Steam now has an automatic update for F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin, Monolith's horror-themed, first-person shooter sequel. The update adds two new "Armored Front" multiplayer maps, unlocks Collector's Edition multiplayer heads for all players, and fixes a bug with music cross fades when switching between two tracks.

A new Killing Floor update is now automatically available via Steam News. The new version of Tripwire's co-op survival/horror game adds settings for the Voice Message system to reduce the amount of messages played, adds a "Friends" tab to the Multiplayer menu to allows you to see which servers your Steam Friends are on, and addresses some bugs.

As announced on the Light of Altair Website, this sci-fi colony building simulation is now available via digital distribution. The game is available on Direct2Drive and Steam, and likely other places as well. The Steam edition is currently on sale for 20% off, and word is: "The Steam version of Light of Altair features 30 achievements and a complete suite of publishing and development tools available free of charge."

Even before E3 2009 attendees can get used to sunlight again, 2009 E3 Expo Takes Video Game Industry to Next Level has word that the 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo is scheduled for June 15-17, 2010, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The announcement from the ESA also includes details on this year's just-completed show: "Over the course of the 2009 E3 Expo, more than 41,000 attendees from 78 countries viewed hundreds of new products and developments from 216 exhibitors."

Paradox Interactive has released a new gameplay video from Mount&Blade: Warband, the upcoming multiplayer expansion for the action/RPG. The clip is posted on the YouTube, and is accompanied by a list of new features revealed at E3 and a handy recap of other features unveiled at the Game Developer's Conference:

Key features revealed for the first time at E3:
· Overhauled graphics; HDR, FSAA, Depth of Field, Soft particles, Tone Mapping and many other effects are all now implemented.
· Majority of Models are being redone.
· Multiplayer battles can now handle up to 64 players with Mods including ‘Team Death Match’ and ‘Search & Destroy’.
· Ability to become the ruler of a faction and convince lords to become your vassals in the Single Player Campaign.
· Ability to upgrade your companions to vassalage by granting them land.
· Improved Mechanics for Soldier Morale: Soldiers will break and run away if their morale gets too low.

A summary of additional features previously revealed at GDC are Multiplayer for up to 32 players, improved strategic AI, improved graphics and optimization including customizable quick battles, extended diplomatic options and new weapons, armor and animations, a new faction with unique troops and equipment.

Other aspects introduced in Mount&Blade: Warband are improvements to the combat system with more physically accurate horse archery, a variation in horse sizes, and more options when embarking on sieges.

Activision sues to stop Jack Black game has word that Activision is suing developer Double Fine Productions claiming that Double Fine transferred rights owned by Activision for Brütal Legend to Electronic Arts. The report has no responses from Double Fine or Electronic Arts, but says: "Activision claims it still has a valid contract to release the game and has invested roughly $15 million in it."

Before its time? Valve explains Left 4 Dead sequel to Ars is a sit down between Chet Faliszek and Ars Technica as Valve looks to assuage the anger of fans over plans to release a sequel so soon after the original Left 4 Dead. The gist of their reasoning is how much bigger a project this is than their Team Fortress updates, though he also describes how Gabe Newell had to be talked into the sequel, saying it was against the character of the company. Chet outlines all the content the sequel will offer, and provides reassurances that existing L4D mods will work with L4D2.

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Top 10 E3 2009 Announcements - TIME. Thanks Ant and Digg.
• How Microsoft stole the show at E3.
• At E3, Gamemaker Battle Erupts Over Camera Controllers.
• 2009 E3 Expo - Day Two Coverage on Legit Reviews.
• E3 Booth Babes on IncGamers.
• Third day of E3 2009 booth model pictures closes it out.

• OnLive on Joystiq.

• Homefront on GameInfoWire.

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Wii Getting Natal-Style Camera Motion Gaming, But Not From Nintendo.
• Online Play Not Available for New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
• Photo Sharing Coming to PlayStation Home.
• Wolverine Downloadable Content Released.
• Xbox Originals to be Retired After Next Game.
• Nier May Not Release In Japan.
• How 'Beatles- Rock Band' came together.
• Microsoft To List Games On Demand Prices In Real Currency.
• Activision: 'We Let the Consumer Down on Tony Hawk'.
• Black Nintendo Wii, red DSi this summer.
• Metal Gear Solid Dated, Priced For PlayStation Store.
• Batman: Arkham Asylum Xbox 360 Screenshots.
• Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 PlayStation 3 Screenshots.

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Intel Agrees to Acquire Wind River for $884 Million. Thanks Neutronbeam.
• Intel gets official with new Core i7, mobile chips.
• Interactive data eyeglasses could bring the PC to your face, won't fix nearsightedness.
• Video: NVIDIA Tegra's GPU gets busy with HD video and full-screen Flash.
• Unix turns 40: The past, present and future of a revolutionary OS.
• Overburning: An Intro to the Dark Side.

