Every year Microsoft holds its DreamBuildPlay contest to promote the XNA Development Kit on the PC and Xbox 360.  The contest allows independent developers a chance to showcase their best work and enter for a chance to win some great prizes - including a publishing contract.  We had a great tip from a member about two upcoming entries that feature cooperative play in a unique manner.

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Today seems like a good day to be a fan of SHMUPs and Shooter games.  Along with the previous news about Raiden IV comes the announcement that Schizoid, another co-op shoot em up, will hit Xbox Live Arcade sometime next month.  Schizoid was developed using  Microsoft's XNA, and is the first such game to be released on XBLA.  The developers call it the "most co-op game ever".  That us certainly a bold claim!  The color-based gameplay  echoes that of Ikaruga, but apparently color changing is not an option.  Players must protect their teammate while avoiding opposite colored enemies at the same time.  Color us very interested in checking out the trial version of this title sometime next month.

We are used to playing co-op on handheld gaming devices, thanks to Nintendo and Sony.  Ever since Microsoft jumped into the console market with the original Xbox, it has been rumored that they would follow suit with a portable gaming device of their own, as well.  While this hasn't been the case so far, owners of Microsoft's portable media player, the Zune, may get to play some games after all.  A Zune was seen playing an XNA game at GDC recently.  Chris Satchell, XNA guru, had this to say:

One of the things we talked about was the network play, and we've had people doing prototypes internally of multiplayer shoot-'em-ups both in versus and co-op.

Most gamers will not head out to buy a Zune for a few co-op shoot em ups; however, the Zune is a fairly full featured device already, and adding a few games to the mix would certainly help it stand up to Goliath.  Current Zune owners and those on the fence might keep this news in mind.

Xbox 360 Fanboy has a short article up showing off some new screenshots for Schizoid on the Xbox Live Arcade.   The game is designed from the ground up around Co-Op.  The videos of the game show of a combination of Pac-Man, Geometry Wars and Every Extra Extend Extreme.  Don't get it?  Let the folks at Xbox 360 Fanboy explain.

From day one, Schizoid promised true teamwork where players have to rely on a friend to survive and advance through the game. The clip is short, but we get to see how the game actually works and why it's so "teamworky". In a nutshell, Schizoid is based on red and blue crabs that need killing, but there is no shooting in the game. Instead, you kill these evil crabs by running into them with the blue player ramming blue crabs while the red player rams the red crabs. But the catch is that the blue player can't touch the red crabs or they die and vice versa making the co-op element oh so apparent.

The game has been built from the ground up on Microsoft's XNA platform, so you can expect some news about Schizoid to come out of GDC starting February 18th.  In fact...I wouldn't be surprised if that was the release date.