Well here’s some great news for the often forgotten Europeans.  Although North American’s must pre-order Metal Gear Solid 4 to access the Metal Gear Online Beta, Europeans will be able to download the Beta for free, and with no need for a code. Follow the jump for more information.

In reporting new information on the Playstation Store relaunch and its included content, there was a nugget of information that would be easily overlooked if it wasn’t spelled out.  Sony Europe confirmed that the Metal Gear Online Beta would be available on April 17th, but we presumed this would only be for thos who pre-ordered. 

We then realised that, as of yet, there were no reports of Beta Codes in Europe. Konami thus made things all the clearer today, saying that the “Metal Gear Online Premiere Beta will be available as a free download on the Playstation Store from April 17th until May 6th.”  The Beta itself will begin on April 21st (plenty of time to get hold of this presumably very popular download) and end on May 6th.

The beta phase features two maps, four gameplay modes, the SOP System that encourages up to 16 players to team up and share information, and deep skill-customization. Also equipped with auto-matching and training modes, the game offers players a sneak peak of this totally new approach to console-based competitive gaming.

Bring on the Metal Gear Online Beta for all Europeans (and hopefully others in the Pal region, including Australia) and those North Americans who were clever enough to pre-order.  Take that Chad!

We just received an email from Activision’s PR department containing 9 new screenshots of their upcoming DLC map pack for the hit game, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, due to hit XBL on April 10th. The four maps included in the pack are Kill Creek, Broadcast, Chinatown, and Killhouse.

The maps themselves offer a good variety and all the detail you have come to expect from Infinity Ward. Kill Creek and Broadcast are featured in the majority of the screens, however from what little we have seen of Killhouse and Chinatown, they look pretty interesting as well.

Call of Duty 4 DLC - 9 New Map Screens

9 Photos

 

From what we’ve been told, you should expect to see a few maps warmed and ready for picking in the foreseeable future.

Besides confirming that it’s coming to both the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, we didn’t get much else besides this spicy little quotation:

The upcoming downloadable content will thrust gamers into a hot zone of added combat across a variety of intense multiplayer locales.

Thrusting in hot zones? Count me in! Let’s just hope they go uphill with the quality and make it hot hot hot.

The beauty of Unreal Tournament 3 is that the PC community can create maps for PS3 owners to play. It’s such a revolutionary setup for consoles, that you’re really getting a lot of bang for your buck with this insane multiplayer experience.

Now a Halo map has been created from scratch for the game:

This is a remake of the Halo map named Wizard. This was a great close quarters map and I felt it would be right at home with Unreal Tournament 3.

This also has full bot pathing so you can play singleplayer without having to find a server with someone hosting this map.

Enjoy the screenshots below, but most importantly enjoy this new map, which can be found here.