough to feel fresh, but keeps a lot of the traditional strategy elements we love.  One downside to the beta was that the multiplayer options were disabled - so it was tough to see exactly how players could cooperate.  Luckily at a recent event that EA held, I was able to get hands on with the full game and play around with the multiplayer options.  

It was last October that Tally went hands on with Fuse, the upcoming action game from Insomniac.  You can check out that preview for the backstory of Fuse and a bit about the characters themselves.  Recently EA held another preview event in NYC and I went hands on with the game this time, checking out both the co-op campaign and the co-op mode called Echelon.  

This past weekend, SimCity held a closed beta test for a select group of individuals to test out some very basic features of the game and give EA's server infrastructure a good ol' workout.  While the beta didn't feature any of the multiplayer functionality, there was plenty of opportunity to see just how cooperative play is going to work when the title is released on PC on March 5th.

Max Payne 3 has finally gotten its long awaited co-op mode, almost nine months after release.  Called Dead Men Walking, it's an online co-op mode for two players, with one player in control of Max while the other jumps into the boots of his pal, Passos.  If you're curious about the single player, you can check out our review here, otherwise read on for co-op impressions.

The "exclusive" Dead Space 3 demo was released yesterday on Xbox Live, that is if you managed to get a code for it.  Last night Andrew and I tackled it head on, myself jumping into the boots of Isaac Clarke and Andrew playing as John Carver.  While I'm a Dead Space veteran having played both the original games, Andrew has only brief familiarity with the series.  

Borderlands 2 is kicking off a new year with its third DLC release, “Sir Hammerlock’s Big Game Hunt.” We’re taken to a new continent called Aegrus that’s a little more like the swamps of Dagobah than the deserts of Tatooine. No lost pirate treasure or Ultimate Badass competition this time around, just some bonding with “naturalist” Sir Hammerlock through the hunting (and killing) of the indigenous wildlife. Leave it to some crazy professor once employed by Hyperion to spoil the fun.

Borderlands 2 dropped some more DLC love on us before the holiday break. "Mr. Torgue’s Campaign of Carnage" is the second story add-on for the addictive shooter-looter franchise. It blasts onto the scene amidst some of the biggest launches of the year. Does Mr. Torgue have enough explosive charisma to distract veteran Vault Hunters from Black Ops 2 and Halo 4? Yes. Briefly. 

Orcs Must Die! 2 received its third booster pack at the very end of last month. Entitled “Are We There Yeti?” it packs a very similar amount of content as the other booster packs. The folks at Robot Entertainment generously hooked us up with a couple of review codes, so I got to sit down with the newest OMD2 DLC and give it a whirl.