Warhammer 40K has made quite  name for itself starting out first as a board game and then spawning an expansive line up of video games. The latest title to enter the series is Warhammer 40K: Space Marine. This third person action shooter will have gamers controlling, quite obviously, a Space Marine which they will be able to accrue various upgrades for as the game goes on.

Unfortunately we don’t know much about the game and up until now THQ had only said it woul dbe out sometime this summer. Luckily, the company has come forth once again to tell us that Warhammer 40K: Space Marine will be out for the PS3, Xbox 360 & PS3 this August.

Now that we have a solid release window, expect more details to arise quite soon.

Valve is definitely one of the more iconic game developers due to their hard hitting franchises like Half-Life, Counter-Strike and many more. They are also a developer that has been known to listen to the community even collaborating with them on future products.

One example of this is the Cold Stream DLC pack for Left 4 Dead 2 created by community modder Matthew Lourdelet. Included in this DLC pack is a whole slew of new gameplay sure to extend the life of Left 4 Dead 2 which was released way back in November on 2009.

If you want to get your hands on the Cold Stream DLC pack early you’ll be happy to hear that it was just released in beta form for both he PC and Mac versions of the game. Of course, seeing how it’s a beta, expect some bugs and if you do happen to come across them Valve asks you to please report them.

While we can go off and tell you about the important of digital distribution we’ll most likely bore you as you’re sure to be well aware of it. Regardless of all of the hype surrounding these various outlets they continue to deliver of their promise of phasing out physical distribution. In fact, according to a recent report it seems that 50% of console gamers purchased a digital game in 2010. This, quite obviously, refers to online services like Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and the Wii’s various methods of digital distribution.

In comparison, EEDAR suggests that in 2009 just 43% of gamers purchased a digital game which means things are noticeably on the incline with no signs of slowing. Of course, most of these purchases were most like the cheap (yet great) independently developed titles available in these various digital outlets. On that note, I’d be interested to see how many gamers actually purchased a full fledged $50+ game through one of these outlets.

Are you a console gamer who has purchased a digital game within the last year? If so, let us know.

We just got done telling you about how Square Enix had launched a smartphone focus development studio dubbed Hippos Lab so it’s no secret that mobile platforms are very valuable entities. In fact, it seems that they are so valuable that Valve may be considering porting their Steam digital distribution service to mobile platforms such as Apple’s iOS.

News of this comes to us from a Steam forum member who suggests Valve co-founder Gabe Newell recently went on record during a company meeting as saying that they are considering expanding to the iOS and Android platforms. What they means exactly we aren’t sure but if we take a look at the Android platform we can see competing app stores such as the recently launched Android Appstore from Amazon so it’s definitely possible here but what about Apple? Unless you have a jailbroken device that is capable of installing unauthorized software there’s no way to get a competing app store on the platform so it would definitely be a stretch to get Steam onto the platform.

Either or, this has yet to be officially confirmed so we’re going to have to wait and see how it unfolds.

As you’re sure to know the various mobile platforms have been gaining a lot of traction in the mobile world. In fact, some have even went as far as saying mobile platforms like Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android will eventually phase out dedicated mobile consoles like the PSP or Nintendo DS. While this has yet to be seen, it’s no secret that these mobile platforms are effectively a gold mine for big developers and independent developers alike.

Square Enix seems to be very well aware of this announcing today that they will be launching a new smartphone focused studio dubbed Hippos Lab. Unfortunately there are virtually no details as to what exactly this new studio will push out but they have apparantly started working on March 7th.

We’ll keep you posted as more information is made available.

“But can it run Crysis”, has become a meme since the original Crysis was released, a game that was notoriously hard on even the highest end PC systems. And still to this day, it’s one of the most realistic looking games you can get. So it’s with great anticipation that PC system owners are looking forward to Crysis 2, too bad the game has been “consolized” to some extent, meaning that the visuals aren’t as groundbreaking as they were before. But they’re still very, very pretty. And the game isn’t that bad either. Read on for our full Crysis 2 review.

Crysis 2 is set in New York City, which has come under attack from aliens, and you, sporting your trusty Nano suit, get to kick a lot of ass. The game isn’t as open as the previous Crysis, where you could roam the island and do what you want, Crysis 2 in comparison is a lot more streamlined and linear, but fortunately, not as linear as, say, Call of Duty. The combat is great and your three suit functions: strength, armor and stealth add depth to the gameplay, where you have to decide how to attack a certain objective (and make sure that your suit energy doesn’t run out). However, the great gun play and action is somewhat inhibited by a disappointing AI, which isn’t as smart as we anticipated in a title like this. In many ways, the AI in Crysis 1 felt smarter. Some times, you’ll attack enemies and they won’t respond, or will notice you but won’t fire. But it’s never a huge issue in the game, and it doesn’t affect the campaign to much. And may we add, the singleplayer campaign is great, albeit a bit too linear, but thoroughly enjoyable.

