To say thanks, Bungie have uploaded a new trailer called “The Good, The Badass and The Ugly” featuring awesome kills and freaky glitches that occurred during the beta event.

“It’s exceeded our expectations. Our only real perspective going into this was the ‘Halo 3′ beta test, which had about 800,000 people. We knew there were a couple million copies of ‘ODST’ out there, but we really didn’t have any specific information that let us know what the population might be like.” – Brian Jarrard, Bungie Studios Community Director

Check out the video below:

This led me to wondering; “What other co-op games are there on the Xbox 360 that I can play with friends?”. After some research, I stumbled across an awesome list of games which states not only if the game is co-op or not, but if it is local/online co-op, the number of players, and much more.

The list is constantly updating, so below is a list of just some of the Xbox 360 co-op titles currently available:

• Army of Two
• Burnout Paradise
• Call of Duty: World at War
• Crackdown
• Dynasty Warriors 5
• Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires
• Dynasty Warriors 6
• Earth Defence Force 2017
• Eternal Sonata
• Fable 2
• Gears of War
• Gears of War 2
• Grand Theft Auto IV
• Guitar Hero 2
• Guitar Hero 3
• Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
• Guitar Hero World Tour
• Halo 3
• Kameo: Elements of Power
• Kane and Lynch: Dead Men
• Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom
• Left 4 Dead
• LEGO Batman: The Video Game
• LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
• LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
• LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga
• The Lord Of The Rings: Conquest
• Mercenaries 2: World in Flames
• Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
• Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia
• MotoGP 07
• Perfect Dark Zero
• The Outfit
• Resident Evil 5
• Rock Band
• Samurai Warriors
• Samurai Warriors 2
• Samurai Warriors 2 Empires
• Saints Row 2
• The Simpsons Game
• Shaun White Snowboarding
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2
• Tom Clancy’s HAWX
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Double Agent
• Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland
• Too Human
• Unreal Tournament 3
• Viva Pinata Trouble In Paradise
• Warriors Orochi

What games do you most enjoy playing co-operatively with friends? Halo 3? Gears of War 2? Feel free to post your most favourite games in the comments area below.

To keep up-to-date with co-op gaming for the Xbox 360, please check out the link below:
http://www.co-optimus.com/system/1/XBox_360.html

One thing I have always wanted to do though (since Rainbow Six Vegas 1) is map my face onto my character. Last night I finally got that opportunity thanks to a friend of mine temporarily lending me his Xbox 360 Live Vision Camera.

The results were.. interesting. The face-mapping is quite detailed but for some reason it can’t quite do hair properly. Nearly every attempt resulted in me looking either bald, or having a huge white skull showing at the back. Luckily I managed to get over the baldness issue thanks to a hat I managed to unlock a few days earlier. Phew!

Anyway, this got me to thinking. What other Xbox 360 games make use of the Live Vision Camera?

Thanks to Wikipedia, I managed to find this great list of games:

In-Game Video Support

• Battlezone
• Band of Bugs
• Bankshot Billiards 2
• Bomberman LIVE
• Burnout Paradise
• Carcassonne
• Chessmaster LIVE
• Civilization Revolution
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
• Domino Master
• Duke Nukem 3D (in lobbies)
• Gin Rummy
• Hardwood Backgammon
• Hardwood Hearts
• Hardwood Spades
• Lost Cities
• Pinball FX
• Rocky and Bulwinkle
• Soltrio Solitaire
• Spyglass Board Games
• Texas Hold ‘em
• Ticket to Ride
• Uno
• Uno Rush
• Vigilante 8 Arcade
• Warlords
• Wits and Wagers
• Word Puzzle

Controller Functionality

• Pinball FX
• TotemBall
• Rayman Raving Rabbids
• You’re in the Movies

Face Mapping Support (Digimask)

• FaceBreaker
• Football Manager 2007
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2008
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2009
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2
• World Series of Poker 2008: Battle for the Bracelets
• World Series of Poker: Tournament of Champions

Other

• Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise

Admittedly, I haven’t heard of all of these. I imagine some of them are American releases or like “Uno Rush”, coming soon.

