Before you get your hopes up, no, the free DLC does not include any new episodes. The Survival Pack features a new multiplayer mode, plus it adds versus capabilities to two existing maps (Death Toll and Dead Air). Meh. Good thing it's free.

For those players who aren't sick of L4D yet, this DLC might add a few more hours of fun to the insanely-short 4-hour shooter. 

Fans who purchased the limited edition of Halo 3 have been enjoying the Mythic Map Pack for some time now. The rest of us weren't so lucky. Well, all that's about to change. Come April 9, anyone with enough cash to spare will be able to download the pack from Xbox Live. The DLC rings in at $10, and you can get loads of information about it directly from Xbox.com.

Gears of War 2 fans better get your wallets ready, the Snowblind DLC is clocking in at 800 points ($10) via Xbox Live on March 31. While we're all for adding fresh content to an "old" game, the price tag is a bit steep. 400 points would have been more reasonable, but that's because I'm cheap and won't overpay for content I don't have on a disk. 

So what's new in this DLC pack?  Xbox.com reports the following:

Explosive action takes center stage in these three new Gears 2 multiplayer maps: Flood, Gold Rush, and Fuel Station. Flood features a rising flow of Imulsion that drives the fight into close quarters. Infiltrate an Imulsion factory in Gold Rush, where multiple levels and volatile materials guarantee memorable encounters. Fuel Station delivers a dangerous battle around an abandoned refueling facility.

Major Nelson has some additional information on his blog. 

Firstshowing.net is reporting some details on Fox Atomic's Blacklight - a third-person futuristic shooter being developed by Zombie Studios. Fox Atomic is an offshoot of Twentieth Century Fox, the big movie studio. Get ready for an avalanche of marketing headed your way - the intention is to make Blacklight into a movie, comic book, video game, and probably action figures. 

The screenshot above looks tight. I'm not a fan of the partial third-person view - either make it fully third person (ala Saints Row), or first person like Call of Duty. This view just takes up too much of the screen, something that plagues Dead Space and Gears of War.

Nevertheless, it looks cool and we're eager for more information, coming at ComiCon.

If you follow Geoff Keighley's Twitter, you've already heard - we can expect some juicy Mass Effect 2 details next Friday!  No idea what it could be, but hopefully more details into what exactly has happened to our protagonist. 

Link

Let's face it. EA's All-Play series for the Wii hasn't exactly been a huge success.  The watered-down, "family friendly" series was supposed to appeal to Wii owners who weren't into hardcore sports games. Well, it looks like many Wii owners aren't into much of anything sport related except for Wii Sports.

EA is finally taking the hint and has officially announced that it's scrapping the 2010 NCAA Football for the Wii. Good. I fully expect that others will follow - maybe not this year, but expect it in the future. Giving Wii owners a castrated game is kind of insulting if you ask me. Either give them the same game that Xbox owners can enjoy, or don't give them anything.

Who doesn't love Alyssa Milano?! We all kind of watched her grow up on television (at least I did, since we're the same age). 

Alyssa will voice the role of Ilyssa Selwyn in the new Ghostbusters game, a curator in charge of the National History Museum in New York City. Apparently the role was initially offered to Sigourney Weaver, however, the actress declined the role. As much as I love Sigourney, I think Alyssa was a sound alternative and much more current for this new generation of gamers.

Like most other red-blooded Americans who hate waiting in line at movie stores, I subscribe to Netflix. When Netflix decided to begin streaming movies on the Xbox 360, my response was "meh." I don't use my Xbox to do anything but play games, the way it was intended. The poor thing might up and die on me if I look at it the wrong way.

It's with more "meh" that I respond to a new customer survey email that's going around to some Netflix subscribers.  Apparently the movie rental giant is gauging interest in streaming to Nintendo's Wii. Do we need this? Maybe we do. Don't get me wrong, I love the Netflix on demand streaming service, I just do it on my PC instead of my game console. I have a dedicated computer hooked up to my TV, which I stream movies on. For those less technically inclined, the streaming service for the Xbox or Wii might be a sound alternative. 

Head on over to the Marketplace -> Arcade -> New Arrivals and pick yourself up a copy!

Hasbro Family Game Night

Update: The "hub" itself is free - however, the games inside are time trials. Sneaky bastards.

In a surprising move, Sony has been charging publishers for PlayStation 3 downloadable content bandwidth. Yeouch!! We know Sony's hard up for money right now, but this shocked even us. This kind of move is only going to alienate the PSN even more, when it already lags behind Xbox Live in terms of content. 

Apparently giving users a free service isn't working out so well financially for them. So who foots the bill? The publishers, of course. Now don't get me wrong - publishers are generally the biggest money vacuums in the industry, taking huge cuts of game profits. Publishers generally get the biggest piece of the pie, leaving developers and retailers in the dust. So we don't feel all that badly for the publishers, but we DO feel badly for PSN users, because they're the ones who will wind up suffering when no one wants to release content on the PSN.

Another bad move, Sony.

Sony Now Charging Publishers For PS3 Downloadable Content, An Unpopular Policy Shift