We Want War, Wake Up!  

Just a reminder that tonight is our monthly Xbox Live Co-Op night.  This month's featured game is Gears of War.  With Gears 2 right around the corner, and the hype train going full speed ahead it's time to revisit this truly excellent cooperative title.  Perhaps you never got around to finishing the game, or perhaps...you never even played it in co-op.  Blasphemy!

We report from NYC with some hands on time with Fable 2's co-op play.  There's some really good surprises here, including some great options we've rarely seen in a cooperative title.  Want to know the details on Lionhead's gorgeous and ambitious title?  Read on.

This week, Gears of War developer Epic Games has given its collective blessing to release details and impressions of the welcome Horde Mode addition to their latest upcoming masterpiece.

Bungie's Community Manager, Brian Jarrad, sat down with Joystiq to answer some lingering questions about the recent announcement of Halo 3: Recon.  He explains that the game will have 4-player co-op in the campaign and that the game is built upon the Halo 3 engine, obviously refined to match up more with the passing of time from the last release.

You could probably put that title in the "duh" category pretty easily considering any game played via co-op is better than playing it alone.  Am I right?  Kotaku comes to us with some co-op experiences from playing the game at the recent Tokyo Game Expo.  They basically say co-op is far more fun in this game than playing alone, although it does rely on some gimmick gameplay where you get across chasms together and they make an analogy to ICO with that.

Dan Aykroyd told a Dallas radio station this morning that the upcoming co-op friendly Ghostbusters game has been picked up by Atari (just recently wholly bought by Infogrames) and will be released in 2009.  Although there is no official word from the developers or the supposed publisher, chances are good that Aykroyd isn't making this up.  

As it may be clear to you, Castle Crashers has claimed the "co-op game of the week" title for me in a previous week. Though, as I've said many times, I almost always play the game at some point in the week, every week. Often, the more I look into a game, the more there seems to be, and Castle Crashers certainly fits this description. I mean, the first time I wrote a "This Week in Co-Op" column about Castle Crashers, I was impressed with the fun co-op aspects and the games pure joy and humor. However, after a week dedicated to playing Castle Crashers (and basically nothing else), I can see what is even more impressive about the game: it is an incredible time sink, in the best possible ways.

International Talk Like A Pirate Day was last month, but it's not too late to celebrate.  This week, another pirate game (about pirates, not pirated, matey!) hits Xbox Live Arcade.  Age of Booty is today's co-op release.  Up to four scurvy dogs can play locally, and a full fleet of eight "Cap'n Colorbeard" types can play together online.  The co-op is said to be squad based, but still, that's better'n walkin' the plank, eh?  Each villainous captain will control but one vessel, making good strategy more valuable than a handful of Spanish dubloons.  The game's rated "E", so I guess the booty must be of the monetary varrrrriety, morrrrr'es the pity!  If you do download this title, keep an eye out for green clad flying boys, ya heaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr?!

Castle Crashers is a nice little game, probably at or near the top of most people's list of best XBLA titles.  However, as we've previously reported, it has been plagued with connectivity issues.  A patch to resolve these problems has been in the works ever since the game was released, and now that patch is one step closer to reality.  The Castle Crashers Development Blog reveals that a patch build has been sent to Microsoft for certification.  If all goes well, we may be just a few weeks from public release.  Then, everyone can join in on the amazing old-school co-op action.  If you've held out for the patch to purchase Castle Crashers, though, you might just want to hold off a little bit longer.  We do like to have contests and giveaways, after all...

So, as you may have heard, there's this fantasy game coming out next week.  To say that Fable 2 is highly anticipated is a bit of an understatement.  Just like an appetizer before the main course, here are a few little news bits to keep your hunger for Fable 2 in check for another 6 days.

With Saint's Row 2 hitting store shelves today, we thought we'd tidy up some related news to the 2 player co-op title.