Sure we had plenty of Black Friday Co-Op deals, but Cyber Monday is the biggest online shopping day of the year.

We've seenz video games infiltrate the armed forces before, be it a Microsoft controller used to pilot a bomb squad robot or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (as seen above), games used as recruitment tools, and even games as training simulators. Soon, we may get a taste of commercialized simulators that are being developed by defense contractors, not completely unlike how America's Army came about.

The stories for this week:

If you recall the news that Pandemic Studios had been closed with its IPs intact at EA, then this may not come as much of a surprise: a third game in the Mercenaries franchise was under way. What is surprising - or at least interesting - about this revelation is that the game was set to feature four-player co-op and open-world multiplayer. A former employee revealed the embedded pre-alpha trailer for Mercs Inc, which we first saw last week over at hub site Colony of Gamers. By way of damage control, EA formally confirmed the game's existence before the rumor could get too far.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory introduced co-op gamers to the world of teams of super-stealth spies.  No longer did we need to infiltrate an enemy compound alone undetected, now we could bring our buddy along for the ride. 

What can be more fun than pretending to be a waiter or waitress? Ok, so maybe that's not your ideal video game. But how many times have you seen a kid pretending to be one when the family sits down for their evening meal? Happens quite often, right? Perhaps the kid knows something we don't.

The Black Friday deals continue!  PlayBrains just tweeted that Madballs in...Babo Invasion is on sale for today only for the PC.  The price?  $2.  Yup...just $2!

Gearing up for the holidays, Co-Optimus presents the PC version of our co-op holiday gift guide. This guide is designed to help select the best PC co-op titles and hardware for the various types of gamers on your list.

Some solid deals happening at Amazon.com this morning for Black Friday.

While we never really found it an issue while playing Left 4 Dead 2 on the Xbox 360, there were reports that some people would experience lag filled matches.  Thankfully Valve has stepped up and remedied the situation.

Today is Thanksgiving in North America.  It's a holiday about family, friends, and togetherness.  Most importantly it's a holiday about giving thanks for the things in life we may take for granted.  So to celebrate we thought we'd give thanks for co-op gaming, and the staff each weighed in on the subject.

Gearing up for the holidays, Co-optimus presents the Xbox 360 version of our co-op holiday gift guide. This guide is designed to help select the best Xbox 360 co-op titles for the various types of gamers on your list.