TXPaladin on Live

Xbox Live and Co-Optimus.Com are bring you Co-Op game nights once a month over Xbox Live. Xbox Live will select a particular game and night each month for you and your friends to gather online and battle as a team together.

I'm really excited to see this being promoted and its a feature of gaming that I've been interested in the most. Games with Co-Op modes and team based fighting sound like a blast to me.

I hope to give this first game session a try with GTAiv being selected to kick things off. Hangman's Noose, Bomb Da Base II, Deal Breaker, and Free Roam are some of the Co-Op game modes you can take part in tonight with your friends over Live. I look forward to these and many more like it.

Co-Optimus is a site dedicated entirely to co-op gaming, pertaining not only to events such as these but to news regarding all kinds of co-op games across all platforms. Get the latest news about the co-op features of your favorite co-op enabled games!

So yesterday I finally got to try a Wii something different for a change. My brother-in-law has a Wii and had it at the in-laws over the weekend. So I finally saw one up close and got to put it through a little action. I started out as an observer and find that is always best... gather some Intel... you know what I mean here, right?

I watched my daughter play a few rounds of bowling and then it was my turn to give it a try. I said alright, but I'm not sure what to really do here. They told me what to click pretty much and with very little effort (rather lame) I threw a strike right off the bat. I lost the game in the end, but it was fun to try and play. My daughter loves it and is really good at it. If I get on a Wii bowling league, I want her on my team for sure.

My fave of the Wii Sports package is Boxing by far. I had a really great time with this game. My first fight I was awarded all three rounds and won in the end. I went on for another 5 fights after that and won all of those with KOs in the 2nd or 3rd rounds. My last fight was the first fight for me to experience a knock down, lucky for me I came back and finished him off.

Now this morning I'm sore like you would not believe. It wasn't until this evening that I really felt how sore I was. Amazing that moving from left to right and jabbing and punching for 6 fights, almost a total of 18 rounds, can get you that sore when your done.

Next to Boxing would be Bowling as a fave and then its a toss up between Golf and Baseball. I found out today that I can actually change my pitches in Baseball and that I should really take a few practice swings in golf before each stroke.

Tennis comes in last, but that is just me and I've had a harder time with it is all. I think with a little more practice I could get better with it and enjoy it more. In the end I'm impressed with what I've seen out of the Wii. Graphics are not near the Xbox 360, but its geared towards different gamers all together. Still a blast and really amazing as to what it can do and how much it reacts to your motions. For me this is hands down the best Boxing in a game I've played and really gets you into the game. All that is needed is a third party vendor to make a sensor that inflicts pain at every punch. That's a joke, please don't do that.

I'm looking forward to learning more about the Wii and could see getting one for the family at some point for sure. Wii fit will be high on the list and other games like this will be cool. I wonder if they have Wii Karate or something like that. All they need is some special shoes to place the other controller and nun chuck in right?

I'm also interested to see how well it can help in getting someone into shape. I sure hope after a few sessions of Boxing I'd begin to get use to it and not be as sore. If not, I'll need to look at Wii doctor or some Wii rehab I suppose.

Double Points Weekend Too

Major Nelson has posted the Live Activity for the week of 5/26 and based on the numbers for Unique Users on Live, the game of the year for 2007 has regained its top spot once again. That's right Call of Duty 4 is at the top of the list among live users playing the game.

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles (based on UU’s)
1 Call of Duty 4
2 Halo 3
3 GTA IV
4 Guitar Hero III
5 Gears of War
6 Rock Band
7 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2
8 FIFA 08
9 Forza Motorsport 2
10 GRID Demo

Infinity Ward has to be happy about this victory, take note of the number 3 spot. How quickly the might can fall these days. At release my friends list was full of people playing GTAIV solid and now I'm lucky to see a single user in Liberty City these days. GTAIV is interesting to see, but in the end its not going to stack up to the like of CoD4 & Halo 3 and all they have to offer.

Speaking of offers Infinity Ward is hosting double points for all maps this weekend. So here's a good time to get into some live action and level up. I'm closer to reaching that 55 and need to take advantage of this weekends double points and try and get there. Then I can decide if I want to start things over again, I'll at least do that once I think.

Penny Arcade creators Mike "Gabe" Krahulik and Jerry "Tycho" Holkins have joined with legendary game designer Ron Gilbert and veteran producers Hothead Games to bring you Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One. This first installment of the episodic role-playing adventure game series is set in the highly stylized 1920s universe of New Arcadia filled with bizarre characters, outrageous combat, and adult humor.

So if I can try something out first before I buy it, as well as give something a look before I pass judgement or opinion on it, I prefer to do that. So I gave the demo a try and have to say that its very interesting and feels like a comic book coming to life for starters.

At the start of the game you can create your own character and I had the most fun with this portion and found it really cool. I like how you can do stuff like this in games and find your creation show up with in the games you play. Lets move on to the game and the type of play then.

The story has adult humor for sure and all though most of the action and what goes on is not as drastic,  its the little things that will cause kids to ask, what's that robot doing? If your little ones know how to read, then you might have a hard time explaining what a certain word is too. Thankfully this is something I tried out after they went to bed and I avoided all of this.

Game play, is simple and turn based action. Move your character along and then mash a button. Repeat and progress along. You run into parts where you can interact and make choices, in the end your still going to reach the same result and progress the story along. The story is funny and I like the setting, colors, and comic feel of the game.

Bad news for me and not being a huge fan of Penny Arcade or having read much of their work is the cost of this title. Coming in at 1600 pts ($20) is a bit steep if you ask me. That is a lot to spend on an interactive comic from a couple guys that I haven't really read much. Maybe I'm in a minority here, but I need to be a bigger fan to even think about that kind of price point.

In the end, the demo is well made and presents you with what your to expect from the full game. Its not my type of game though. I'm more of an FPS and do what I want type of player in most cases. I'm not a fan of mashing buttons and you have to go here to progress the game. Yes most games have you do an objective, but I prefer to select which paths I want to take and how I want to accomplish that goal in most of the games I play at least. This doesn't take away from what Penny Arcade is, its an interactive story, but one you have to stick with to get to the ending.

Dice is now preparing for the release of Battlefield: Bad Company and has a demo slated for June 5th on Xbox Live, in anticipation of their retail releases on June 25th in North America and June 27th in Europe. The Battlefield: Bad Company beta has since come and long gone now for this game, but now its time to ramp those servers back up again and get some game on via a demo.

If you've followed any number of Podcasts and gaming sites over the past couple days then you more and likely saw them giving away codes to get in before the public date of June 5th. This is what I call a soft launch and a controlled demo release.

But come June 5th, you can expect to see larger numbers of fans playing the demo and working their ranks up. Its nice to see Dice giving these codes to the masses of Podcasters, Bloggers, and Indie game reporters to give away to their audiences. After all this was the same groups that spoke out about the micro transaction ideas, discovered from the beta, to unlock certain weapons in the game. This was just what a beta was suppose to do, the unexpected feedback helped change those portions and have now provided ways to unlock those weapons with out any extra costs.

So mark your calendars for some gaming action and take a look at what Battlefield: Bad Company has to offer now. Here is what you have in store when you get in to the demo on June 5th.

Demo includes:
Single player
·  Early look into the quest for Gold with Bad Company

Multiplayer
·  Play the all-new Gold Rush mode on the Oasis map, featuring land, sea and air vehicles.
·  Reach rank 4 in the demo to unlock an exclusive in-game weapon