Celebrating the pre-Halloween weekend, Left 4 Dead 2 will be free on Steam this weekend. Valve announced that starting Thursday the co-op shooter will be gratis to play and is currently available to pre-load.

This weekend adds a new achievement titled "Good Guy Nick" for current players who join up with a free weekend warrior.

It should also be mentioned, in case you haven't paid attention the multi-million selling franchise in a while, that Left 4 Dead 2 added many of the maps from the original Left 4 Dead as free DLC on PC a while back.

[Thanks, Bean]

Rage was supposed ship with modding tools when it launched in October 2011. It didn't, but a tweet from id Software founder John Carmack suggests he hasn't forgotten the promise he made to mod fans one year ago, nor the frustration of letting them down:

"BFG work pushed the Rage tools, but Real Soon Now. I hope. Sigh. I think we have made poor decisions on this all year."

Doom 3 BFG Edition launched on October 16 in the US, and now id is most likely focused on the development of Doom 4. If id is still serious about pushing Doom 4 onto the Oculus Rift, those mod tools better come out mighty soon, lest we never see them at all – when prioritizing development for either a crazy futuristic headset or modding tools for a year-old lukewarm game, the choice seems to jump right out at you.

Human-versus-Dinosaur multiplayer shooter Primal Carnage will say "HEY!" on October 29. Those who pre-ordered the game, which runs $15, should currently have access to test out the beta of this class-based shooter. A pre-order on Steam, GameStop, GamersGate and Rain also nets a feathered raptor skin.

The game runs on Unreal Engine and pits humans against dinosaurs, with five classes apiece to choose from. Primal Carnage is also scheduled to have extensive downloadable content.

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This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer.

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Genius Sonority made its debut under that name in 2003, with Pokemon Colosseum. It was billed as a successor to Pokemon Stadium, and I ended up putting in more than a hundred hours before eventually souring on the recycled sprites and Colosseum's grinding "purification process."

Since then, Genius Sonority's name has mostly been a byword for "outsourced" among Pokemon fans, bringing the same shudders that Backbone does for retro gamers. But with the recent release of Denpa Men: They Came by Wave, a kind of augmented reality RPG for the Nintendo 3DS, I've found that their roots go back further than Pokemon.

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Zynga has released its financial results for the third quarter of 2012, and while business-wide revenue is up year-over-year – $316 million vs. $306 million over the same period last year – net income has fallen by a significant margin. Specifically, the social-gaming developer has reported a loss of $52.7 million over the course of Q3 2012, as compared with the $12.5 million in profit it posted during the same period last year.

The picture is much the same for the company's year-to-date financial situation, which places total revenue for 2012 at $970.1 million (well above 2011's $828.8 million), but still reports an overall loss of $160.8 million. By this time last year, Zynga was in the black to the tune of $30.6 million dollars.

The statement also makes mention of yesterday's events, with the closure of Zynga Boston and significant reduction of staff at Zynga Austin, both of which were part of a grander Cost Reduction Plan: "Zynga expects to complete a reduction in force of approximately 150 employees or approximately 5 percent of its current workforce, and implement additional cost reduction measures, including steps to rationalize its product pipeline, reduce marketing and technology expenditures and consolidate certain facilities."

Before Midway went under in 2009, the studio had already started to pursue a sequel to Stranglehold, itself a sequel to John Woo's 1992 seminal action flick, Hard Boiled. Stranglehold starred Chow Yun-fat, reprising his role as Inspector "Tequila" Yuen who dove around Hong Kong and shot bad guys in slow motion. That's how they police over there, you guys.

It turns out Midway had big plans for a sequel to Stranglehold, what VFX lead Sean Lantis says was being "fully rebranded" to appeal to a wider audience than the first game. Lantis says he was in charge of "all visual effects as well as a good portion of the destruction work." What was to be called Gun Runner never made it to production and was still in the early stages when Midway filed for Chapter 11 in 2009, evidenced by the footage in the video above.

Gamestop's God of War: Ascension pre-order bonus is an exclusive multiplayer costume taken from Zack Snyder's 2007 movie 300, because nothing says "brand-new video game based on Greek pseudo-mythology" like a random costume from a five-year-old movie based on Greek pseudo-history.