There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of making me want to purchase and Xbox Live Vision Camera (or justify a purchase), but I think the face-mapping feature in Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 was very entertaining.

If you have a friend who has a camera, ask kindly if he/she will let you borrow it for a short period. If you are thinking of getting a camera yourself though, my best recommendation is that you get one bundled with the “You’re in the Movies” game.

360voice is a site that tracks data about your Xbox 360. Upon signing up you add your gamertag and within a few days it begins displaying various statistics about your achievements, how often you play, and any challenges you have accomplished.

The great thing about 360voice though is that each day your Xbox 360 automatically blogs something about you (or it) whether you play or not (in quite a humorous manner).

360voice also has a great community where players arrange gaming nights and help each other complete games and obtain difficult achievements (where possible). The site even has it’s own form of “achievements” called “badges” which are earned by accomplishing various criteria such as playing/finishing certain games, winning competitions, and playing for a number of days.

Check it out today and get your Xbox blogging!

+ For those interested, you can track my profile here.

Okay, I was almost in heaven. This “ultimate” collection of games isn’t quite what I would consider ultimate. Infact, with little effort I actually managed to think up over 40 games I felt were missing.

These were as follows (in no particular order):

• Desert Strike
• Wonderboy in Monster World
• Super Hang On
• Out Run (arcade)
• After Burner (arcade)
• Zombies (Ate My Neighbours?)
• General Chaos
• Mortal Kombat 1, 2, (ultimate 3 already on Xbox live arcade)
• (street fighter 2 also already on Xbox live arcade)
• Sonic 2 + Sonic & Knuckles (combined – I’m aware they are on the disc separately)
• Sonic 3 + Sonic & Knuckles (combined)
• Castle of Illusion (starring Mickey Mouse)
• World of Illusion
• Micro Machines
• The Revenge of Shinobi
• Eternal Champions
• Two Crude Dudes
• Rocket Knight Adventures
• Road Rash 1, 2, 3
• Captain America and The Avengers
• Chuck Rock 1, 2
• The Chaos Engine
• Quackshot
• Earthwork Jim 1, 2
• Gunstar Heroes
• The Immortal
• Lemmings 1, 2
• Lotus Turbo Challenge
• Mega Bomberman (although Xbox live has a 3D one, this was awesome)
• Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker
• Mutant League Football
• Rolo to the Rescue
• Sword of Vermillion
• Terminator 2 (T2): The Arcade Game
• Tiny Toon Adventures Busters Hidden Treasure
• ToeJam & Earl
• Batman (possibly a slightly biased addition)

Okay, so Sega doesn’t own the rights to re-distribute all of these (I think?), nor are all of them classics in everyone’s eyes, but you get the general idea. There are plenty of games to warrant the release of Sega Mega Drive: Ultimate Collection 2 or possibly even some DLC to add a few of these to the archive. So Sega, if you manage to stumble accross this page, please make my dreams come true. If you are a Nintendo employee, please also release a NES/SNES collection (eventhough I know it’s 99.9% unlikely). Still, a man can dream.

In the meantime, I am going to enjoy playing through the current Sega Mega Drive: Ultimate Collection

Lego Indiana Jones
Not long to go now with this game. I managed to bring my gamerscore up to 940 out of 1000. Not bad really, with only a few achievements left (which will be quite boring and repetitive, especially the one where I need to disarm numerous enemies). I should be able to 100% Lego Indiana Jones if I can gear myself up to finish up on the loose ends.

Scene It? Box Office Smash
With the new Scene It downloadable content me and my girlfriend have been playing this quite a bit recently. We played it quite a lot before, but it’s nice to have some new questions and clips to watch. We also managed to get what I would consider to be the two hardest achievements in the game requiring a score of 300,000 and 330,000 with DLC, bringing the total gamerscore for this game to 1100 out of 1250.

