A sequel to Valve's cooperative zombie shooter Left 4 Dead was just announced at Microsoft's E3 Media Briefing, with the game slated to arrive November 17 on PC and Xbox 360.




The game will introduce AI Director 2.0 taking L4D's dynamic gameplay to the next level by giving the Director the ability to procedurally change weather effects, world objects, and pathways in addition to tailoring the enemy population, effects, and sounds to match the players' performance.

The game will feature new Survivors, boss zombies, weapons, and melee combat with items such as a chainsaw, frying pan, axe, baseball bat, and more. Left 4 Dead 2 offers a much larger game than the original with better cooperative action with more campaigns, more Versus campaigns, and maps for Survival mode available at launch.

The announcement trailer showcases a variety of daylight encounters in a small town setting 'the original took place largely during night' alongside a new group of survivors, at least one new boss monster, and a chainsaw.

EA has announced that Battlefield 1943 comes with four maps, not three, but players will have to register 43 million kills to unlock the fourth. Obviously that's 43 million kills as a group, rather than individually - although the number will have to be achieved separately by PS3 and Xbox 360 audiences.

Should this happen, players will then be able to access the Coral Sea map, in addition to Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal and Wake Island.

As must be obvious from the name, Coral Sea focuses on, er, aerial battles in a new "Air superiority" game mode. It's aeroplanes-only.

Battlefield 1943 is set to cost 1200 Microsoft Points (GBP 10.20 / EUR 14.40) on Xbox Live Arcade and USD 15 on PlayStation Network when it comes out, hopefully this month. The PC version is due out in September.

Steam will automatically begin downloading this large update to Team Fortress 2. A highly anticipated update, that includes many new features including:

• New game mode - Payload Race (with new map Pipeline)
  
• Two new official arena maps: Nucleus and Sawmill (with new weather conditions)
  
• 35 new achievements for the Sniper Class
  
• 34 new achievements for the Spy Class
  
• The Huntsman, Razorback and Jarate new weapon unlocks for the Sniper
  
• The Dead ringer, Cloak & Dagger and The Ambassador new weapon unlocks for the Spy

Remember Team Fortress 2 is now available for a free weekend, so anyone can play this update, and if you wish to purchase after, TF2 is available at half price. So go and play this awesome game kids!!

id Software plans to expand Quake Live by one map every Monday, starting today and ending in six weeks' time.




Hidden Fortress from the DreamCast's Quake III kicks off the "6 new maps in 6 weeks" campaign, which promises both new and classic maps for the multiplayer shooter.

Quake Live is a free-to-play, browser-based adaptation of Quake III Arena. It's in open beta, so pop over to the official website to join in and party like it's 1999.

We played Quake III Arena back in the day, view all our results right here.

3D Realms has closed because of insufficient funding, placing the future of Duke Nukem Forever once more in doubt.




Well that's a bit of bummer, but tbh could this game have lived up to the 12 year hype it has had?

DICE has announced a price for forthcoming arcade title Battlefield 1943.




The Xbox Live Arcade version will set you back 1200 Microsoft Points, which is GBP 10.20 / EUR 14.40 in the old money. It's set to cost USD 15 from the PlayStation Store, which works out about the same.

The game will launch on XBLA and PSN in June. The PC release is scheduled for September, with a price point yet to be confirmed.

Battlefield 1943 features three locations - Wake Island, Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima. You can play as the US Marines or the Imperial Japanese Navy, and battle it out over land, air and sea.

For the full rundown, check out Eurogamers recent preview.

Bethesda has confirmed that Fallout 3: Broken Steel will available on 5th May.

Exclusive to Xbox 360 and PC, this third batch of downloadable content raises the level cap from 20 to 30 and opens play past the conclusion of the main campaign.

On top of that are lots more toys to collect, Tesla Cannons to frazzle baddies with, new super mutants to run away from and much, much more.

A Broken Steel preview is up on Eurogamer for your viewing pleasure.

The L4D blog has been updated, this time outlining the complexities of Survival Mode, the new game play mode whereby survivors must compete against endless hoards of zombies. Survival mode will be released as a part of the free downloadable content for PC and Xbox 360 on Tuesday 21st April.

Summarising the blog update, they talk about making Survival Mode more than just a continuous crescendo event and making it feel like a distinctive separate game mode. Rounds will increase in difficulty over time, but just increasing zombie numbers doesn't reflect this. Pitching various events at times where they cross over controls the pacing, such as:

• Mob spawn frequency
  
• Special infected spawn frequency
  
• Number of each type of special infected
  
• Total number of special infected
  
• Tank spawn frequency
  
• Total number of tanks

Survival mode will also have 'lull' moments for teams to reload, relocate for ammo, heal or seek out new items. We won't be able to camp in these rooms as...




Check out the full post on the Left 4 Dead blog, including a graph showing increasing spawn frequency.


[21 April 2009] Said patch went live today and its great fun!