Ah, the rumor mill is turning early today!

E4G quoted the Official PlayStation Magazine yesterday - specifically the "Secret Games" section - wherein it was deduced from several sources that three major sequels are being developed for a 2010 release.

First to bat was Killzone 3, supposedly "deep in development", according to an industry insider. Maybe this explains why co-op was twice considered as an add-on for Killzone 2, then dropped for good...we can only hope that the considerations have carried over to any new projects that may be in the works.

The other two titles rumored to be under way are Resistance 3 and a Call of Duty: World at War sequel, both with high possibilities for co-op. The former claim is supported by a prop billboard caught on the set of the movie Battle: Los Angeles, currently filming. The latter has significantly less credibility, thanks to an earlier report that the next Call of Duty title by Treyarch would feature the Vietnam conflict.

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We had already brought word that a new Resistance 2 Patch and Map Pack would be hitting the PlayStation Network today, but we just unearthed some new info on a co-op mode thanks to the PlayStation Blog.

The mode is called Superhuman Co-Op Mode, and it's designed for the best of the best co-op players.
 

Superhuman Co-op Mode: Does your eight-man Specter squad possess the skills to survive this all-new difficulty? It features stronger enemies and disables auto-respawning (only another squadmate can revive you), but dishes out bigger rewards (double the Grey Tech and XP per round).

The update also adds a handful of medals and ribbons for the co-op mode and various tweaks to XP and Spawning.   All of this will be available later today for your Resistance 2 co-op gaming goodness.

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Image featured at Joystiq.com

As previously promised, Resistance 2 is finally getting a much-needed patch to fix the viral issue of a lack of saved progress in splitscreen co-op modes. Even better news: it's coming this Thursday (March 26th)!

With the patch returns the Meltdown multiplayer mode from the original Resistance: Fall of Man, and an increased difficulty setting for the co-op campaign: Superhuman.

A new map pack (for versus modes only - boo!) and new skins will be available also, albeit at a price. Enjoy your repaired co-op mode!

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Insomniac has just released a new patch for the 8 player co-op shooter Resistance 2.  The patch is version 1.40 and it should be available by the time you read this.  What does it fix?  Lots of stuff, but the most important being the restoration of any character resets you may have had.  Some folks have reported issues with level progression and found their character data reset to level 1.  The good news is this patch should not only restore your previous character state, but tack on any progression you've gained since.  So your level 20 medic for co-op that should have been a level 40 medic will really be a level 40!  Very nice!

There's only a few fixes specific to co-op, mostly XP balancing.  There is some good news though - remember the complaints about the second player not being able to save their progress in co-op split screen?  Well it looks like a fix may be on the way for that as well.  According to Insomniac it was a problem with the PS3 firmware.  Firmware...really?  Whoever or whatever is to blame for the problem,  it sucked and needs to be fixed!  It's good to see the developer stepping up to the plate here.

The full list of changes are posted below.  

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We looked at experiences like Team Fortress 2, in which there are dependencies on classes, and games like World of Warcraft, in which there are large amounts of people working in tandem, creating this kind of epic synergy to overcome these encounters that wouldn't be overcomeable as an individual.

We really wanted to focus on teamwork and the buzz that comes from people working together online, because even though there's some downtime when you're not playing together, the buzz is that much higher when the group locks together and everything falls into place.

These are the words of Jake Biegel, the lead designer of co-op for Resistance 2. (That's a real job? Sign us up!)

Gamasutra has a nice, long interview with Jake exploring the making of Resistance 2's unique co-op modes. Click here to read it.

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Coming two years after their well received PS3 launch title, Resistance: Fall of Man, Insomniac Games’ Resistance 2 launched last week with a couple of new twists. Amongst them is an all new co-op campaign mode that lets you and up to 7 of your friends team up on-line to tackle the deadly Chimera threat that’s invading U.S. soil.

But has Insomniac Games managed to wake a sleeping co-op giant, or merely prod a tired agreeable dwarf? The answers can be found after the break.

