One of the fun aspects of Torchlight was the pet system. Characters were accompanied by a cat or dog companion who would faithfully guard their side and run to and from town selling their phat lewts. Upcoming Torchlight 2 will also feature pets, but this time with even more choices. Players will be able to choose between at least 8 different pets, and Runic's latest pet video shows them off, showcasing the latest addition: the Papillon. This pet is actually based off of Runic's office mascot, Falcor! Check out the full video below.

Fans of first-person shooters and dinosaurs alike eagerly await Orion: Dino Beatdown, which was scheduled to debut on Steam this Friday. The wait just got two weeks longer, as Orion's release date has been pushed back to Friday, May 4. A little waiting never hurt anybody, right? Least of all those darn dirty dinosaurs, who basically get a stay of execution. Cheer up, future dino hunters! Balancing out the news of the delay, developer Spiral Game Studios has released a new video that reveals tons of details about the game's classes, buildings, and vehicles.

Another day, another Kickstarter.  The competition for your money continues to heat up as more and more independent studios, (even some not) move towards Kickstarter to find funding for their games.  We're currently receiving a handful of these every week asking for coverage.  So now, like you, we have to use our discretion at which ones we want to talk about.  The latest one that piqued our interest is a game called Boot Hill Heroes for Xbox Live Indie Games and PC.  It's being touted as a spaghetti western SNES style RPG with four player drop-in/drop-out co-op.  Yeah - I think we can get behind that.

THQ has been a company on the brink of being delisted from the NASDAQ stock exchange due to poor financial results and a low stock price.  But things are on the up and up for the company after yesterdays financial report revealed that the two player co-op open world game, Saints Row The Third, sold much better than expectations.  

Ninja Gaiden 3 may not have been a huge hit, but Tecmo continues to support it with post-release content. The latest DLC release, Ninja Pack 2, adds 20 ninja trials, an extra weapon (a Scythe this time), multiplayer clothing, and two new Achievements (worth 60 GamerScore) or Trophies, all for 800 Microsoft Points or $9.99. Head past the break for to see the Ninja Pack 2 trailer.

Whilst the likes of Microsoft may not comment on rumour and speculation, we at Co-Optimus sure do.  In fact, if it were possible I would liquidize all gaming rumors and shower in their gossipy goodness every morning.  With that imagine stained upon your cerebral cortex let me hit you with the latest mega rumor.  According to a leaked image provided via Kotaku, Call of Duty: Black Ops will be revealed May 2nd - juicy!

Game Informer put out a nice article about Halo 4 in their May issue, however, it stirred up a bit of concern on the internet. One of the bullet points that shocked us the most was that Firefight, the 4 player co-op mode from Halo 3: ODST and Halo Reach was dropped. For many Co-Optimus readers, Firefight was their favorite part of both of those games. 343 have heard our outcry, and they've addressed Firefight in the latest Sparkast.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City was not a good game. I covered the clumsy controls, poor story, and wasted setting in our Co-Op Review. Despite its faults I find myself drawn to the title. Maybe I hope that it will  somehow get better, even though I've already experienced the game in its entirety. New Spec Ops DLC launched yesterday, and I don't know if I can convince myself to take the plunge.

Last week Namco Bandai announced the Dark Souls: Prepare to Die edition for the PC. The punishing RPG was originally going to be available only on consoles, but a popular online petition (and I'm sure a few behind-the-scenes factors) convinced Namco to bring the game to PCs. It wasn't that big of a surprise. German and Australian sources had already tipped their hand a few weeks ago. Self-loathing PC gamers with a penchant for masochism were understandably delighted.  

Hey all you Twisted Metal fans out there! It is my pleasure to inform you that the downright nasty character known as Axel will become available to all players with the free patch as of today!

The Diablo 3 beta, which has been running for over 6 months now, is drawing to a close.  On May 1st the Beta forums and servers will go offline and characters will be reset as Blizzard prepares for the game's May 15th release date.  The lengthy beta for the game has yielded some interesting changes including class and crafting tweaks and of course plenty of technical issues being resolved.  Could we see one of the smoothest PC launches in history?

Who is the Ultimate Warrior?  For many it will be the former WWF star with that namesake.  However, in my opinion a truly powerful fighter is unlikely to be covered in tassels and face paint, whooping at his enemies. Give me the Barbarian from Golden Axe any day.  The Warrior character in Realms of Ancient War (RAW) follows in these barbarian footsteps.  A new trailer highlights his belief that what you can't say with flowers, say with a sword.  Check out the trailer for some in game footage of this 2 player local drop in co-op dungeon crawler, due some time later this year on PSN and XBLA.  It is certainly looking like potentially one of the best the genre has to offer.