August has been a month of casual or arcade games for me. I've either been busy or sick, so they fill a nice niche for me. So, the approach of Castle Crashers has me excited, and since it's still a week from release, I had to satisfy my arcade game craving. Thankfully, The Behemoth (the Castle Crashers dev team) already had it covered. After all, they have made another XBLA game, and it features co-op. The game I'm speaking about is Alien Hominid HD.

I played the Flash version of Alien Hominid a while back and found it to be a solid game. It had cool art, fun gameplay, and a generally funny vibe. Naturally the XBLA version of the game has all the greatness of its predecessor, along with many useful additions, like co-op and a bunch of cool minigames. The "HD" in the title of the game certainly means something, since the game is much more crisp and vibrant than the Flash version and the last gen version (which came out on Gamecube, PS2, and Xbox). But what's the co-op version like? Pretty much single player with another player thrown in. However, that's not a bad thing, not at all.

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IGN has posted their impressions from some hands-on time with Call of Duty: World at War.  As we reported to you earlier this summer, the fifth Call of Duty title will feature co-op play, for the first time in the series.  The WWII-themed title will let players drive vehicles and work together as a squad, teaming up to achieve objectives.  However, there is an interesting twist to the co-op play that is referred to as "competitive co-op".  This feature adds individual scoring to the game; at the end of each round, the winner is the one who has accumulated the most points for kills, head shots, etc.  This little snippet from the article is particularly interesting:

The kicker is that in competitive co-op, if you die, you lose points, and if someone revives you, they earn points. That mechanic is designed to reign in players, because if you charge ahead or take a lot of risks or play wildly and get killed, you lose points. Meanwhile, your rivals gain points for reviving your sorry rear, so you're basically giving your competition points by dying.

While you are competing with your teammates to earn points, you are rewarded for helping each other out, as well.  Beyond the warm fuzzy feeling you get for assisting your buddy, you will also earn the more tangible incentive of a higher score.  Competitive co-op is certainly a good name for this, isn't it?  It should be interesting to see how this plays out once the game is released on Xbox 360, PS3, PC, and Wii later this year.

Thanks to "txshurricane" for the tip.

Blizzard has just sent out a fresh batch of screen shots for Diablo 3.   Currently the game is set to support five players in the co-op based story.   But the biggest revelation from the screen shots is the fact that each class has both a male and a female version of the character - furthering adding onto the MMO-esque nature of the latest Action RPG.   We see both a male and female Barbarian, and some other screens show a Female Witchdoctor (we previously saw a male one). 

Blizzard had sent out a press release with some more details on this, but it seems to have since been pulled.  I'm not entirely sure why.  So for now feast your eyes on the rainbows and unicorns and pay no attention to the gigantic 40 foot tall behemoth with blades for his hands.  He only wants to bake a cake with you.

All 12 screens are posted after the read more link.

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If you haven't heard, there's a giant game festival going on in Leipzig, Germany right now.  Capcom has released what can best be described as a "kick ass" trailer for the upcoming co-op friendly Resident Evil 5.  How kick ass?  Well it's got: explosions, dirt bikes, mini guns, zombies, some big executionor with an axe and a weird dude in a bird mask.  Shall I go on?  Ok, there's exploding heads, slimy worm like creatures, decaptations, and a hot girl in a nurse outfit.  Yeah, I think that about covers it.

On top of the awesomeness that is that official trailer, GameTrailers has some video footage of the co-op play from the game.  After watching all this footage the game has gone from a "Yeah I'll buy that" to a "Must buy."

Watch both trailers after the read more link.

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Link's Crossbow Training meets Sunset Riders in the recent WiiWare release, Wild West Guns.  Load up your sixshooter and call in a "pahdnuh" to defend the innocent townsfolk from flying sombreros, dynamite filled balloons, and a whole slew of bandits.  Does Wild West Guns ride off into a grand sunset, or does it leave a burr under your saddle?  Read the review to find out!

