The holiday season is a wonderful time. It's a season of giving, eating mass quantities of food, and gathering with family and friends. This creates the perfect environment for co-op gaming, something yours truly can attest to. This holiday season is shaping up to be a good one for co-op fans and thankfully, Shacknews has noticed and created a list of the "Best Co-op Games of the Holiday Season and Beyond."

The list begins pre-Halloween with Saints Row 2 (which comes out tomorrow) and ends post-holiday season 2009, with games like Halo Wars and Resident Evil 5. Some of the games that they call the best co-op games of the season include Little Big Planet (October 21), Resistance 2 (November 4), Gears of War 2 (November 7) and Left 4 Dead (November 14). So,  I guess that 'tis the season to be a co-op fan. Am I right?

The competitive multiplayer beta may have just begun for Call of Duty: World at War, but that's not what interests us.  We want to know about the game's co-op mode, and thankfully we have some hands on impressions with Activision's latest.   Previews, Screens and Video are all yours, so read on!

Need proof that co-op gaming is on the rise?  How about the fact that pre-orders for Left 4 Dead, the 4 player co-op shooter from Valve Software, is selling about 60% higher in preorders than the insanely popular Orange Box did.  Impressions for the game have been nothing short of outstanding, ours included, so it's no surprise the pre-sale hype is strong with this one.

But game sales aren't the only thing rising from the grave with Left 4 Dead, the advertising budget is set for a brain replacement surgery cost of $10 million dollars.  Not only has Valve secured "high impact premium spots" with commercials that will mix horror and comedy; they've also set their sites on several American cities.  New York, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Dallas and San Francisco can all expect to see the pun filled icon of the game everywhere they look.

With $10 Million dollars, I would have gone with real reanimated dead for some advertising that really packs a punch...and eats your brains to boot!

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Beyond Co-Op is where we talk about other news around the industry that isn’t necessarily tied to co-operative gaming. Each week will see the subjects of the column listed on the front page with more in-depth discussion after the break. If you have any suggestions, please contact us at tips@co-optimus.com with a subject related to “Beyond Co-Op”.

The stories for this week:

- Halo 3: Recon Finally Announced

- Resistance 2 and Resistance: Retribution Connectivity Announcement

- Gears of War 2 and Fallout 3 Go Gold

- Beginning of the Fall Gaming Avalanche This Week

- Xbox Live Experience Week 5: Xbox Live Marketplace

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In case you hadn't heard, Blizzcon is going on right now.  That's right, Blizzard is so big and so awesome in their infinite gaming goodness that they have an entire conference in Anaheim California promoting their software.  

On display (and playable) is 5 player co-op friendly Diablo 3.  To celebrate Blizzard has released info on the next official character class, the Wizard.  From what we hear he or she is based a bit on the druid class from Diablo 2, so it looks like he's right out.  That's ok the, the Wizard sound pretty badass to me.  He (or she) is "a wielder of the elements and a master manipulator of time, the wizard can hurl environment-shattering lightning bolts, channel explosive arcane energies, and create pockets of space outside the normal temporal flow."

So now we know about the Barbarian, the Witch Doctor and the Wizard.  But wait, the title of this article said ALL classes were revealed.  They were, in picture form at least.  A clever Blizzcon attendee managed to snatch a screen capture of the character select screen.  

There's a sneaky picture of all 3 classes in both male and female form floating around the internet.

Want to see it?  Hit the read more link.  Want to see 10 new screenshots of the Wizard, you'll find them in the same place.

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Realistic free PC shooter America's Army: Special Forces just received an upgrade, which adds some features, tweaks others, and brings new co-op content.

The latest version of America's Army: Special Forces (Overmatch) v2.8.4 has been released!

This release contains the Every Soldier a Sensor (ES2) training mission and a new multiplayer co-operative mission. We've also improved the performance of our AI to react in a more realistic manner. Included in the version, is the all new Deploy Client; a revolutionary way for you to get the game and keep you up to date on all the latest happenings inside the America's Army community. Lock and load, it's time to go to work!

See the "Source" link below or click here to read the full notice and download the new version.

Merely seeing the words Red Alert kicks off the Hell March theme in my head.  Red Alert 2 has always been one of my all time favorite RTS titles.  When I heard Electronic Arts was creating a sequel, I was a giddy as a little girl.  When I heard the sequel would be completely designed around cooperative play...my panties exploded.  

IGN has a rather nice hands on preview with the game focusing on the cooperative aspects.  Every single mission in the game is designed to have 2 commanders playing it, whether it's the AI or your best friend playing the other role is up to you.  

The strategy introduced with this is incredibly interesting, and really brings some real world military tactics into play.  Perhaps the goal of a mission is to take down a set of power generators and then assault the base that becomes vulnerable in doing so.   You can easily coordinate an attack with your partner using the game's voice chat, so the second the generator falls your assault can begin.  The teamwork doesn't end at just actual offense, even though you can't control your opponents troops, you can build structures in their base to help them out.  Your buddy have a tank rush coming?  Better build some defensive turrets for him quick!

Red Alert 2 is set to come out for the Xbox 360 and PC later this month, after reading this preview, we're going to need to buy a whole package of panties.

I'm beginning to run out of adjectives to describes all these awesome video trailers of cooperative games.  This time GameTrailers has managed to snag four exclusive videos of the upcoming Call of Duty: World at War title for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC (the Wii version is not represented in these trailers).  The game features a unique four player cooperative mode that includes a perks style system that was made so famous in Call of Duty 4. 

The four trailers titled Subway, Streets, Raid and Competitive Co-Op show off some of the various locales in the latest game;  as well as showcase the teamwork needed to survive in the gritty World War 2 setting. 

Hit the Read More link for all 4 videos, but you might want to grab a soda first.  There's almost 15 minutes of content here!

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I played a preview build of Sacred 2: Fallen Angel.  I leveled my Seraphim to a respectable level 14.  But wow... I didn't see any giant worms, killer beetles, or huge dragons when I played!  The latest trailer for Sacred 2 shows of some of the cooperative multiplayer action for the PC version (up to 16 players!).  And like I just mentioned, it's filled with all kinds of big baddies, explosive spells, and just plain gorgeous graphics.

Hit the read more link for the full trailer.

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Well, Blizzard has done it again folks.  Another new "feature" of Diablo III has been revealed, and if you thought the rainbows and unicorns were bad, you'll hate this.  A checkpoint system will likely be put into place, which means no more totally fun and enjoyable (in a masochistic way) trips with no gear back to retrieve your corpse.  BLIZZARD!  Throw us a bone here!  There is no greater feeling than dying repeatedly to the same monsters over and over, with a long walk in the nude in between each death.  And what about the challenge?  Defeating enemies without any of that overrated gear weighing you down is a nice change of pace. 

In the tradition of other famous fan edits, we've gone ahead and created our own rendering of Diablo III above.  This time, it's not what we want the game to be, but what we fear it will turn out be like.  Rainbows, Care Bears, and EZ MODE.  You heard it here first, folks.  I'm trying to get an internet petition ready, because I know that's the single best way to make our voices heard.  We like our Diablo dark, shady, and mind-numbingly difficult and/or boring, thank you very much!