The demo for Mafia II has been dated at August 10 for PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Marketplace and PC.

If you’re a PC player, remember that you can get Mafia 1 for free if you pre-order Mafia 2 on Steam or Direct2Drive- so you can play that instead.

Mafia II will be released August 24 in North America, August 27 worldwide.

The scenario is described as thus:

You will become legend to the infected as the last human left.
You are the only Survivor left in the world. No split screen help. No Survivor bots. But don’t worry you aren’t entirely alone. While there are no common Infected, Special Infected will hunt you down and become close, close friends with you.

Are you excited for “Last Man On Earth”? Let us know.

Valve is pleased to announce that Half-Life 2 has finally announced for the Mac, a mere five and a half years after its release on the PC, with subsequent releases on the Xbox, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 a few years ago. The game is available directly from Steam, and if you already bought it on PC a long time ago, it’ll be available for free.

The announcement does come with a funny parody of the 1984 commercial from the Olympics, as seen above. Let us know what you think.

We had announced two months ago that the next Tomb Raider game would be an arcade-y, 3D isometric platformer for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and Steam for Windows called Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light.

Well, the trailer for it has been released on GameTrailers, and it does look sweet. Let us know what you think of this new style of Tomb Raider.

Unsurprising, the free release of Portal to celebrate the arrival of Steam on Mac has resulted in millions of downloads, reports Valve.

“Yesterday, millions of new recruits poured into the Aperture Science Enrichment Center for Portal testing. If they are ever found, we are sure they would want you to know that the wheels of science turn ever onward.”

Not only does this get Mac owners to install Steam onto their systems, but it’s a great advertisement for both PC and Mac owners for Portal 2, as seen in the above video celebrating Portal and Steam on Mac.

The free offer ends on May 24.

Valve is offering Portal for free on PC and Mac til May 24.

That’s right. 100% completely and utterly free.

According to Valve:

Portal is free. Free on the Mac. Free on the PC. But only until May 24th. So you only have a few days to decide if your free copy of Portal is worth the price we’re currently charging – which is you ever-so-slightly moving your index finger just barely enough to click the big red “download” button right there to the left.

Good luck downloading it tonight, though – because the pipes, so to speak, are jammed as everyone is downloading the classic first person puzzler. But you have over two weeks to download it.

Let us know if you love Portal.

The preorder exclusive downloadable content bug has now hit Civilization V, as a new digital bundle has been announced, called the “Civilization V Digital Deluxe Edition”. The new bundle is available on Steam, and will include a bonus civ, the Babylonians headed by Nebuchadnezzar II.

The $60 deluxe edition also comes with a (digital) copy of the game’s soundtrack, a behind-the-scenes video. Regardless of edition, a preorder will also grant the gamer the Cradle of Civilization Map Pack: Mesopotamia for free.

This map pack adds the “Cradle of Civiliation,” which includes “the Fertile Crescent with the Nile River valley to the west and extending east down the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys to the Persian Gulf.”

Would you preorder a deluxe version of Civ V just to get an additional civ, or buy it as DLC? Let us know.

Path to New Dawn is a unique level with new visuals and challenging gameplay, especially on Very Hard difficulty setting. It also features 10 special items for the player to collect. The level is unlocked and available in the Select level menu once the game has been completed.

No word yet on DLC for the PlayStation Network version.

Click “Read more…” for the full presser.

Helsinki, Finland – 19 April 2010 -

“We are extremely happy to release this free level. It is our way of saying thanks to our fans and giving back to everyone who has bought Trine,” says Lauri Hyvärinen, Frozenbyte CEO, and continues: “As a company, we’ve had an interesting journey getting this far. I’m sure the path ahead is also full of dangers and traps but we’ll do our best to avoid them and continue to bring great experiences to gamers. We’ve been delighted that so many players have enjoyed Trine so far, and I hope this free level adds a little bit to that enjoyment!”

Path to New Dawn is a unique level with new visuals and challenging gameplay, especially on Very Hard difficulty setting. It also features 10 special items for the player to collect. The level is unlocked and available in the Select level menu once the game has been completed.