Burnout Paradise
I couldn’t wait for the release of the new Ultimate Box edition, and I wasn’t disappointed! This version of Burnout Paradise contains a lot of (or all of) the previous DLC on disc, saving some room for quite a small hard drive (yes, even on the elite. Why don’t Microsoft release a huge and cheap drive? Well, we all know why. But I wish they would do it!). Anyway, the game still looks gorgeous and is very exciting and fun to play. I love the takedown game modes and exploring the huge map. I haven’t had time to play this as much as I’d like to, sporting only a measly 185 gamerscore for this game.

Recent Gamerscore Summary:

• Street fighter IV – 130/1000
• Fuzion Frenzy 2 – 25/1000
• Scene It? Box Office Smash – 1100/1250
• Dawn of War 2 – 35/1000
• Lego Indiana Jones – 940/1000
• Lord of the Rings: Conquest – 85/1000
• Burnout Paradise – 185/1050

Total Gamerscore: 33,610

1 on 1. Winner Stays On
Fighting games are ideal for quick plays whilst those not playing can enjoy watching the intense action. Each bout should only last a few minutes, meaning those on the sidelines can enjoy a quick beer before leaping back into battle.

Game of Choice: Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix – For it’s great mix of nostalgic fun, intense battles, fluid fighting, and great new graphics.

Other Recommended Games:

• Street Fighter IV (4)
  
• Street Fighter 2 Hyper Fighting
• Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
• Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe

4 Player Chaos!
Much like the 1 on 1 battles, these 4 playered games are great for short rounds. However, these games are better suited for larger crowds. So if you have a lot of friends over, you can easily entertain four of them at a time.

Game of Choice: Small Arms – With power-ups, interesting characters and stages, it’s great fun trying to blast each other off the level (a bit like Smash Bros. on the Wii).

Other Recommended Games:

• Worms
• Bomberman

4 Player Party Games
Sometimes it’s nice to take your time over games. You don’t always want intense and aggressive action to fill your evening. Here are a few games where you call each sit back and use your brain instead of your fists (or guns!)

Game of Choice: Scene it: Box Office Smash – With the ability to have your own Xbox 360 avatars appear within the game, this really adds to the fun. Also, the questions are a lot better than the previous instalment.

Other Recommended Games:

• Scene it: Lights, Camera, Action
• Monopoly

Playing Sweet, Sweet Music
This section probably best suits an evening with friends. I’ve been to a lot of parties where it’s not long before someone either gets out some microphones or starts singing along to a CD.

Game of Choice: Guitar Hero: World Tour – 4 player fun with a microphone, two guitars and a drum kit. This really is an entertaining game for a group of friends.

Other Recommended Games:

• Rock Band 1 or 2 (equally as good as Guitar Hero)
• Guitar Hero 2 or 3
• Lips
• Disney Sing It (if your really drunk!)

Football Games
I’m not a huge fan of football myself, but with friends it can be a lot of fun. These games are ideal for 1 on 1 matches, or a tournament to mix things up and see who comes out on top.

Game of Choice: Fifa 09 – The best football game currently out on the Xbox 360.

Other Recommended Games:

• Pro Evolution Soccer 2009

Arcade Action!
Fancy some entertaining Xbox Live Arcade games? Then check out these great 4 playered titles.

Game of Choice: Castle Crashers – One of the most enjoyable, funny, and overall entertaining games I have ever played.

Other Recommended Games:

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1989 Arcade
• Track and Field

Only have 1 friend over?
Not to worry, try out…

Retail Games:

• Halo 3 co-op
• Gears of War 2 co-op and Horde Mode
• Rainbow Six: Vegas 2

Xbox 360 Arcade Games:

• Streets of Rage 2
• Golden Axe
• Metal Slug 3

I hope this post helps many of you in finding great games to play when you have friends over. Please feel free to comment on any recommendations you might have, or some of the xbox 360 gaming nights you have experienced.

