Christmas is coming early, co-op gamers!  Trine 2, the sequel to the excellent puzzle platformer, Trine, has been given an official release date via Twitter!  PC and Mac gamers must have been especially good.  Trine 2 will be available for download this week, on December 7th.  Console games must have been well behaved, as well; Trine 2 will appear on the Xbox LIVE Marketplace and PlayStation Network on December 21st.  Linux users? You must have been bad.  You won't get the game until 2012.

After a skipped column in November, we’re back in December for another edition of MMO Co-Opportunities. It’s been exceedingly quiet on the MMO front of late (thus, the skipped November issue), but this month marks the release of Bioware’s first MMO: the Old Republic. Come, let us gossip and geek out about it.

It's almost 2012 and that means it's time to start talking Halo 4.  The next game in the series continues the story of the Master Chief sometime after the events of Halo 3.  343 Industries and series veteran Frank O'Conner chatted up some of the details of the game with website DigitalTrends.

Konami have announced a release date for their upcoming action game called NeverDead.  It's a game we saw at E3 that caught us a bit off guard, in it you play Bryce - an immortal character tasked with fighting off demonic incursions.  Being immortal does have its downside, namely you can be torn limb from limb and "live" to tell the tale.

Resident Evil is a series that reflects our times; the zombies representing the 21st century obsession with epidemics and the increasing gap between the super-rich and those living in poverty. Another modern global fear is terrorism and the upcoming Resident Evil: Revelation looks ready to reflect this, if its new story trailer is to be believed. Perhaps all these theories are true about Resident Evil - but it could all just be an excuse to go around and shooting cool stuff?

We reviewed Zombie Apocalypse: Never Die Alone a month back, giving it a solid 3.5 out of 5. This may have been some sad news for our PS3-owning readers over in Europe, however, as the game wasn't yet available for them (it's only currently available in Europe on XBLA). But good news! ZA: Never Die Alone will be coming to Europe's Playstation Network on December 14th.

For today only - that's Sunday, December 4th 2011 - you can snag Dungeon Defenders for only $3.75 on Steam.  Better yet, you can snag the 4 pack of the game for only $11.24 netting you three copies plus one free copy for poor friend!  The DLC is also on sale for $75% making it only $1.25 for the New Heroes DLC which includes the new 8-player co-op mode!

Welcome to Beyond Co-Op, a weekly piece that talks about industry stories that may or may not be related to co-op gaming.

A recent Dark Souls patch has plunged some of the staff back into that game.  I'm still not sure how they have time for that game after putting 100s of hours in and all these other great games to play.  No matter a lot of the staff will be hitting up Gears 3 for a community co-op night!  Join us if you are INSANE enough.

After being bombarded by fall releases for several weeks, this week's release alert was pretty bare. That means the winter lull has started and there aren't any more major releases coming this year. By now most of you have picked your favorite out of this year's offerings, and we want to hear about it in the User Blogs section.

Third set of Spec Ops missions from Modern Warfare 3 are here for your viewing pleasure.  A couple longer skirmishes with Resistance Movement and Little Bros, both challenging and satisfying missions. 

As we conclude our week full of Holiday Gift Guides, we move away from the controller for a bit. There are plenty of non-game items out there that will make any gamer happy. Whether your giftee prefers Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, or the Sinclair Spectrum, we think you’ll find our list of twelve board games, toys, and accessories a perfect non-game gift for any fan of co-op.