One of the key titles in this year's PS3 holiday lineup is Resistance 2.  Many features we love here at Co-Optimus have been implemented, such as an 8 player co-op campaign and local split screen co-op.  However, it appears there are some serious issues with the latter.  Co-Optimus reader "blakepro" was the first to bring this to our attention, in a forum post.  However, it seems the word is out, as you can read in this snippet from a review at PS3Blog.net:

Player 2 Progress Not Saved!
I saw online that Insomniac was thinking about tying player 2’s progress to their own PSN account, which would be cool. But at least the game would store progress locally, right? Nope! At one point during the evening last night I exited Resistance 2 and restarted my machine (see why below). Upon re-entering splitscreen co-op, all of Steve’s progress in leveling up his character was lost! This was a deal killer. Why put in all that effort to level up a character when all that work is lost? Crazy. This has to be fixed ASAP.

Reports of network errors when two splitscreen players try to play online are coming up, too.  This whole problem is a real deal breaker, at least in my opinion.  First Fable 2, and now Resistance 2 botch the co-op, at least partially.  Hopefully, a patch will be coming soon to change this issue.  (Thanks to user "billb" for the link to the review.)

Correction: the review quoted above was incorrectly attributed to PS3Lounge.  The article has been corrected, and I apologize.

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Gears mania has definitely hit here at Co-Optimus, but GoW2 certainly wasn't the only huge release of the week.  AAA title Resistance 2 debuted this past Tuesday, and IGN's review is already up.  You'll recall the game features an 8-player co-op mode, which is above and beyond most games of this type.

Besides the large number of players, Resistance 2's co-op has several other nice feature that make working together with your friends just that much easier.  2 players playing split-screen can hook up with others online, which has always been a favorite feature of mine.  Plus, the co-op isn't just a rehash of the single player campaign.  Instead, co-op-ers are thrust into the role of an elite faction called the Spectres.  The co-op scenarios exist alongside the single player story, showcasing different parts of the war.  Each of the classes gets bonus experience for doing cooperative things like healing, sharing ammo, etc.  Additionally, scaling difficulty is included, as well.  This quote sums it up nicely, I think:

Each player is forced to rely on the other skills of their party mates to survive, but the one thing that I've found in playing a number of multiplayer matches is that anyone, from a newcomer to a seasoned veteran of the mode easily falls into a specific role and gets a hang of the gameplay, making it one of the most accessible multiplayer modes around.

As if our wallets weren't already being pulled in a dozen directions from awesome games this season!  You can expect Co-Optimus' own review late next week, courtesy of Jason "OrigamiPanther" Love.  In the meantime, go sell some plasma.

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It's a clash of the virtual titans this week.  In this corner we have Marcus Fenix; big, brawny and wielding a chainsaw machine gun.  In the opposing corner we have Nathan Hale; quick, agile and infected with an alien virus.

Up first this week is Resistance 2 for the PlayStation 3 which releases on November 4th.  The game features a unique 8 player co-op campaign.   There's also a 2 player split screen co-op mode that can be combined with the online mode.  

Gears of War 2 launches this Friday, November 7th on the Xbox 360 and features two seperate cooperative modes.  First is the 2 player co-op mode through the game's single player story.  Next up is a brand new 5 player co-op mode called Horde.  This mode pits players against wave after wave of the Locust Horde.  Both modes can be played split screen or via Xbox Live.  

So which game will you be purchasing?

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According to a post on the NeoGAF forums by Insomniac Games community manager J Stevenson, the co-op campaign should take somewhere in the neck of 15-20 hours to complete on it's own.  This was in a response to a post complaining that the co-op campaign only had 5 maps.

There are six locations, each has quite a few different areas, and a single-playthrough of any will not show you nearly the entire map or all of the different set-ups on it due to the randomization of the playpath. It probably takes between 15-20 hours to see every single co-op set-up and encounter.

If you read our hands on preview,  you would have heard about the random objectives per map. The handful of times our team successfully completed a map it took about 45 minutes.  You may also remember I said the downside of the map randomization is that it seems to hurt the story in co-op mode.  I believe the above statement pretty much confirms each map is basically a set of objectives against AI, and not a true campaign.  And that's perfectly fine in my book.

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