Specifically, the costume replicates King Leonidas' red cape, helmet and "armor," which we assume is what they're calling his tiny little baby man-shorts. The costume also includes a spear that provides new moves and abilities, as well as a double-sided God of War: Ascension poster. It does not, however, include a pit for disposing of foreign dignitaries or a bottle of chest grease.

In the "Hit List" from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the video game industry's top talents describe their current gaming addictions, their most anticipated releases and more. This week: Gearbox Software President Randy Pitchford.

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A note from the AIAS:Randy Pitchford is co-founder, owner and President of Gearbox Software. Randy served as Executive Producer and in creative and development capacities in the creation of Gearbox Software's award winning, best-selling original franchises Brothers in Arms and Borderlands. Under Randy's leadership, Gearbox Software has also developed a string of hits with sequels, expansions, and original games for many of the industry's most credible franchises and in 2010 acquired Duke Nukem to add to its stable of properties. Before the launch of Borderlands 2 on September 18, 2012, Gearbox Software games have sold over 30 million units earning more than $1 billion in gross revenues.

What many do not know is that prior to game development, Randy was a professional magician. In his forthcoming 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit session titled "Video Games Are Magic," Randy will explore how the lessons of magical performance apply to our industry. Along the way, he'll demonstrate and expose specific techniques, methods and ideas from magic that illustrate how the art of illusion has a lot in common with the art of interactive entertainment and leave his audience with tools that are useful and applicable from the executive level to the design level of our craft.

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The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has announced the dates for next year's D.I.C.E. summit, which will once again encourage the game industry to Design, Innovate, Communicate and Entertain. Joystiq's especially aligned with the "C" and "E" parts, so we thought it apt to accompany the summit's aesthetic upgrade with a look at what the AIAS (Academy of Interactive ... okay, you get it) does to promote and augment games.

We'll be publishing several Q&As with high-profile designers in partnership with the AIAS, but today we're starting with Martin Rae, President of the AIAS.

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"I'm the new poster boy for Kickstarter cautionary tales," says Rick Dakan, unabashedly jumping right into the reason for our interview. Dakan is the head of Atlanta's Mob Rules Games, which was, until recently, developing Haunts, a competitive haunted house game funded via Kickstarter. Last week, Dakan announced on the Haunts Kickstarter page that the project has halted production and that Mob Rules' two hired programmers have left.

All of this despite the fact that Mob Rules raised $28,000 on Kickstarter, $3,000 more than studio's goal. So what happened?

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The 2013 edition of the Independent Games Festival Main Competition received a record number of submissions. 589 games are in the running for next year's prizes, versus a paltry 567 in 2012. To accommodate the massive influx of games, the Main Competition award categories will consider six finalists each, with the Nuovo Award featuring eight.

The Microsoft Studios prize first awarded this year to Super TIME Force, which gives a winning game a guaranteed publishing deal on Microsoft platforms, will be presented again in 2013.

You can start browsing all the entries here; perhaps you'll be done by the time finalists are announced in January.

Darksiders 2 is getting its second chunky piece of DLC in time for Halloween, with Abyssal Forge available to download on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC on October 30. Except if you're playing on PS3 in Europe, in which case you'll have to wait one day longer, until Halloween itself. Abyssal Forge is priced higher than Argul's Tomb, coming in at $9.99 or 800 MSP.

Vigil Games further detailed the DLC today, which features a new swampy area called Shadow Lands. It includes two new dungeons, along with new enemies and unique loot. Vigil claims Abyssal Forge features "the hardest enemies and puzzles yet."

It'll also spotlight the meaty-looking dude in the above picture. He's an outcast known as the Mad Smith who's been wasting his years away by building an army, probably with that giant thingamabob he's holding. We expect he'll find another use for it when you meet him in Shadow Lands.

Let's talk about puzzle games. When you hear the term, your mind usually goes to falling-block stuff like Tetris and Puyo Puyo, right? But it's broad terminology: it can also apply to games in which you are presented with a series of problems that need solving – say, escaping a room, moving objects into certain positions, solving riddles ... you know what I mean, right?

