The first annual PAX East has come and gone. For most it was a success, serving over 50,000 gamers at Boston's Hynes Convention Center. Check out our coverage wrap up from the show, watch some brand new video footage, and get ready for what's next!

When I wasn't waiting in line for Co-op games with the CoG group or Co-opticrew on the PAX East floor, I was scoping out a few non-co-op games to fill my time. Two of those, which I enjoyed enough to go back for seconds, were Raskulls, and Shank. We got a brief preview of Shank at PAX Prime last year, but no hands-on time for this Shadokat. Raskulls was just a convenient thing to play while the others got busy with a nearby Crackdown 2 booth, which was a pleasant surprise to play

When we were at PAX East, we had the opportunity to speak with Sam Houston from Perfect World Entertainment about free-to-play MMOs, some of the projects Perfect World Entertainment has lined up for the future, and why they decided to help publish a single-player game.

Behemoth's Setup at PAX East seemed (almost) insignificant at first glance. Battle Block Theater had the same build as PAX Prime, and then there was Castle Crashers for PSN. I admit I expected to be bored by this, but that didn't happen. Behemoth delivered, even with the limited availability. First, I played Battle Block Theater with a second player to rock the stage, and we got some video footage of it. Then, I wandered over to Castle Crashers on the Playstation 3 setup, just to see what was up. I have to say, it was the most impressive thing I've ever seen from a so-called port.

If you're anything like me, you took a look at the title Two Worlds 2 and went "Whaaat? Two Worlds 2? Gross." remembering the disaster that was sold to us not long enough ago. We at Co-optimus went behind closed doors to see what Southpeak has in store for Two Worlds 2 with the desperate hope they either learned from their mistakes, or we could make fun of them for making a sequel to that very borked game.

When the words "like Smash T.V." are uttered when describing a game, my ears perk up and my spidey senses tingle.  Inspiration from Midway's classic top down shooter is a good place to start for any game, but mix in a fun art style, plenty of strategy, and a progression system and Uber Entertainment may have a winner on its hands with Monday Night Combat.

About a year ago, Dishwasher: Dead Samurai intrigued our artistic co-op interests. Now that Ska Studios has gotten a bit of a handle on what to do, a sequel has been born. Dishwasher Dead Samurai: Vampire Smile was on display at this years PAX East, and we got to try out how it plays, how it looks, and ask a few questions about how co-op is. We also took a look at Charlie Murder, which is a 4-player co-op beat-em-up for the Indie community of Xbox.

You'd think with a name like Mommy's Best Games we'd find a plethora of cake baking simulations and daycare running strategy games - you'd be wrong.  Instead Mommy's Best Games is an independent developer of such Xbox Live Indie titles like Weapon of Choice and the recent Shoot 1UP.  The latter is an interesting take on the top down shooter genre that involves players gathering 1UPs that immediately add extra ships instead of a pool of lives to use.

When the first Mafia game was released in 2002, it was easily one of the best PC games I played that year.  The characters and the story were extremely well done and more mature than they had been in other open-world games, and the fictional city of "Lost Heaven" felt like a real 1930s American city.  When the game's sequel was announced, I was eager to once again be taken back to a classical gangster time period and experience this more subversive slice of Americana.  Based on what I played at PAX East, though, it's a disappointing trip.

Western themed games have been one of the few video game genres that almost seem to be cursed.  Reception to titles like Gun and the Call of Juarez and Desperados series was luke warm at best, and it seemed as though no Western-themed game could ever do justice to the very sources (The Man With No Name Trilogy, John Wayne's films, and others) that inspired them.  After playing the game at PAX East, I feel very confident in saying that Red Dead Redemption may be the first Western-themed title I've ever played that lives up to its source material.

Microsoft had two modes of Crackdown 2's multiplayer on display - sadly neither of which were co-op.  Rocket Tag and Team Deathmatch.  Nick and Jason each played one of the modes and came away with their impressions from PAX East.  How does multiplayer work in an open world game like Crackdown?  Read on to find out.

Some gamers out there may remember an XBox LIVE Arcade title called Hydrophobia that was teased a couple years ago at E3 2008.  Touted as having the most realistic water effects around, the project went utterly silent after that and not much was heard about it after that.  However, in the midst of the chaos at PAX East, sharing space with the much in-demand Crackdown 2 demo, was a playable version of a game that combines action-adventure, survival, and third-person shooter genres with one of the most amazing water physics engines I've ever seen.

We're inching ever closer to Splinter Cell Conviction's April 13th release date.  And while Gamestop may claim you'll be the first to play the game's co-op mode, we actually got our hands on it this weekend at PAX East...along with 50,000 other gamers.  

I snagged a handful of pictures from around the show floor of the first ever PAX East in Boston, MA this weekend.  Sadly I didn't get as many as I would have liked because we were busy navigating crowds, finding great games to play, listening to panels, and chatting it up with developers. 

From the PAX East Expo Hall, we've heard from the folks at EA that a demo of the co-op skater's dream, Skate 3, will be arriving on the XBox 360 and Playstation 3 "about April 15th."  Nick recently attended an EA event in NYC where he had a chance to check out the most recent build of the game, and came away intrigued by the concept of co-op in a skating game but unsure whether the execution will truly feel like a "co-op experience."  You'll have an opportunity to find out for yourself soon enough, and we'll be eager to hear your thoughts on it.