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Palm Pre- Rounding up (or down) the reviews. Thanks Ant.
• PSP Go Details And Screenshots.
• Sony to Offer New Digital Copies Of Your Old UMD Games.
• Vampires: Bloodlust by Zynga Infects the iPhone.
• Army of Two: The 40th Day PSP Screenshots.
• nesPod is a combo of two blasts from the past we can really dig.

Thanks Ant and Mike Martinez.

• Web Series Tied to ‘Blade Runner’ Is In the Works. Thanks Neutronbeam.
• Google Squared Goes Live - A Spreadsheet Like Research Tool.
• Soon, you'll have to pay for Hulu. Thanks Slashdot.
• Dailymotion announces support for Open Video! Farewell Flash.
• Second Life to host first college graduation.
• FTC shuts down notorious Internet Service Provider.

Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Yahoo sues NFL players group over fantasy stats.
• Warrantless surveillance lawsuit thrown out.
• New RIAA Plan Going Nowhere Fast.
• Sears gets wrist slap over spyware activities.
• 'Slow lane' for copyright thieves.
• Russia said to probe Microsoft over XP halt.
• One Man's Pirate Is Another Man's Customer.

• Video games tested for healing powers…

R.I.P.: Kung Fu star Carradine found dead.

Metal Gear Solid- Rising In Development For Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC has word that Metal Gear Solid: Rising will be the first MGS game to simultaneously sneak onto three platforms, as it will be released for Windows, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. According to Martin Schneider of Konami Digital Entertainment: "Now even more gamers can immerse themselves in the franchise and experience the groundbreaking series as Metal Gear Solid: Rising heads to the platform of their choice." The twist in Rising is that players will play as Raiden: "Raiden first debuted in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system as a playable character and appeared as a non-playable cyborg in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system."

Paradox Interactive announces a July 28 release date for East India Company, the naval real-time strategy game set in the 18th century developed by Finnish developer Nitro Games. Also, the E3 presentation of the game with lead designer Kim Soares is now available on the YouTube, here's part one, and here's part two, and there's a new piece of music from the game's soundtrack on the East India Company Website. Finally, some new features of the game were revealed at E3:

· Extensively moddable: from damage values, to trade item prices, to ship textures.
· Multiplayer support for up to 12 players.
· Multiple ways to win the game: accomplishing all campaign missions, forcing all other companies out of business or conquering the whole of the East Indies.
· Multiple approaches possible: focus on trading, warfare and conquest or use diplomacy to reach your goals. East India Company can also be played as a pure trading game.
· Dynamic economy where supply and demand affect prices of trading items.
· Create your own armada with a maximum of 100 ships.
· Different multiplayer battle modes including ‘Last Man Floating’ and ‘Domination’.
· Unlock new ship types as they become available, from smallest sloop to 90 gun ship-of-the-line.

Molyneux promoted to creative director of Microsoft Game Studios reports that Lionhead honcho Peter Molyneux is now the creative director of Microsoft Game Studios in Europe. We can only hope that this will lead to some wildly speculative announcements about future projects, though Molyneux throws some cold water on that, saying: "What you're not going to see is ten Peter Molyneux games. The value of this role is for someone like myself going in and making those little tiny lights of an idea shine as brightly as possible and ensuring everybody within the organisation clearly understands why we're making those titles, the purpose of those titles and their importance to Microsoft overall." He also remains on as head of Lionhead, and continues work on their two upcoming games.

Gamasutra has an E3 chat with Valve's Doug Lombardi to clear up the status of Turtle Rock Studios, the developer acquired by Valve during development of Left 4 Dead. For a while the team operated out of Irvine, CA as "Valve South." This arrangement no longer exists, but Lombardi explains that this does not mean they actually closed the studio, as things were a little looser than that, and after L4D was complete, the remote office complicated the process of moving people onto different projects:

After several members of the Valve South team -- which Lombardi described as only ever numbering "nine or 11 in total" -- moved up to Bellevue, the remaining staff were not enough to justify a fully-fledged studio.

At that scale, "the idea of having an office with a receptionist and all of that kind of goes out the window," Lombardi said. As far as Booth and his current team, "that group of people looks like the original Turtle Rock again, and I think they may even prefer to call themselves that," he added.

No details were offered regarding that group's upcoming project, but Lombardi did conform it is once again a collaboration with Valve.

The FINAL FANTASY XIV interview on GamersInfo.net chats briefly with Hiromichi Tanaka and Nobuaki Komoto about the just-announced next installment in the RPG series. They ask about similarities to FINAL FANTASY XI, the previous FF MMOG, and Tanaka explains the difference: "FFXIV is completely different from FFXI and as such, there won’t be any porting over of characters from FFXI to FFXIV, even though the character design is similar. We will not be using the PlayOnline system but a new design." Komoto goes on to elaborate: "The game systems will be different. FFXIV will have new in-game systems for character development as well as an expanded job system. It is quite different from FFXI. Many features of FFXI will be improved upon. We want to bring content for solo players and casual players as well as large party play from the beginning of the game."

