CO-OP (Large WMV)

CO-OP comes into its namesake today by involving YOU! We'll tell you when you can join in and all you need is a Twitter account. Simply put @COOP_live anywhere in your tweet and we'll see it! Wait until we ask for it, though, as we don't want your tweets to get lost in the shuffle. We're going to have a musical guest that we think you'll love and right after his first performance is when we're going to go to the first fan segment where you can ask him questions. He'll then play himself off and right after that we're going to do ANOTHER fan segment where you can ask any of the Area 5 crew anything you want. Disagree with our Mass Effect 2 review? Tell us! Want to see more of the set? Want to tell JayFresh how bloody sexy he is and see him blush? Now you can! CO-OP could never have come this far without you and now we need you to make CO-OP Live the best it can be! Join in, talk to us and we'll talk back.

This is not a joke. CO-OP will be going LIVE starting next Tuesday, February 9th at 7PM Eastern, 4PM Pacific. No editing to cover our mistakes. It's just us sounding as lame as we do "IRL," but with one crucial addition: you. Twitter will be a great way to participate in the discussion. Follow http://twitter.com/coop_live and get in on the act! Live chat may show up as well, but we can't guarantee that just yet.

It's the second part of our epic, 2009 year-in-review special! We assembled a crew of the finest CO-OP regulars to share what their favorite games of 2009 wound up to be. This isn't a "Game of the Year" rank-a-thon, but rather a recollection of what made 2009 such a freakin' awesome year for gamers!

2009 was a very good year--for video games. While much of the rest of the world is suffering an "economic downturn," to put it politely, the creators of gaming goodness out there haven't seemed to notice. We gather a bunch of CO-OP regulars for a giant, two-parter round table that delves into what was truly an epic year for the greatest medium ever invented by humankind.

2009 isn't wrapped up quite yet. There are a few leftovers we felt absolutely essential to take care of. Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes is a huge success and Saboteur offers a bit of newish-ness if you're interested in expanding your open-world-gaming horizons via occupied, WWII France. Also, take a look at Matt and Ryan's Y2K time capsule. What was life like 10 years ago?

We're on vacation this week, but we still wanted to get something out there to help fill up all that extra hard drive space you've got lying around. Yeah, this week's show is really short, but we hope the quality makes up for the quantity! If you've been following us since the beginning (meaning even before CO-OP showed up on Revision3), you might be familiar with "Area 5 Snacks." They're digital shorts that we were putting together in the early days before we found out we needed to make money to stay in business. Here's all four of them in a row. We would disavow these if we could, but we've all got our legacies to live up (or down, as the case may be).

It's a CO-OP roundtable on what makes multiplayer shooters so special. Why do some succeed and others fail? Join as we go over some of the biggest shooters of this year and yesteryear and try to get to the bottom of what makes some stick while others flounder. Also, big thanks to Astro Gaming for providing the freakin' awesome 5.1 headsets used in this week's show.

Android or iPhone? Perhaps not a nerd debate to be decided in a single episode, but that doesn't stop Cesar and Rob from taking some . . . extreme measures. Fortunately their adorable little feud didn't harm our interview with Mass Effect 2 producer Adrien Cho when we got to go check out the game last week. A few of our friends stuck around to talk about their brief play-session afterward including one "J. Cannata"--if that is his real name! Avatar is no doubt going to break (or has already broken) some kind of box-office record, but the game leaves something to be desired. Lastly, the most-likely-overlooked LittleBigPlanet for the PSP stands up proudly on its own as a must-have for any PSP owner.

Is December really the best time to be going to the beach in Northern California? Not really, but try telling that to Santa Cruz native Cesar Quintero . . . So, yeah, the team was convinced to follow him down to his old haunts in the interests of seeing sights better left until the warmer seasons, but also to visit Edmund McMillen, creator of many awesome games, but the most recent of which is sure to delight many: Super Meat Boy. Rounding out the coverage this week: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and we enjoy some 8-bit Vintners wine by the wintertime fire while discussing PixelJunk Shooter.

Half the team was on vacation for a while, so this week's show is a wee bit shorter than normal--but don't let that fool you into thinking it's any less awesome! 'Cause it ain't! The big feature this week is the latest offering meant to swell your collection of plastic peripherals: Tony Hawk: Ride. We've got some skaters in the Area 5 crew and they'll give you the skinny. Before that, though, is a look at the surprisingly well-done, PSP version of Assassin's Creed. Is it worth it to you PSP owners out there? Find out.

