Torpex Games' cooperative shooter Schizoid and Housemarque's Golf: Tee It Up! are coming to the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade downloadable gaming platform this week, Microsoft announced today.

Described by Torpex as "the most co-op game ever," Schizoid features two-player online and offline cooperative play. Designated as either blue or red, participants can absorb bullets and destroy otherwise invulnerable enemies of the same hue as they work through over 120 levels. Read more »

Publisher Torpex Games has sent word that its XNA-developed cooperative shooter Schizoid (360) will arrive on the Xbox Live Arcade this coming July.

Described by Torpex as "the most co-op game ever," Schizoid features two-player online and offline cooperative play in which participants are each assigned a specific color—red or blue—allowing players to absorb bullets and destroy otherwise indestructible enemies of the same hue. Read more »

Developer and publisher Torpex Games today announced that it expects the XNA-created Schizoid to arrive on Xbox Live Arcade by the end of 2007, making it the first title developed in Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Express to release on the service. Billed by Torpex as "possibly the ultimate co-op game," Schizoid features two-person online and offline multiplayer in which each player is assigned a specific color--blue or red--and are invulnerable to enemies of that tone, meaning they can impact and destroy those particular foes. The two players must then work together to protect each other from the otherwise indestructible foes. The concept is reminiscent of Treasure's vertical shooter Ikaruga (GCN, DC), which featured black and white enemies and allowed players to switch their polarity to inflict more damage on the opposite color. “Every few years a game will come out that is so simple, yet so addictive that it becomes a phenomenon unto itself,” gushed Torpex president Bill Dugan. “We truly believe that if you and a friend spend two minutes playing Schizoid, you are going to ignore food, drink, your job and your family and play until they load you up on a gurney and head to the hospital." “There are literally thousands of games released every year and yet very few of them have the originality of Schizoid," noted XNA director of marketing Dave Mitchell. "It’s amazing to me that this game hasn’t been invented before now. Schizoid demonstrates that developers can really unleash an ingenious game with XNA Game Studio Express." Launched in 2006, XNA Games Studio Express is a development platform allowing for the creation of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Xbox 360 games. Part of Microsoft's vision of a "YouTube for games," the software itself is free, but executing XNA code on an Xbox 360 requires a $99/year or $49/four months XNA Creators Club membership. The company previously expressed hope that certain games created in XNA could be sold via XBLA, negating the need of an XNA Creators Club membership to experience.