Valve recently announced that the highly anticipated Left 4 Dead/ Left 4 Dead 2 DLC "the passing" which has the protagonists from both games teaming up for some zombie busting action will be released sometime this week for the PC and Xbox 360. As far as an official release date goes all Valve will offer is a nebulous reference to this week so expect the actual landing of the DLC to come at anytime.

In other supplementary news, according to Joystiq you can also get your hands on a couple songs on the rock band network from the Midnight Riders, L4D2's ficticious rock band. Bonuses are bonuses and this is as good as any.

Dante's got legs, not just to get you through the depths of hell, but to, y'know, give you your money's worth when you pick the game up next Tuesday. Developer Visceral Games revealed its plans to crank out the post-release downloadable content, which they say there will be "a lot" of "really exciting" stuff. We're not talking about silly character skins or items, we mean whole new levels. Executive producer and creative director Jonathan Knight spilled the beans on the DLC while speaking with TVGB.

"The team is very, very committed to [Dante’s Inferno]. We have a lot of post-release content planned," explained Knight. "Dark Forest is one of the first big releases after the launch of the game, a prequel level that takes roughly the first canto of the poem where Dante is lost in the dark forest. It sorta bridges his journey back home to find Beatrice. It's a really cool level, a really big piece of the gameplay. And that’s just the beginning.

"I can say that we've got some really exciting downloadable content coming," he added. "There's definitely going to be an extension to the fiction, there's definitely going to be some pretty significant DLC associated with the game. That's what the team's focused on right now."

Cryptic Studios announced today that it will offer a lifetime subscription for its Star Trek Online MMORPG. The $239.99 package comes with two additional character slots and playable Borg (singular and liberated), but it's only available via pre-order.

If you don't feel like selling your soul for this game, you can also go for a 12-month discounted subscription, costing $119.99. This is also a pre-order-exclusive offer. The annual subscription won't get the playable Borg, but it does get the two character slots.

Star Trek Online releases February 2, so you might not want to wait too long before you take advantage of these offers.

Scans from a Japanese magazine featuring God of War III surfaced today. The images confirm that Poseidon will make an appearance in the game and do so quite epically. Check them out after the break.

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GI.biz reports that Microsoft has dropped an internal chip, responsible for processing a "bone system," for Project Natal. The reason for the cut was to maintain an accessible price point. In place of the chip, a software solution will be put in place. The change doesn't have an effect on the existing lag of about 100ms on Natal, but the software solution will allow Microsoft to update the system more easily and frequently via firmware updates.

"The full Natal hardware/sensor combo always looked like an expensive proposition in a market where Microsoft really needs to turn a profit," said Digital Foundry editor Richard Leadbetter. "The notion of offloading the processing to the 360 CPU in the name of lower costs and easier upgradability makes sense.

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Rolf Nelson, a Wheaton College psychology professor recently conducted a study in which he had subjects play either Unreal Tournament (an entry in the action genre) or Portal (a puzzle-solving/strategy game) in-between chores designed to measure speed and accuracy. Those who played the action game were able to perform their task faster, but with less accurate results, while the strategy game induced more accurate, yet slower responses.

"If they’re playing an action game and then switch to homework, they may try to blaze through their homework at the cost of making mistakes." said Nelson.  "Or if they play strategy games, they may work slowly, but turn in more accurate work. In fact, it is striking how dramatically these strategies can be shifted by a single hour of video-game play."

The full study can be found here.

[gamepolitics]

For quite some time now we've been given conflicting reports on the status of Star Wars: Battlefront III.  The closing of Free Radical certainly wasn't a good thing, yet more and more concept art has been leaked out since then, teasing us of its existence.  But finally, Battlefront III director Chris Marazzo has confirmed that the game is still in development.  Battlefront3.net asked Marazzo just what the hell happened to Battlefront III, and his response:

"The original title was Battlefront 3, but it evolved into Star Wars Empire at War: Forces of Corruption ... however, Battlefront 3 is also in development."

It's as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in glee...

Nissan and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe have joined forces again to bring gaming and motor sport fans the ultimate racing competition. GT Academy 2010 will go live on December 17, 2009 and will use the virtual world of Gran Turismo 5 game to find a real-world racing driver. The stakes are high, with an intensive race training programme and a season-long drive in a full race-spec Nissan 370Z in the European GT4 Cup as the ultimate prize.

The competition falls into four main stages:

Stage One - will offer Gran Turismo fans a sneak preview of  Gran Turismo 5, due for release in 2010.Competitors will record flying laps on a time trial-based track available via PlayStation Network, accessed through PS3. Unlike the first GT Academy, participants will not have to enter the competition using the GT5 Prologue game itself, and so even more hopeful racing drivers are expected to take part.

Stage Two – the holders of the twenty fastest online lap times from each participating country will qualify for their national final event.

Stage Three – twenty finalists, chosen from each of the national finals events, will head to the world famous Silverstone circuit for the GT Academy itself - a five-day, comprehensive race driver ‘boot camp’. They will have a chance to develop new driving skills in an array of Nissan, and other, hardware, while also being judged on fitness and mental attitude.

Stage Four - For the two competitors that display the talent, fitness, aptitude, drive and determination to succeed in motor sport, the action will hot-up even further. A UK-based intensive driving and racing programme will prepare them to qualify for an international racing license.

Stage Five – There is only one place available for the driver with the most potential to compete on an international stage. The overall GT Academy 2010 champion will race a full season in the European GT4 Cup in a Nissan 370Z prepared by RJN Motorsport. The opening race is currently scheduled for May, 2010. (more...)

Modern Warfare 2 might be the biggest game of the year, certainly in terms of sales, but poor attendance in school might not be the only thing the game's release caused. A 48-year old district judge in the UK feigned an illness in order to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 the night of its release, thereby delaying a pending trial.

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