Well, I have an issue with these games: I'm almost universally terrible at them. I can't really tell you why, either. I like most of the ones I play, mind you. But as soon as I start feeling that twinge of frustration from a solution that eludes me, I hop on the internet and turn on Youtube. If I don't, I'm just going to fluster myself trying to figure it out. By the time the game reaches its climax, I have a controller under one hand and my laptop under the other, checking to make sure I'm doing everything right.

This is one of the reasons why GungHo and GameArts's Dokuro sticks out so much. For perhaps the first time since the original Portal, I'm not immediately running to the online solution bin the moment things start to get tricky. I'm savoring the feeling of gradually figuring things out for myself, discovering how mechanics work together and deducing how they can be used to accomplish the task at hand, and I'm loving it.

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The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences announced formatting and name changes to its annual DICE (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) summit. The event is an annual who's who of industry elite, hosting the most respectable awards ceremony the video game industry experiences all year.

The big name change? The Interactive Achievement Awards – which have always been referred to in general conversation as "the DICE awards" – will now officially take that colloquial name.

The other big change is the off-strip location of the Red Rock Hotel and Casino being replaced by the almost on-strip location of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.

The event will take place in Las Vegas on February 5-8, 2013, with the awards show taking place on the evening of February 7. This year's speakers include Gearbox Software president Randy Pitchford and thatgamecompany's Jenova Chen.

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The War Games Map Pass also includes two in-game helmets and a unique emblem.

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McDonalds is partnering with Rovio for a bit of corporate synergy – in China. Playing Angry Birds inside Chinese McDonalds restaurants will unlock special in-game power-ups and "hidden game modes" available exclusively in the fast-food establishment. In addition, patrons will have the opportunity to vote on the location to be home to a real Angry Birds slingshot across the Golden Arches sign.

If you've read this far, you definitely want to hear the Angry Birds sing the McDonalds "I'm Lovin' It" song. You'll find that in the video above.

The free Resident Evil 6 title update revealed earlier this month is shambling onto Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 mid-December, Capcom tells us. The update includes the foreboding 'No Hope' difficulty level along with co-op for Ada Wong's campaign, which following the update will be unlocked from the start of the game.

Capcom is also taking the opportunity to chuck in a couple of mechanical tweaks. Following the update, players can widen the camera's field of view - always a handy option with hordes of zombies. The final six or so images in the gallery below show maximum and minimum ranges, although Capcom says the feature is still a work in progress. Also, the update allows English language audio to be combinable with subtitles in alternative languages - which is less handy for combating zombies but still generally useful.

Regards the PC version, Capcom hasn't announced details regarding its release yet, and a spokesperson couldn't confirm to us if the free update will be available or included at launch.

The public auction held yesterday at 38 Studios' former headquarters in Providence, Rhode Island, sold approximately 95 percent of the items available. A gross sales figure for the auction is expected later today.

According to a representative for the Rhode Island Economic Development Committee, the quasi-public agency that loaned 38 Studios the $75 million at the heart of the auction, there were over 1,000 registered participants for the auction. The auction had about 600 online participants and over 400 in-person, who had to front a $100 refundable deposit to enter the building.

The auction activities ran until 10PM last night, after starting an hour after the planned 10:30AM opening to accommodate the number of people who wanted to get in. There is the chance of another live auction to handle unsold items, which could include "more computers, servers, office furniture, etc."

Not up for auction yesterday was the Kingdoms of Amalur intellectual properly, which is the item Rhode Island is hoping to recoup the most return from its failed investment.

"I anticipate that the IP will be marketed and sold over the next three to six months," attorney Richard Land, the court-appointed receiver who organized the auction, told Joystiq. "Although the process is not yet set in stone, it is unlikely that it will be a traditional auction as you saw yesterday; more likely to be a negotiated transaction."

Last week's auction at 38 Studios' Big Huge Games division brought in $180,000. According to the 38 Studios bankruptcy filings, as reported by the AP, the company owes $150.7 million and has assets estimated at $21.7 million.

Silent Hill: Book of Memories is a lot like the town of Silent Hill, in that your experience with it depends on what you bring in, emotionally. In Silent Hill the town that means you're tormented by monsters based on your worst fears; in Book of Memories it means that your expectations can color the experience.

Basically, if you go in knowing it's a dungeon crawler with Silent Hill visuals, you'll be much happier than if you go in expecting a Silent Hill game. In either case, you'll get killed by a two-headed dog monster at some point.

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