So the Left 4 Dead demo is now available over the Steam network for normal humans like me who didn’t pre-order the game. With Valve’s highly anticipated online cooperative zombie shooter shambling into retail in a week, the demo servers are already packed with smack-talking, team-fragging, headset-wearing eleven year olds eager to describe in appalling detail what they did with your mother last night.

I bought Gears of War 2 on launch day and took it over to my friend Pete’s house, where me, he, and yet another Pete played through the entire thing splitscreen over a period of 48 frenzied alcohol- and Red Bull-fueled hours. As one Pete put it, “it was like a day and a half of chainsawing aliens, broken up by a nap and a walk.” So, the verdict? Gears 2 is excellent. I recommend …

Ethereal Darkness Interactive, developers of the adventure/RPG hybrid Morning’s Wrath, have finally released their second game – The Lost City of Malathedra – a PC graphic adventure heavily inspired by classics such as The Dig and the King’s Quest series. Players will take on the role of Rebecca Wolfe as she searches for her historian father, Jonathan. Malathedra is available as a DRM-free web-only download for the paltry sum of $19.95. A demo of the …

Ubisoft, France-and-Canada based developer/publisher behind such mongo franchises as Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell, and Rainbow Six, has acquired Swedish Massive Entertainment, the highly-regarded RTS maker responsible for the much-loved World in Conflict. Originally published by Sierra, Massive lost its home when the Activision/Blizzard merger resulted in Sierra’s closure. Some other big name titles also got the axe, and we’re slowly hearing of their resurrection at other publishers. Atari, for example, will be handling the …

Review by Toger Time Hollow Developer Konami Publisher Konami Released September, 2008 Available for Nintendo DS Verdict: 4/5 Thumbs Up “.muunitnoc emit-ecaps eht retla nac ,oot ,uoY* Kirk and Picard did it. Doc Brown did it. So did Doug and Tony from the TV show, Time Tunnel. You know you’ve always wanted to do it; but, beware the Butterfly Effect because as we well know, things will go awry.”

It’s actually kind of old news now, but Turner Broadcasting Systems has sold its GameTap service to France-based Metaboli and it will live on in some incarnation through that company. As a long and vocal supporter of GameTap (and a paid freelancer), I was an outsider who saw in through the window. Know that I don’t mean this as an exposé. I was working a thousand miles away from GameTap High Command and communicating with just a handful of actual Turner employees, and them by email. So it’s not like I was privy to anything big. What you read here is a reflection on my experiences, peppered with what I know or believe to be true, but authoritative it ain’t. I can’t claim to provide even a remotely comprehensive description of what happened to the service, but I can share the observations of one who’d been on GameTap’s periphery since before it had even been named.

I took some time out of my extraordinarily busy Fallout 3 schedule to download the Mirror’s Edge demo on XBLA. This is a game I’ve been watching for some time: the austere art direction really touched a chord in me, and I was intrigued by DICE’s commitment to producing a momentum-based first-person platformer… essentially, a game that plays like Prince of Persia, but feels like Quake, since you’re in the first person driver’s seat.

Review by Old Rooster The Colour Of Murder Developer: MDNA Games Publisher: Merscom Released: October 29, 2008 Available for Windows (System Specs Below) Verdict: 5/5 Gold Star! “The fifth Carol Reed mystery continues the unusual, intricate and suspenseful story telling of one of our finest independent adventure game developers. Moreover, this time the Nyqvists have also incorporated one of the best progressive hint systems yet seen. We’re pleased to award a Gold Star to this …

After a long wait, Fallout 3 hit the shelves Tuesday. Since its precursor, Fallout 2, was released by Black Isle in 1998, a new generation of gamers have come of age having never played either of the original games. Few thought a third game would actually see the light of day. Then Bethesda bought the rights and soon after announced Fallout 3. Its last blockbuster game, Oblivion, had been greeted with a surge of early …

New over the news tickers today is the suggestion that failed Maxis “masterpiece” Spore, released to tepid reviews but hella sales in early September, underwent some significant changes to up the simplicity and cute factor and back-burner the SimLife science originally planned by Will Wright and his team. The conjecture is that Maxis employee and outspoken industry dude Chris Hecker is responsible for the change. Whether or not that’s true, the cuteification of Spore actually …

Continuing my Day of Plagiarism, allow me to pull directly from Alec Meer’s IGN UK review of Fallout 3: “So it’s tragic that the often awful production values make a fool of it so regularly. Whenever you’re really settling into the game and thinking what a wonderful world it is, it goes and does something incredibly stupid and clumsy, and the whole illusion shatters. It’s a truly fabulous RPG in so many ways, but we …

I totally stole the above picture from the indispensible gamepolitics.com site, but it’s worth the theft to share.

Review by Old Rooster Outcry Developer: Phantomery Studios Publisher: The Adventure Company Released: September, 2008 Available for Windows (System Specifications Below) Verdict : 3/5 Middlin’ “With intriguing visuals and lovely musical score, Outcry will involve you in its mysterious and, ultimately, psychological storyline. Unfortunately, excessive verbiage as well as the insertion of odd and often difficult puzzles for their own sake brings the final score of this short game down to a 60% range.”

As if there were any doubt, Mr. Steerpike grabbed this game on Day Zero and has given it a solid four hours. Largely interesting because this is the first “big studio” open-world shooter, a format that’s been dominated until now by the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games and nothing else, the question becomes: does Far Cry 2 deliver? Click to find out…

Review by Steerpike S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky Developer GSC Game World Publisher Deep Silver, Steam Released September 21, 2008 Available for Windows Verdict: 3/5 Middlin’ “In the end, Shadow of Chernobyl stood above its many, many flaws because it was a revolutionary title, a game-changer. Clear Sky, though in many ways a far superior game, does not enjoy the same immunity to its flaws, because it’s supposed to be of the second generation, and the mistakes …