This Week In Gaming News – Left 4 Dead 2, Dark Souls, Rock Band 3 & More

Here’s the top gaming news for the week of August 8th, 2011 brought to you by Yell! Magazine

Left 4 Dead 2

Valve needs your help. They want you to play more Left 4 Dead 2. They updated the Terminal map in the Dead Air scenario, but need people to test it. That’s where you come in. If 60,000 players complete a versus game in “Dead Air”, they promise to unlock early a beta version of the next updated level “Blood Harvest”. So fire up those copies and give it a try. If you find any bugs, post them on their Twitter or Facebook pages, and give them grief about it.

Dark Souls

The release of Dark Souls, the follow-up to the gaming masochism that was Demon’s Souls, is being delayed. Developer From Software is pushing back the September 15th release date just a week to September 22nd. So you’re gonna be waiting a couple extra days for your control throw inducing experience.

Sony 3D HDTV Bundle

During E3 this year, Sony announced a Playstation branded 3D TV bundled with a copy of Resistance 3 for $499, set to come out this Fall. The price and release window haven’t changed, but the game you get has. The bundle will now be packaged with a copy of racing game Motorstorm Apocalypse. This sounds really disappointing, but there is a silver lining. Retailers Amazon and Gamestop have announced that they will include a copy Resistance 3 if you pre-order the 3D display. It’s nice to see them fixing Sony’s mistake, and two games for the price of one is a great proposition.

PROTOTYPE 2

Speaking of Gamestop, they’re currently having a cross promotional event with the makers of PROTOTYPE 2. If you pre-order the game between now and September, you can enter to win a trip to Radical Entertainments Vancouver studios to have a character model of yourself appear in PROTOTYPE 2. If you’ve always wanted to be in a game character, this is your chance.

Assassin’s Creed Revelations

Playstation 3 users will get exclusive access to the Assassin’s Creed Revelations multiplayer beta. Playstation Plus subscribers and select Uplay accounts will get the beta on September 3rd, and the rest of us can download it on September 12th. The beta will have 9 playable character classes, 3 multiplayer maps, and 4 game modes. Go get stabbing. The full game is still set to be released on November 15th.

Rock Band 3

Harmonix has a new publishing partner, gaming paraphernalia maker Mad Catz. And their first order of business, re-releasing Rock Band 3 with brand new hardware bundles this holiday season. If you didn’t pick up the game last year, or need an excuse to get new plastic instruments, here’s your chance.

Batman: Arkham City

Rocksteady laid out their pre-order bonus plans for Batman: Arkham City. By the looks of things, if you really wanted that retro Batman costume right away, get ready to search Ebay for Arkham City pre-order codes. Check out the full break down here.

Steam

Valve launched the Steam Trading Beta this week. Opt in through your Steam settings and start trading all your in-game items and games, for other in-game items and games. Currently, the only game supported is Team Fortress 2, but support for Portal 2, and other third party games will come soon. It’s an interesting proposition. Having the ability to trade a downloaded game or a game you got as an online gift for something you actually want, is a natural progression of things in order to move away from physical media.

THQ

In sad news, THQ closed a bunch of studio this week laying off around 200 people. This comes to no surprise after they announced that they will no longer be pursuing the Red Faction and ATV vs. MX game series.

Mortal Kombat: Legacy

If you wanted to see what was the fuss was about, the live action Mortal Kombat based YouTube web series will be released on Blu-Ray and DVD on November 8th. It will include a behind-the-scenes feature and outline the history of the Mortal Kombat franchise.

Fallout: New Vegas Lonesome Road

The final Fallout: New Vegas DLC is being delayed. It was scheduled for release at the end of July. In a statement issued this week by Bethesda Softworks senior producer Jason Bergman:

“We don’t have an exact date yet, but we’re working to get it out as quickly as possible. We’ll be announcing the final date, along with a couple of other interesting FNV-related items in the near future.”

We’ll keep you posted.

Nintendo 3DS

Fresh off the heels of a hefty price drop, Nintendo showed off the new Flame Red 3DS model. Get yours on September 9th at the new low price of $169.99.