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.

You know, in video game years, I believe WWII has lasted about four times as long as the actual Second World War.  The upcoming Call of Duty: World at War extends the life of the previously mentioned conflict, but you know what?  That's fine by us!  Because now we can kill Nazi's in style with the help of three of our cohorts in the four player co-op mode.

There hasn't been a lot of news lately on Borderlands after it got pushed back to a 2009 release while Gearbox finished work on the new Brothers in Arms game and possibly began working on larger licenses.  Borderlands has always been an interesting game from a co-op perspective with four player co-op being the most important one.

Were you one of those folks that decided to exploit the system in the Fable 2 Pub Games Xbox Live Arcade game?  You know, so when you fired up Fable 2 for the first time and decided to transfer your Pub Games gold to your real game you'd be instantly rich, wealthy, and sexy?  If so, you may be in for a surprise, at least according to the latest IGN preview with Peter Molyneaux.  What exactly that surprise is, we aren't sure, but according to Molyenaux the glitch was no accident, and there will be some consequence. 

Remember Alien Breed for the Amiga?  It was a top down shooter similar to Smash TV or Gauntlet, but had a feel of a game like Doom.  The best part was the co-op action as you and a buddy fought through seemingly endless alien hordes; sometimes blowing up an entire level before making it to the elevator just in time.  The game was created by Team 17 of Worms fame, and it looks to be set for a remake as a downloadable title.

Too Human's release has come and gone.  While the game is not perfect, it's still plenty of fun.  Coming this Friday, September 19, gamers will have the chance to play with the actual developers of Too Human.  Xbox.com reports that from 7:00 to 9:00 PM EST, ten members of the development team, including Denis Dyack, will be hacking, gunning, and bombing their way through the game.  A list of the developers' Gamertags:

It's officially "Free Day" here at Co-Optimus, it seems.  Hot on the heels of the announcement of Castle Crashers and Diablo 3 tunes being available free comes similar news for Rock Band 2 fans.  A robust twenty songs will be offered as DLC to say "thank you" to those who have purchased Rock Band 2.  The cost will be quite reasonable: $0, which, when converted to MS points, is around -20 or so.  No word yet on when the pack is coming, nor what tunes will be in the pack.  However, I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict a couple things.  First, the thank you DLC will be made available the week Guitar Hero: World Tour is released.  Second, there will be at least one song in this pack that's also in GH:WT.  (Psst: Harmonix, if you're listening, "Hotel California.")  Then again, maybe it's not just a brilliant piece of counter-marketing.

There really is no good way to start yet another article about Castle Crashers. So, how about something completely different? People love free stuff, right? And nowadays free music is the big thing, right? I mean, a free Diablo III song was pretty epic, right? So, what if you could get an entire video game soundtrack for free?