Codemasters have announced that December 4 will be the date when PC gamers will be able to play one of the best rally games currently available (read our Dirt 2 review). The game will be the first one to support DirectX 11, and will have support for Shader Model 5 and hardware tessellation, among other things, making it one of the prettier games out there.

When the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification refused to classify Left 4 Dead 2, meaning it wouldn’t hit the store shelves, Valve appealed the decision. The appeal has been rejected, and Valve will now release an edited versin, with less gore and realism for the Australians. The edited version has been approved, receiving an MA15+ rating. Left 4 Dead 2 will be released down under on November 17, with less blood than usual.

THQ has announced a post-apocalyptic shooter titled Metro 2033. The game is based on a Russian novel of the same name, written by Dmitry Glukhovsky.

The game will be developed by Ukrainian stdio 4A Games, and is set in Moscow after an all-out nuclear war, where survivors are fighting mutants and other beasts. THQ did not announce a release date for the game, but Fall 2010 seems like viable time for some post apocalyptic action.

The last we heard of a DLC pack for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising was a few weeks ago but recent reports suggest that new content isn’t the only thing that will be released. If you’ve been playing the game online you’ve probably already made note of the choppy gameplay but Codemasters hopes to remedy that with a patch that will be released at the same time as the first DLC pack.

There’s no official confirmation as to when this patch will be released, along with the DLC, but according to Codemasters it will make online gameplay “flow a bit better”.

Read (Eurogamer)

Rumors have been floating around ever since the HD DVD format died that a Blu-ray drive of sorts would be released for the Xbox 360. Microsoft has shut down such rumors in the past but now head honcho Steve Ballmer has taken center stage to comment on the possibility.

In a recent interview with Gizmodo, Ballmer was asked if we will ever see an Xbox 360 with a Blu-ray drive built-in to which he replied:

Well I don’t know if we need to put Blu-ray in there—you’ll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories.

Make note that Steve Ballmer has been known to fumble his words in the past but I think it’s safe to say we will definitely be seeing an external Xbox 360 Blu-ray drive at some point after Project Natal hits the market.

Dead Space: Extraction made its way onto store shelves for the Nintendo Wii on September 29th and considering the reviews and media, we figured it would be met with some critical acclaim. Well, the numbers are in and to Visceral Games’ dismay, it was not met with the critical acclaim they had hoped for.

In fact, in its first week on store shelves (Sep. 29th – Oct. 3rd) the game only managed to push 9,000 copies. EEDAR analyst Jesse Divinch comments on the game’s less than stellar launch:

“Electronic Arts didn’t market Dead Space Extraction as much as it does with other titles. And the success or failure of a Wii title usually correlates directly to marketing spend. If Electronic Arts spent little on marketing, I am sure the sell through was no surprise to them. So I do not believe sell through was a disappointment to EA.”

Let’s wait until Visercal comments to see if what this analyst says is true.

via edge-online

Rumors began circulating yesterday that Microsoft was preparing to test an Xbox Live rewards program and today emails have been sent out confirming that fact.

Below a Microsoft spokesperson comments on the program:

“We are always exploring ways to provide the most value for our members and are currently testing a pilot rewards program with a select base of our Xbox LIVE community in the US. We have no further details to share at this time.”

Yup, same deal, they let us know what they are doing but refuse to give us any details on the matter. Kotaku says there will be a sign-up period to test the program out that ends on October 21st.

As always, we’ll keep you posted.

Have you spent money on Call of Duty: World at War DLC? According to recent reports, chances are you have — It seems that the average World at War owner has spent $9 on DLC.

Gamasutra reached this conclusion by saying the 3 DLC maps for WaW currently on the market have sold nearly 7 million copies netting Activision close to $45 million in revenue. Do the math and that apparently comes out to U.S. WaW owners spending on average $9 on DLC.

So folks, need more proof that both World at War and Modern Warfare 2 are sure to see a very DLC packed future?

Good news to all the Guitar Hero and Rock Band fanatics, speaker-maker Altec Lansing has released the “Stage Gig”, a single speaker that sits at the bottom, facing the playing bad, just as if you’d have if you were a real musician, performing on a stage. But since you’re not on a real stage, and since you’re holding plastic guitars in your hands, you might wanna shed $100 for another plastic attachment that emits sounds of your fake plastic band right on your face.

It’s official, Bruce Willis has been cast as Kane in the upcoming Kane & Lynch movie adaptation. Producer Adrian Askarieh confirmed the news, saying,

“After Bruce Willis read [the script], he called it one of the best action scripts he’s ever read, and Bruce is an expert in terms of action scripts because he’s read everything over the last 20 years”

The movie won’t follow the game, but will keep the same plot point. However, seeing that most (read: all) movies based on games have pretty much sucked over the years, we’ll wait and see if Kane & Lynch turns out to something decent, even with Willis in the starring role.