We're still on holiday for one more week but that doesn't mean we didn't cook up something nice for you ahead of time. Jason stole Ryan's camera and all of AREA 5's backup drives to construct an all-new episode of the Jason Show. Despite our wishes, behind our backs, Jason has filled his episode with outtakes and behind-the-scenes moments that the rest of the crew wishes the world didn't have access to. Additionally, Bitmob.com's Dan Hsu and CO-OP composer Paul Greenleaf sat down with Cesar to chat about the multiplayer madness of New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Sit back, relax, and get yourself a plate of leftover stuffing burritos and turkey fries and enjoy! We'll be back with tons of game coverage next week!

We're going to be on our Thanksgiving break next week, so keep your eyes out for a special episode of CO-OP on December 1st that'll be a departure from the norm. We'll be back on December 8th with our regular programming. This week, though, is an almost-special episode thanks to our long-form coverage of Assassin's Creed 2. It's just too big to talk about in the normal time constraints of our show. Enjoy and remember to enjoy your holiday! And by "enjoy," we mean catch up on the holiday gaming rush. It's going to be a HUGE 2010 and you need to get started now ;p

Midnight launches are not for the feint of heart. You know, the whole staying up late, playing a game all night, trying to go to work the the next day. But that's part of what being a gamer is all about! We were there for a San Francisco midnight launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 so that we could cover the single-player, at least, on this week's show. It's the first of a MW2 two-parter. We believe it takes longer than a few days to evaluate multiplayer so we're going to give it a good shakedown before talking about that part of the game. The epically awesome Dragon Age Origins and the next, big rhythm game DJ Hero round out this week's coverage.

The words "movie" and "license" area anathema to gamers when paired and the exception is rare. Fortunately, this week's coverage of Jame's Cameron's Avatar may show us a way to one of said exceptions. We were invited to an event at the Dolby Labs in San Francisco to experience the game hands-on (in 3D no less). Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony ratchets up the excitement and the better-than-Diablo Diablo clone Torchlight receives some much deserved face time.

Yes, Area 5 threw a Halloween party! It was awesome! We had the best costumes ever! There's no way your party was better than ours! Is there any way exclamation points can denote sarcasm as opposed to genuine enthusiasm? Honestly, we're better gamers than we are party-planers. Oh, and we talk about some games. Halloween is very special time of year - for everyone but Ryan. Still, he was convinced to dress up for this special occasion. He may have been better off avoiding the specialized Area 5 event altogether.

Believe it our not, it's our first CO-OP: The Animated Series! Well... sort of. You'll see. We have a lively debate on whether Demon's Souls is as terrific as people say or truly awful, an in-depth about the ambient, indie RTS Eufloria and an iPhone round-up of some of our favorites: Canabalt, Geared, and Mr. Bounce!

It's our season 03 premiere! In our longest segment on a game yet, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves takes the spotlight this week. We also stop by indie developer Gaijin Games to grab a look at what makes an indie studio tick and to get a sneak peak at Bit.Trip Void. Also, of course, we had to share the quickie got with New Super Mario Bros. Wii!

Since Cesar was the only one at TGS this year, we asked him to do some light documenting of Japan for us so that we could live his experiences vicariously.

Only one of us got to go to TGS this year, but that doesn't mean we didn't get to bring home the goods! In this special episode of CO-OP we round up the big announcements as well as dive into two games: Deadspace Extraction and Scribblenauts.

Camping. It's cheap, easy, and thanks to the DS and the PSP we can bring our games with us! It's an all-portables week as the gang goes primal.

Jason and Matt stop by the XNA's Indie Games booth to chat with Microsoft's Kathleen Sanders and we review the Fall's first blockbusters: Halo 3: ODST and Beatles Rock Band

It's been 10 years since the launch of the much-beloved Dreamcast and as such we had the perfect excuse for a retrospective. Multiple blasts from the past combine with a bunch of memories our fans at PAX shared with us.

The Dark Knight cometh, the iPhone gets it's first real, GTA clone, and the re-release of the best, "this-generation" Metroids improves upon the best.

To know the future you must know the past and we prove it this week by delving into a classic. We keep it current thanks to some Nazi-Zombie killing and insect-adventure on the iPhone.

Little King's Story provides an adorable grind to world domination while Shadow Complex and Wolfenstein take old ideas and add a new coat of paint.