Good Old Games, the best place for nostalgia-loving PC gamers, announced the arrival of some brand new old games to their ever-growing catalogue this week; Majesco Entertainment’s Advent Rising and the highly acclaimed Psychonauts. To celebrate, we’re giving 15 Ripten readers the chance to win the game of their choice from GoG.com’s archive of over 160 classic PC games.

All you have to do is register for a free account here at Ripten and post a comment in the comments section below. Let us know which game you’d like from the library of games at GoG.com and a brief explanation why.

It really is that simple, folks! Just remember, you can’t win if you don’t register for an account here at Ripten. We’ll pick the winners on Monday, November 9, so you’ve got plenty of time to think of a game you’d like to add to your collection. All winners will be contacted through the email they used when registering.

You might recall that many PC fans of Call of Duty (specifically Modern Warfare) got very upset when Infinity Ward announced that they were not going to support dedicated servers for Modern Warfare 2. As something that is a core part of the PC gaming experience, a petition was signed by many people requesting that the decision be reversed. Although Infinity Ward declined, DICE, the developers of the excellent Battlefield series, soon announced that their next game, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, would definitely have support for dedicated servers.

In thanks for this, a fan of PC gaming has sent the money he would have spent on Modern Warfare 2 to DICE and requested that the money be spent on the features he desires- because he couldn’t send them a cake, he decided this would do. I should mention that I think this is a great way to show your support for a developer, but I’d recommend that you don’t do this unless you’re rich or really, really like dedicated servers.

Boo! I hope that didn’t completely scare you, what with Halloween coming up and all the ghosts that totally aren’t fictional and monsters that totally exist coming out to haunt us. To celebrate this rather pointless special time of year, Valve have announced that Team Fortress 2 will be having a spooky update weekend.

The update will add five achievements to unlock some new ghostly hats, a new King of the Hill map (Harvest, a Halloween-themed map with a roaming ghost that will scare players stiff) and Pumpkin-bombs. It also seems that dead players will be able to interact in some way with the living. Not sure if this is restricted to this one map, but either way it sounds brilliant. The special runs October 29th-November 3rd.

Update: The game is also super cheap from now until 2:00pm PDT; go buy it!

The above video is the first in a series of video developer diaries for SEGA’s upcoming Bayonetta. The video discusses the concepts of Bayonetta’s character and enemy design, and the decision to create a world of angels for Bayonetta to fight through. Like almost every dev diary before it, it’s got a lot of insights and a lot of game footage, so if you’re looking forward to Bayonetta it should be of interest.

I’m still on the fence about Bayonetta, for some reason. When I played it it felt like it wasn’t something I would want to play, but everything SEGA has been putting out to advertise it makes it look really quite good. I guess I’ll just have to make my decision when someone isn’t waiting for a turn behind me.

Before I begin: Spoilers.

I tried not to put anything in the title to spoil anything for anyone who wants to pop their MW2 cherry on their own Xbox, PS3, or PC. Don’t read on if you’re in this category. This appears to be footage of a level in the game that has the player take control of a terrorist and massacre civilians in an airport. Not hostile ones, either- they seem very helpless. Read more…

The PlayStation Blog have announced that the full HD re-releases of God of War and God of War II on a single Blu-ray disc will be coming out on November 17. They’ve also released a list of Trophies, which can be seen after the jump.

I think they’re a bit rubbish, to be brutally honest. I think Trophies and Achievements are better when they’re used to point out silly things you can do in the games, or used to reward those who have completely mastered the game. There’s a little of this in these ones but not nearly enough; most of them look like they’re just for stuff you’re highly likely to do when just playing through the games.

Still, I’m looking forward to the release, since I haven’t played the games yet and I’m told they are great. Read more…

Nintendo have announced via the above children’s television show video that a brand new side-scrolling Excitebike game will be coming to WiiWare. As you can see, it’s pretty much an updated version of the original- it also includes a track editor and even WiFi play. I’m kind of surprised at my reaction to this, as I’m usually quite cynical about these things- I think it looks pretty cool.

I loved Excitebike when I was younger. I don’t know why; perhaps it was just that it had a good sense of speed and timing the jumps and angles could be quite entertaining. It doesn’t really capture my attention the way it did then any more, but this new one looks decent. Maybe it was just that the presenters reverted me to a younger state of mind with their patronising banter.

Via Gamezine.

Last time I went to the the London Expo, I was quite disappointed with the lack of proper gaming content. This year, however, I was pleasantly surprised. Tekken 6, Borderlands, Bayonetta, and even Left 4 Dead 2 were all playable at the show- which of course meant that I played them as much as I could.

Obviously I wouldn’t be writing this if I wasn’t going to tell you about them, so don’t worry about that. You could read my impressions and watch a video of the games at the same time and pretend that you’re me. This is clearly something that you want to do, so hit the jump to read on.
Read more…

In celebration of a new batch of DLC for the game, Killing Floor is free to play for all Steam users for this weekend. If you decide to buy the game, it’s also 25% off. In case you don’t know what the game is about, I suggest you mentally combine Left 4 Dead, Horde mode from Gears of War, and the SAS voice acting from Call of Duty 4.
Read more…

This may be the best trailer for a videogame I’ve ever seen. Hell, it might be the best trailer I’ve ever seen. Valve are getting great at making these short films; the characters shine through even with two minutes of screen time, and it makes me want the game even more. If this isn’t the purpose of a trailer, I don’t know what is.

It’s supposedly “leaked”, but I’m not buying that. Valve are careful about this stuff. It’s most likely been put out as leaked to get more press. I don’t know why, because I could watch this thing over and over again happily. It’s worth a post, leaked or not. Now excuse me while I go and enthuse a bit more over there.