It has been way too long since we've had a proper Ghost Recon title. Like many other Tom Clancy games, the series originated on the PC and has gone through an evolution thanks to a large console userbase. The latest title, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Future Soldier, further follows the trend of integrating cool gadgetry into your arsenal, making you feel more like a Halo Spartan than a modern fighting machine.
Some of my fondest co-op memories are from my high school and college days, when some good friends and I fired up Serious Sam and played all night until the crack of dawn. Serious Sam games have always had the ability to make entire nights disappear. The frantic action paired with ridiculous over-the-top enemies is perfect for keeping a group of co-op buddies laughing for hours. This is why we think Serious Sam 3: BFE should make for a perfect co-op night.
It's patch Tuesday...for Diablo 3. Blizzard has taken down the servers, uploaded a new build, and required you to enjoy its nerfing goodness in your game. Version 1.02 of Diablo 3 includes a host of new fixes and enhancements, including some balance tweaks to character skills in what looks and sounds very MMO. Expect to see quotes like this quite often.
The team over at Critial Studio shared their first developer diary for their upcoming co-op game Dungeonland. Previously known as "The Co-Op Sheep Killing Simulator", Dungeonland is a 4 player co-op action RPG that focuses on creating a meaningful cooperative experience. The devs at Critical are designing for cooperation first and formost as they want to create a hack and slash game that gets people playing together.
Conquest of Planet Earth is an incredibly appealing game. It has a great theme, fantastic miniatures, high production values, and plenty of replay value. There are two gameplay variants included in the rules. One of them is competitive, the other cooperative, both using largely the same mechanics, but changing the overall goal. In the cooperative game, the alien armadas put aside their differences and combine forces to destroy the fierce human resistance.
Double Fine's second Kinect title, Happy Action Theater, is not a traditional game. Rather it contains 18 minigames or visualizers that play one after another while everyone in your living room jumps around and acts a fool. The lack of structure made reviewing it tough, but we still loved its support for more than two players and general insanity. The game must have sold pretty well too, as Double Fine is already at work on a sequel.
There is an English idiom that says, "I would give my right arm for that.” You must really want something to give away what is essentially the 'fun' arm for around 90% of the population; world peace, ultimate wealth, VIP access to this year's E3? One thing that I would be interested in seeing, but not enough to offer any body parts, are some new screens and artwork for the 4 player online co-op title Soul Sacrifice, coming soon to Playstation Vita.
Sure, the Harry Potter series might be finally completed, but we still can’t get enough of Hogwarts and the Harry Potter universe. Today, Warner Bros. Interactive announced a new Harry Potter Kinect title coming to Xbox 360 this fall.
Ghost Recon Future Soldier does feature the promises couch co-op gameplay, but sadly it's limited to the game's Guerilla co-op mode. This mode is a survival based mode where players fight through 50 waves of enemies. A long time ago, in a news post far far away and more recently on various online retailers it was claimed that Future Soldier supported couch co-op gameplay through its campaign. Sadly, that isn't the case.
The latest Magic: the Gathering game, Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013, is due to launch sometime this summer. As such, Stainless Games and Wizards of the Coast have released a trailer touting some of the game's new features. Despite being dubbed a 'Gameplay Trailer,' it's heavy on the lackluster Flash animation first seen in 2012's intro and a bit light on actual gameplay. Still worth a watch to glimpse a few new cards though!
Castlevania is a series that seems to give co-op with one hand (Castlevania: Harmony of Despair) and takes away with the other (Castlevania: Lords of Shadow). Reflect on this people as rumors are abound that upcoming 3DS title Castlevania: Mirror of Fate will be 2 player co-op.
Welcome to another installment of Beyond Co-Op, where we look "beyond co-op" and bring you some of the gaming news that doesn't necessarily revolve around cooperative play. Here is a selection of stories which either thrilled or disappointed me, depending on how sad they are! And of course, we continue to hold our breaths for the flood of news that will come with E3, just over a week away.