The same can’t be said about multiplayer. Up to 16 players can duke it out in what we can only describe as Call of Duty: Future Warfare. The amount of features Crysis 2 “borrows” from Call of Duty is staggering, down to the point where you need a certain level to join certain game types. And the nano suit, which is also available in multiplayer, offers lots of unbalancing issues. It just feels that Crysis 2 could have tried something new with multiplayer, but instead opted for the obvious choices that everyone else is doing.

Visually, the game is a looker, but PC owners might be a bit disappointed, seeing how the game was developed with consoles in mind. The PC version doesn’t support DirectX 11 and isn’t visually as revolutionizing as its predecessor, but we really can’t complain about the looks of the game: it looks gorgeous! We reviewed the PC version, but briefly played the Xbox 360 version, and it was one of the best looking games we’ve played on that console. But even on the Xbox 360, as with the PC version, there are some technical issues like frame rate drops, some texture popping and shadows sometimes tend to disappear. Overall, Crysis 2 is a solid shooter, and one of the better looking ones. Too bad the multiplayer is too by-the-books, with little innovation.

The Good:
Great, intense campaign
Awesome visuals

The Bad:
A few bugs and glitches
Disappointing multiplayer
Bad AI

Overall score: 8/10

It’s been revealed that the somewhat lackluster Mafia 2 game will be getting a Director’s Cut version of the game. The new version was revealed by Amazon, and will reportedly include some additional DLCs, in form of three story DLCs and four car and clothes DLCs. The Director’s Cut will be released on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

We know Director’s Cut editions of movies tend to be the film director’s visions before the studio cut it the way they wanted. But how does that work in games? Beats us. We think it’s just a marketing ploy to try and sell more copies, like a very late, Limited Edition version, or something. One thing’s for sure: we’re not picking up another Mafia 2 copy. We still haven’t sold the copy we already got.

For more Mafia 2, check out our Mafia 2 review.

A 29 year old British man named Ashley Mitchell has been sentenced to 2 years behind bars for stealing $11 million worth of virtual Zynga Poker money. According to court documents, Mitchell stole the money by hacking into the accounts of two Zynga employees, then crediting his accounts with $11 million in virtual poker chips. But he didn’t just gamble the poker chips away, he sold the accounts for over $100,000. According to the court, this isn’t the first time Mitchell got caught hacking — he was previously convicted of hacking into the systems of his former employer. He will now serve a 2 year prison sentence, plus a 30-week suspended sentence. A final interesting piece of news: he hacked Zynga by using his neighbors unprotected WiFi. So always remember to protect your WiFi, you hear?

If you’ve read pretty much any video game publication recently you’ll know that Dead Islandd has been gaining a ton of of publicity largely thanks to the top notch trailer that was put out. If you’re not familiar with the game what we know so far says the game will be a sand box first person shooter where, quite obviously, the gamer is tasked with killing zombies. Apparently, there will be an emphasis on melee combat with gamers given the ability to craft various melee weapons from things lying around.

If you know all of the above you’ll also know that the I in the Dead Island logo is a zombie being hung from a tree. Well, according to recent reports this didn’t fly so well with the ESRB who have just slapped the developers with a disapproval causing them to alter the logo making the I into a standing zombie rather than one being hung.

Dead Island will be out for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC sometime later this year.

Zipper Interactive has been pushing out one of the most successful shooting franchises that’s hit the streets for the PlayStation in the form of SOCOM. Currently, the developer is gearing up to launch SOCOM 4 which will feature ground up compatibility with the PlayStation Move motion controller coupled with top notch graphics and gameplay.

If you want to get down on the game early you’ll want to make note that the SOCOM 4 beta for PlayStation Plus subscribers has just gone live. According to Sony to beta will run through the 28th and will feature various game modes for PlayStation Plus subscribers to try out.

If you weren’t aware PlayStation Plus costs $49.99 for a year or $17.99 for 3 months which will give you early access to betas, new demos to try out and much more.

If you give the SOCOM 4 beta a go let us know how it is!