• E3 Expo 2009: Fighting Games Roundup on Futurelooks.
• E3 2009- Day 2 Wrap-Up on BeyondUnreal.

• BioShock 2 on Shacknews.
• Global Agenda on GamersInfo.net.
• Majesty 2 Alpha on Gamesonice.

• Assassin's Creed 2 on Eurogamer.cz. Thanks LS.

• Overlord II Demo now on Xbox LIVE Marketplace.
• Heavy Rain Developer Preview - Level Walkthrough video.
• DJ Hero Demo with Guitar Hero Co-Op at E3 2009. Thanks Digg.
• Magic: The Gathering XBLA Releases 17th June.
• Iwata interviews Wii MotionPlus team.
• Metal Gear Solid- Rising Officially Multiplatform.
• MAG- Massive Action Game Details and Playstation 3 Screenshots.
• Microsoft's Kim- Games Can Update to Use Natal.
• 360 to match PS3's 10-year lifecycle, says Kim.
• Xbox Controller Still Has A Future, Says Don Mattrick.
• Black Wii To Release In Japan. "To release"?
• Konami Reveals Castlevania: Lords of Shadow.
• Lords of Shadow Screenshots & Images. Thanks LS.
• Forza Dev Turn 10 Downplays GT5 Threat.
• Peter Moore Bullish on Project Natal and PlayStation Motion.
• Lords of Shadow Screenshots & Images. Thanks LS.
• Why Is Kobe Bryant Wearing A Knicks Uniform?
• Wipeout HD Fury PlayStation 3 Screenshots.
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves PlayStation 3 Screenshots.
• Heavy Rain PlayStation 3 Screenshots.

• ASUS demos a possible future vision of technology and communication on PC Perspective.
• Ultimate Budget Gaming System on Legion Hardware.
• InnoDisk shows off amazing 128GB Nano SSD drives.
• A-DATA demos the power of eight SSD’s in RAID 0.

• Damnation on Games32.
• The Sims 3 on RealGamer.

• AMA Aragon 900 Water Cooling on XSReviews.co.uk.
• AMD Athlon II X2 250 AM3 Processor on Benchmark Reviews.
• Asus Maximus II Gene Motherboard on Bjorn3d.com.
• ATI Radeon HD 4890 Roundup on Hardware Canucks.
• Cooler Master Hyper N520 Heatsink on Overclock3D.Net.
• CyberPower Black Mamba Venom Core i7 975EE Gaming System on TweakTown.
• D-Life DHA-390 Internet surveillance starter kit on TechwareLabs.
• EIZO FlexScan S2242W Monitor on ITREVIEWED.
• Gigabyte GM-M8000 Laser Gaming Mouse on Gamepyre.
• Intel Core i7 950 Processor on iXBT Labs.
• Intel Core i7-975 XE and Core i7-950 CPUs on X-bit labs.
• KingSpec 32GB 2.5 PATA SSD on OCIA.net.
• Logitech G15 V2 Keyboard on eTeknix.
• OCZ Blade PC3-16000 6GB RAM Kit on HardwareLogic.
• Samsung ST50 Ultra Slim Digital Camera on ThinkComputers.org.
• Seventeam ST-550P-AM PSU on Hardware Secrets.
• XFX Radeon HD 4770 512MB Graphics Card on Elite Bastards.

• Video game manufacturers may pressure resellers (over used game sales). But probably not…
• New Prince of Persia movie footage. Thanks Mike Martinez and Digg…
• Videogame industry prays for resilient 2009. As do we all…
• Disney Boss Says Warren Spector's Game On Track. "One of these days you'll find out."…

Hudson the wonder dog eventually forgave MrsBlue for her assault yesterday, we think from her behavior that she may have thought MrsBlue was actually mad at her, so the reconciliation was pretty easy. This incident does have us rethinking what can be done about this low area next to that driveway, as it does seem a recipe for disaster (we've actually had a friend tumble into it was well), though it would sure take a lot of dirt to fill it in.

R.I.P.: Chicago blues legend Koko Taylor dies at 80.

Reconciled Links:	Thanks Ant and Mike Martinez.
Play:	Doom 2D. Spark. Go Home Ball. Thanks Jay is Games.
Link:	Geeks Gone Bad. Thanks Digg.
Story:	Coldstone Breakthrough: Ice Cream That Transforms Into Pudding.
Science:	Unmanned sub touches deepest part of world's ocean.
Images:	Princess ALWAYS In Another Castle. An Airedale fail dog!!
Media:	Demon Attack- Can You Survive the Lawsuit from Atari? Thanks Digg.
Follow-ups:	Space 2.X- The Private Rocket Race Takes Off.. Armstrong's 'poetic' slip on Moon.