The best game for earning achievements this past week has been Lego Indiana Jones. So far I have managed to scrape together 540 points, but I intend to reach the full 1000 gamerscore. For me, Lego Indiana Jones is probably my least favourite out of the Lego series (Starwars: The Complete Saga, and Lego Batman), but having said that it is still fun to play in short bursts.

Another game I have just started to play after a HUGE break is Two Worlds; an RPG which has had some pretty awful reviews. After playing Too Human a lot of you must wonder what attracts me to negatively reviewed RPGs. At first glance (especially after the intro) I was turned against this game, but after giving it a chance and playing through it for a couple of hours I’ve grown to like it (eventhough I can’t seem to find any lockpicks ANYWHERE!). It’s not too bad, and I may review my experiences playing it fairly soon.

Recent Xbox 360 Gamerscore Totals

• Guitar Hero 3 (125/1000)
• Guitar Hero 2 (320/1000)
• Two Worlds (125/1000)
• Lego Indiana Jones (540/1000)
• Bionic Commando (20/200)

Total Gamerscore: 32,525

This week I haven’t managed to play on my xbox 360 as much as I probably would have liked (I had 3 days without playing anything!). That said, I did manage to have some fun and earn a few achievements along the way.

Too Human (675/1000)
I finally got around to finishing this game (although by finished I mean just the main story, not the full 1000 gamerscore). Overall I really enjoyed this game. Sure, it got some negative reviews and there is a lot of room for improvement, but I will definitely be returning to Too Human for some more online co-op and a few more achievements.

The Maw (180/200)
I’ve already written a post about how awesome Maw is. This is definitely one of the top 5 xbox live arcade games I have ever played. (Castle Crashers still holds the number 1 spot for me I’m afraid).

Assault Heroes (50/200)
This is one of those games I thought I’d try as it was only 400 points. So far I’ve only had time to blast through the first level, but this is an incredibly fun arcade game. I can’t wait to try it co-op with a friend.

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith (300/1000)
I managed to get quite a good deal for this and purchased it for my Girlfriend’s son as a birthday present. Eventhough it mainly consists of Aerosmith songs, there are quite a few others to make it not too samey/repetitive. The game feels fresh and exciting and we all really enjoy playing this game. For those who love easy achievements, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith is a lot easier than the other Guitar Hero games.

GRAW 2 (45/1000)
This is another game I managed to get a good deal on. Infact, I got a very good deal on Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter: Legacy Edition (£9.99 from play.com). I’ve always loved the Rainbow Six games, but never really enjoyed Ghost Recon. For the price though (with all the additional content), I thought Id give it a try. So far I have only got through the training and it’s… okay. I think I need to play this more before I can really find out if I like it or not.

Current Gamerscore: 31940

Too Human (390/1000)
As you already know if you have read the blog post this week, I have been enjoying playing this in online co-op mode with my girlfriend’s son. So far we are both about level 20 and have completed the first 2 level’s/worlds in both single player (to watch all the cut scenes) and multiplayer.

Scene It? Box Office Smash (855/1000)
This is the game I play most with my girlfriend. We both make a great team and often play online together. This is a fantastic family game and a HUGE improvement over the original. One of the best features of this game is that you can play using your own Xbox Avatars.

Gears of War 2 (495/1175)
One of the best games I have ever played! I have already finished the game on normal and am currently playing through on the insane setting. I’ve got to about Act 3 now. I’m also enjoying this game on Horde Mode (I got to about 30 waves) and various online multiplayer matches.

Guitar Hero: World Tour (170/1000)
This game is SO addictive! I used to think that this game would be pretty pointless as I can already play the guitar. I thought that spending time trying to master this would be wasted when I could be spending it developing my real guitar skills. However, this is really fun to play and is great fun with friends! Unfortunately I only have the guitar version (not the full band set) so I can only play this with friends on guitar. This also limits me quite heavily in obtainable achievements.

Current Gamerscore: 30,950