Castle Crashers is one of the games we gush about a lot. The game is a darling to the Co-Optimus crew and, to be fair, we have a good reason to be excited about the game. It is a four player, Golden Axe-style game made by the Alien Hominid guys. That alone should get your heart a flutter. Our constant coverage of the game has made us (and hopefully you) more excited. We've discovered that the game will have 22 unlockable characters, fun stat-boosting "Animal Orbs," and both a cost and a release date.

But what's that you say? You want footage of the game in action, and lots of it? Well, you wish is our command. The kind crew at Destructoid has a whopping 15 minutes of gameplay. They also promise to reveal 18 more minutes of gameplay on Thursday. Man, August 27th cannot come soon enough, can it?

Good news folks!  Not only did Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise get an significant feature upgrade with 4 player online and offline co-op, but it got a price reduction as well! 

Right now you can pre-order the game from Amazon.com (and other retailers) for only $39.99.  This is a far cry from other next-gen games that usually release at $59.99 MSRP. 

Similarly another Rare title releasing this fall, Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts, will be priced at the same consumer friendly $39.99 and is also available for pre-order.   As a bonus, if you pre-order it now you'll receive and XBox Live Arcade code to download the original game free and earlier than everyone else.   While Banjo doesn't have any confirmed co-op, we have a sneaking suspicion you may see something announce soon on that front.  Stay tuned!

Gamasutra recently interviewed the producer and director of Resident Evil 5.  The RE series is reknowned for its high quality, and the previous installment in the series, RE4, was many folks' choice for Game of the Year in 2005.  Resident Evil 5 will be the first RE for next gen (or is it current gen?) systems, which is notable in and of itself.  However, RE5 will feature co-op gameplay, which is a first for the series (not counting the two player co-op in the lightgun style offshoot RE: Umbrella Chronicles).  You might expect co-op to be a last minute afterthought, merely tacked on to the primary single player experience for such a title.  However, in this interview, the creators state that this is NOT the case:

For Resident Evil 5, a lot of the elements in it are a refinement of things that we had in Resident Evil 4; making them better, and choosing which elements to keep, which elements to discard.

The biggest change that we had to it, and the biggest change that we had from when we first settled on the design for it, was that we definitely wanted to have co-op in it, right from the start, and to have co-op be an integral part of the game, just right from the start.

So that's one of the first things that we decided, when we were making the game. That has led the development of the game. Right now we're about 70% of the way through the development process.

RE4 was certainly a great game, and the creators indicate that they will not try to reinvent the wheel for the new game.  Throw tightly integrated co-op in, and you have a game that we here at Co-Optimus are definitely going to keep an eye on.

Edit: The Resident Evil Outbreak series also featured co-op.  Thanks to TheReaperCooL for pointing this correction out.

It looks like somebody just ran out of gum.  As previously rumored it's now official; Duke Nukem 3D will be hitting Xbox Live Arcade "soon." 

"We officially passed final cert on our first try Friday, August 15th," said Broussard. When asked about a possible price point, he noted that it will be "about what you'd expect." While Broussard's comments are open to interpretation, most XBLA releases are priced between 800 ($10) and 1200 Microsoft Points ($15).

Now the game is in Microsoft's hands.  I'd expect it to be released sometime after there summer of Arcade promotion, that ends the last week in August. 

So how did the game suddenly get discovered and confirmed overnight?  Website MyGamerCard happened to pick up the full list of achievements while combing through Xbox profiles.  The best news of course is that the game will feature all four episodes, the original and the expansion pack, and all four of the achievements for completing these episodes are available in Co-Op!  The original game supported 4 player co-op but there's an interesting rumor out there which could up the ante not only in the number of players, but the number of features.

Want the scoop? Hit that read more link.

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And so the day is finally here when we can say that Too Human will be hitting store shelves tomorrow, August 19th.   Too Human is an Action/RPG title from Silicon Knights that features 2 player co-op through the entire story.  The game is very centered around character building and item collection which is sure to be right up any Diablo fan's alley.

Don't forget that we are also running a giveaway for the game where you can enter to win one of 3 signed copies of the game.  That ends tomorrow, so hurry up!