The clouds parted, the rays of sun shone through, and Billy proclaimed - let there be a 3rd episode of the Co-Opticast. So it was. This week we talk about some of the recent delays in online co-op modes in high profile titles like Fable 2 and LittleBigPlanet. We talk about the Halo ARG, the possibility of a kart racer in the Halo universe. What's more is we discuss recent happenings in the Co-Optimus world of articles. Can you handle the Co-Opticast Episode 3?

Call of Duty: World at War's announced four player co-op mode certainly put the game into the collective mind here at Co-Optimus. Well, it seems like the crew at Treyarch have co-op on their mind this week. The latest blog entry into their IGN blog is entitled "Building Co-Op From the Group Up." In the blog post, they discuss cooperative and competitive co-op, as well as the design behind them. In the blog, they also discuss the risk they were taking by adding co-op to a Call of Duty game.

The Gears of War 2 hype (Cole)train has begun, and the first shot fired is in the form of real life COG tags.  COG tags are hidden dog tags that are found throughout the world of Gears of War, but the promo pieces have a little gem attached to them - a code for a super secret website.

We recently covered the news of AC/DC's expansion track pack for Rock Band.  Our initial excitement was dampened by the price: 18 tracks for $40.  That's more expensive than if the songs had been released as DLC, even if you did buy them all (I'd likely get only about half).  So what do you get for the extra money?  Few details are available at this time, but there's at least one perk, for 360 owners, anyway.  A developer post on the official Rock Band forums promises there will be unique achievements for the Track Pack.  At first, PS3 Trophies were included in the announcement.  However, the post has since been edited with this explanation:

There's one co-op title coming out this week, and it's a recent addition to our database thanks to a Co-Optimus reader.  (Thanks Jamie!)  

As the resident classic co-op maniac, I found this blog post over at YetiKitn to be very entertaining.  The author details some classic co-op gaming moments, spurred on by the recent release of Castle Crashers.  Many of the games in this story have appeared on our own column dedicated to the golden oldies, Co-Op Classics.  I have to admit, there were several games on the list I was unaware of.  (Cowboys of Moo Mesa?  I'm gonna check that out for sure!)  However, the author loses a bit of geek cred when referring to the Avengers as the Justice League.  Bonus points, though, for mentioning Moonwalker, a game from the days when Michael Jackson wasn't just a punch line.  What say you, Co-Optimus readers?  What are your memories of these games?

The zombies in Resident Evil games always had the upper hand, they only had to worry about one person trying to explode their head with a shotgun.  The tide has turned in Resident Evil 5 as we've got two gunslingers in action at once.  Of course, that's twice the brains for zombies to eat!  

LittleBigPlanet is one of the most anticipated games coming this fall on Sony's PS3 - and we were lucky enough to get into the beta to check out the cooperative play.  Will life on the LBP be better with your friends?  Check out our preview to find out.  And stick around for an exclusive co-op video we put together.

So take this one with a huge grain of salt, as it's one of those he said/she said kind of things.  According to a post on CoG there was a link on a Norwegian board to a Gamespot article detailing a bunch of features for the upcoming Mass Effect sequel.  The link has since been pulled, but the information is still available.  Amongst all the nugget of goodness that will be in ME2 is a new expanded squad (up to 5) and the ability to bring human players into that squad for full 5 player co-op.

Despite selling quite well in the United States and Europe, the Monster Hunter series seems to avoid mainstream exposure whenever possible. I've always been curious about the games, but have never brought myself to even rent any of the games, because I just can't decide if Capcom is proud of their product...or trying to hide it.

It was a good day when it was announced that Halo Wars, the RTS for the Xbox 360 would support co-op mulitplayer.  It was a bad day when Microsoft announced they were shutting down the game's developer, Ensemble Studios, upon completion of the project.  After watching the latest cinematic trailer for the game, it makes me very sad that we won't see this kind of quality from them again.

Today's featured game is not what most people would generally think of as a co-operative experience.  I certainly have more than my fair share of memories of playing against others, and not with them, in this classic title.  However, the co-op experiences I had were particularly memorable, and in fact may have saved my life.  That may be an exaggeration, but still, co-op probably prevented me getting punched in the nose, at the very least.  Let's look, then, at the co-op aspects of what I consider to be the greatest video game of all time, bar none: StarCraft. Let's flash back to the mid 90s.  The first person shooter has hit the PC gaming world by storm.  Shooters like Quake, Hexen, Duke Nukem 3D, and many more were the games of choice for LAN parties.  Typically, I'd get together with friends every weekend to hook up and play some deathmatch .  When I got my own place, my two roommates and I got our PCs linked up as quick as we could.  I have many, many fond memories of staying up til dawn playing Diablo, Duke Nukem , and many other titles.  It seemed though, that we played FPS games the most often.  This was quite unfortunate, because I totally suck at shooters.  I still do, whether we're talking keyboard only,mouselook, or on a 360 controller.  I always had a good time, but rarely did I do very well.