Hirai mentioned that Sony was looking into “premium subscriptions” for the online service, much like Xbox Live Gold on the Xbox 360. The PS3’s bit selling point has always been that it’s free to play online, and that may change soon. Hirai is quoted by CVG saying,

“Especially in the online area, we are studying the possibility of introducing a subscription model, offering premium content and services, in addition to the current free services.”

Great. Just as we thought the PS3 was catching up to the Xbox 360.

The story in Left 4 Dead 2 (L4D 2) followed the same type of story and gameplay as its predecessor, the main campaign follows four survivors, played via online co-op with three other players, where the point is to escape through a maze and myriad of zombies of all kinds. It’s a style of gameplay where teamwork absolutely counts, in L4D 2, it counts even more. Don’t even think about going solo — you’ll be picked to your bones very quickly. The new campaign follows four new survivors, this time they seem to be more varied with better personality, however the AI is still lacking a bit behind, where they’ll often run in front of you, despite that it’s very clear that you’re shooting a very big gun right next to them. But this, of course, is gone when you play co-op — which you should, that’s the whole point, anyways.

The campaign spans around 5 diverse maps, which are are now part of the same overall story, in style of classic survivor zombie movies, music and games, this time, set in the South. Good stuff, really. On top of that, there’s a 2 player split screen mode, which also works online, so you can team up with a friend in your living room, and join two other players online.

The new game modes include Realism, which, as the name suggests, offer a lot more pain-in-the-ass-tense action that the regular mode, something L4D junkies will certainly enjoy. There’s a ton of new weapons too, which include melee weapons as well, but with the exception of melee weapons, the guns available don’t have a good feeling to them, often come across as toy guns, both in looks, sound and feels. Valve has made Half Life, Counter Strike Source and Day of Defeat; all of which had weapons that were pretty solid. But not Left 4 Dead and L4d 2, unfortunately. It also brings us to another area where the game lacks: visuals. The Source Engine, while doing great in Episode 2 (over two years ago), seems to be far less advanced in L4D 2, the textures are bland, the visuals treats are rarely there and the effects have also taken a step back. This might have something to do with the fact that it’s a co-op multiplayer game and the maps are large, but still, it feels very 2004-ish.

The new content in L4D 2 is good enough to justify a $50 purchase for the die hard fans, but for everyone else, there’s isn’t much new in addition to the original game. If you haven’t tried to survival horror co-op shooter, you might as well pick up the first game, which is sold at around half the price. The gameplay is 99% the same, actually 100% but I’m sure Valve has changed one bit somewhere. Probably.

The Good:
Still fun gameplay
Interesting campaign
Nice audio and soundtrack

The Bad:
Looks dated
Some AI issues
No gameplay improvements

Overall score: 8/10

Modern Warfare 2 is the Transformers 2 of the video games. A huge blockbuster with plenty of thrills and action, but a confused to no plot, and, for the PC version which we’re reviewing, a crippled multiplayer part. It feels like a genuine overhyped piece of entertainment, which will be swallowed up by fans no matter what, still with all the great ingredients of Modern Warfare 1, but with not much new, not chances are taken by the developer, in fact, it’s far too much like its predecessor, in almost every aspect.

Modern Warfare features the same style campaign as the previous game: short, confused and on steroids. In the campaign, you’re more or less thrown in the action — there’s no act 1 here — and the levels are short, and likewise, feature no formal introduction or ending, and are extremely linear in design and gameplay. If you’ve played Crysis, or Far Cry 2 or Battlefield Bad Company, where you had a ton of options and could take on a level the way you wanted, Modern Warfare is nothing like that, and keeps the strict linear gameplay, forcing you through a set route, with planted enemies every few yards. You reach the end, you win. Big deal. There is little to no new things in the campaign, it feels the same way, plays the same way, looks and sounds the same — the changes are microscopic. The visuals are lacking as well, as the engine is showing its age, no matter how high they can crank up the textures and lighting effects, while better than Modern warfare 1, it’s still years behind the likes of Crysis and Battlefield Bad Company. Destructive environments should be standard now, especially for a game of this caliber.

The campaign is not only short — you’ll be done with it in less than 5 hours — it’s also filled with cliches and seems like an interactive Micheal Bay movie. There is no connection between the levels and it feels like the designers merely had a few great idea for some levels which were completely disconnected, then wrote a show-string hack story to somehow hold it together. It doesn’t hold it together, there is no decent narrative, no structure, just a bunch of action filled levels. We’re not buying it, Infinity Ward. Having said that, the campaign and overall single player experience is great fun and feels polished, but the strict linear gameplay takes away a lot of said fun. There’s also the Special Ops mode, which consists of 23 small missions which you can play alone or in co-op, which is great fun, especially if you’re playing with a friend.

Multiplayer wise, the gameplay feels a bit more varied and fair than previously, and there are a ton of upgrades and perks available. Sadly, there are no dedicated servers on the PC, and if you feared that it was going to be an issue, you were right, it is. In addition, matches are limited to 18 players only, which is another great disappointment, as 32 players have been standard for years, and even Modern Warfare 1 supported 32 players, with some dedicated servers running 64 player modes. While the multiplayer is more balanced and fast pace than before, it feels like a port from the console version, and when it comes to ports from consoles to PCs, they’re always worse on the PC. This is the case with Modern Warfare 2 as well.

Overall, fans of Modern Warfare will have no issues with the sequel — they probably already have the game. And general FPS games will enjoy the short single player campaign and deep multiplayer, but with so much hype surrounding the game, it leaves us wanting something more, a decent campaign for one.

The Good:
Fun gameplay
Polished
Deep multiplayer

The Bad:
Campaign story narrative is non-existent
Very linear gameplay
Aging visuals are beginning to show
PC multiplayer is severely crippled

Overall score: 7/10

• Fixed demo playback for demos with long file names.
• Fixed the accuracy menu to update properly in Clan Arena.
• Fixed the players-left-alive count to update properly in Clan Arena when an alive player disconnects.
• Fixed banned players’ profile pages to once again report the status of their suspension.
• Fixed issues that had arose with the Match tool-tips.
• Changed ‘cg_gibs 0′ to now entirely disable the death spark effects.
• Changed Cobalt Station – qzdm16’s max player limit to 8 players in CTF mode.

Quake Live is currently in open beta release, a state which it has been since February of this year. There is no word on the actual release of the game, but it seems quite stable as it is. You can check out Quake Live on the official site here.

Yep, $10 bucks gets you in on the Mass Effect universe — not a bad deal for a game that’ll net you a good 50 hours of gameplay time — and you should finish it just in time for the release of Mass Effect 2, which will be out early next year.