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.

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.

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.

The Resistance 2 multiplayer beta is underway, and lucky for us - it has co-op!  We dive head first into the game's 8 player co-op mode and give you the skinny on the Chimera slaying.  We also have 3 minutes of exclusive video footage!

With 8 player co-op title Resistance 2 a short few weeks away, the marketing campaign has kicked up in a BIG way.  The above picture is for a building size ad for the game featured in download Los Angeles.  Luckily no office workers were harmed in the making of said ad, though a few screamed in fear before having their morning coffee.

Gotta say, that's one of the more innovative ads I've seen.  That giant Leviathan is actually a boss in the game players must take down; though it's not known whether or not he makes an appearance in co-op play.

Hit the read more link for another pic.

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In case you missed it this weekend, there was some pretty good Resistance 2 Co-Op News.  First up, the beta started.  Those folks who preordered via Gamestop or subscribed to Sony's Qore service should have received their codes via email.  If you haven't gotten yours yet, you may want to check your spam filters.

The co-op portion of the beta is in an area called Orick, and it supports randomization of player paths to increase replayability.  Character classes in co-op are capped at level 10, which according to the above chart, should take you a good chunk of time to obtain.  With so few games coming out this fall, you'll have plenty of that...right?  (That was sarcasm)

While the beta won't feature any simultaneous split screen, the full version will thanks to a day 1 patch from developer Insomniac.  Score!

Some good news out of the Sony camp today.  One of the more requested features we've been seeing lately is to have split screen co-op play combined with online play.  What does that mean?  That means you and a friend could be playing split screen with other people online as well.  Very few games seem to support this, Halo 3 being the biggest that comes to my mind.

Resistance 2 will support this type of play for its 8 player online co-op mode!  The flexibility that a mode like this supplies is outstanding, so it's great to see a developer go the extra mile to get this done.  Especially since it was a fan request!  That being said it MAY not quite be there from Day 1, the game has gone gold and the feature was only recently completed.  So expect a day 1 patch.

While you are waiting for the game's release, be sure to check out the incredible new trailer posted after the break.  If it doesn't get you hyped up for this game, nothing will.

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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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