Remember Feeding Frenzy? That Xbox Live Arcade title demo that came preloaded on your HDD? (At least, it was preloaded on my Christmas 2007 Xbox 360 Pro...) If you tried it, you may have experienced a light-hearted and simple-to-play game that was worth a second or third Sunday afternoon spin, but probably not a full purchase.
This week, Co-Op Classics is all about our trip to the 1984 Arcade. Last week, we gave you a little preview, and now, the full report. Which games hold up the best after 20 or so years? Which are total clunkers? Could I keep up with four 14 year old boys hyped up on soda pop and cheesburgers? (The answer to that one: not really.) Read on to find out!
The fine folks over at the Official PlayStation Blog have brought word that the 4 player co-op game Little Big Planet has GONE GOLD and will be available on North American shelves October 21st. The game will be available in the rest of the world on the 24th of October. To celebrate the launch, fans will be able to download a free SackBoy SpaceMan model (pictured above) and a "I was there" t-shirt for their game during the first week.
Despite the best effort from dedicated fans, the folks at Blizzard keeping churning out colorful and beautiful screenshots for the upcoming 5 player co-op title Diablo 3 on the PC. The latest set of four screens shows some truly impressive visuals and lighting. Take the above screenshot of a fire elemental. Simply gorgeous.
You know, people make mistakes. Sometimes, it's for the better. Take what happened with some Inside Xbox Content this week. Someone accidentally said that Sierra's Zombie Wranglers, a 4 player co-op game with drop-in/drop-out support was already available for download. Alas, this was not true. But upon further inspection of Xbox.com, it appears the web page is live for the title. This usually means the title is coming within the next week or so, and as X3F deduced, we're going to put our money on next week along with another co-op title.
Well, we talk about Castle Crashers a great deal at Co-Optimus, so you might be thinking "what's the big deal about it?" Fair enough, you want some proof that our love is valid. How about a number? 250,000. That is the number of people who have downloaded Castle Crashers so far. For a reference, the game came out less than a month ago, on August 27th. So in around 22 days, a quarter of a million people have downloaded the game. Also, the game has increased number people playing Alien Hominid by a factor of five! Also, The Behemoth has hinted, as before, that a patch is inbound to fix the online issues. So any one of the 250,000 out there?
Criterion Games has announced on their blog that the Burnout Paradise free update originally codenamed "Davis" is now available on the Live Marketplace and PlayStation Network.
Recent rumblings of a new instrument for Guitar Hero: World Tour have now been verified. Fans of enormous brass instruments and German orchestra bells (a favorite of many elementary music teachers) will have to wait until the next GH, however. The instrument, if you can call it that, is MIDI sequencer functionality. Through some arcane, sorcerous method, players can transfer MIDI files, perhaps of their own band, into GH:WT and further editing can be done there. The PS3 version will have full functionality, but the 360 version will only support drum tracks due to "hardware issues". (Insert your own fanboy comment here.) I know I dream of playing "The Touch" from the original animated Transformers movie in GH:WT (don't we all?), but that may not be as easy as I'd like. Says project director Brian Bright:
Despite blood and gore, Gears of War could be a great game to co-op with your wife. As our next feature in our Co-Op couples articles will show you, you just need to concentrate on something different. Read on to find out how a little achievement for collecting 30 CoG tags in Gears of War prompted multiple play throughs of the Xbox 360 title for one member and his wife.
Granted, these activity posts don't change much and are usually swayed by new releases, but the latest post by Major Nelson struck me differently...
For me, every "This Week in Co-Op" game could be Super Smash Brothers. I really do play it every week, but let's face it, you don't want months of just "dude, Ike is tough." In fact, I never planned to have SSB: Brawl be my co-op game of the week for a long while. However, this week, I was hit with a realization like a ton of bricks. You see, I realized something about video games that is so true, yet I never realized it before. Video games can bring make people actually become friends and become close. And the game for me was Super Smash Brothers Brawl.
In one of the most hilarious videos I have ever seen, Joystiq has found a video online that has the supposed deeper vocal recognition in Rock Band 2 and found it to be very poor.