“This truly is a tough platformer level: collecting all 10 special
items on the harder difficulty settings will be a challenge even for Trine veterans,” says gameplay designer Kim Juntunen and continues: “If you would rather just enjoy the level at your own pace, the Easy and Medium difficulty settings are best suited for that. If you’re going for the challenge, then I recommend taking advantage of the
characters’ unique abilities and the many items found in the earlier levels, such as the Resurrection Gem. It’s tough but it’s definitely worth it ? good luck!”

The free DLC is part of Patch 1.07, which also includes a couple of minor additions to the game, such as visible experience bottle information in the Inventory menu for treasure hunters. The patch comes hot in the heels of Patch 1.06, released earlier in April, which among other things removed copy-protection from certain retail versions of the game and improved multi-keyboard and mice support and
featured many smaller tweaks and fixes.

For more information on Trine, please visit the official website at
http://www.trine-thegame.com/

Valve just announced it’ll be available for download next week! We’re sure the content will still be fresh, and the zombies still putrid, in April! Valve promised to update the official blog next week with more details.

The DLC, which was supposed to have been released last March, will be killing off one of the survivors, to add a little zest to the proceedings.

Let us know what you think.

YouTube user TrueOneMoreUser created a animating/compositing project melding the trailer for Law Abiding Citizen with Team Fortress 2 characters. Check out the amazing work he did in only 6 short weeks.

The controversial Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 DLC pack is now available on Xbox Like Marketplace (and out later on PlayStation Network and Steam.) The pack comes with three multiplayer maps and two updated Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare maps.

The new maps include:

• Bailout (overrun apartment complex, a large map)
• Salvage (snow-covered junkyard)
• Storm (raining abandoned warehouse)

The remakes include:

• Crash (crashed helicopter in a city square)
• Overgrown (village with a dry river running it)

The controversy arises from the fact that this meager content comes with a bloated $15 price tag. It may be a measure for publishers to see how much gamers are really willing to spend for DLC.

Let us know if you’ll be picking this up.

[UPDATE: The crush of downloads is glomming Xbox Live Marketplace as Modern Warfare 2 fans are apparently eager and willing to pay the $15 for the pack.]

[UPDATE 2: Major Nelson just twittered: "Matchmaking is in a bad state on Xbox LIVE right now. We're working on it and will resolve it as quickly as we can."]

[UPDATE 3: Major Nelson reports: "matchmaking and #MW2 are in a much better place now and I see many of you playing. We're still cleaning up a few loose ends."]

Valve may be killing off a survivor” in the upcoming “The Passing” campaign for Left 4 Dead 2. The Passing is best known for the pairing of the four survivors from the original game with the survivors from the sequel.

The news sheds some light on the name of the DLC, The Passing, and comes with the chapters tagline, Nobody Survives Forever. While Chet doesn’t allude to which member of the team will not be making further appearances, he does state that the content coming to L4D2 will be followed by DLC for the original Left 4 Dead, that will fill in the blanks. There’s also reportedly a comic that will play out the story, further filling in the back-story to the events.

The smart money is on Bill dying. The crusty Vietnam vet looks like a heroic sacrifice waiting to happen.

That update is in addition to a number of other fixes and changes included in the patch, version 522175, which range from better notifications when failing to join a multiplayer server to the server browser now sorting by lowest ping by default.

The patch for Steam users will come slightly later than it will for those with a retail copy, as it has to go through additional QA testing. It may be wise to hold off on updating for the time being, as there have been reports on the EA forums of crashing and freezing issues for some users. As the patch is only applied on the client side, and not to the servers, you’ll be able to play with others who have successfully patched their game without patching yourself.

Let us know what you think.

Joystiq has pressed 2K Sports on the problems, and have been assured a patch is coming.

When contacted, 2K Sports told Joystiq that a patch is “currently being worked on, and in the testing phase. It will be released as soon as it is ready.” That’s probably of little consolation to office chair athletes left playing a pick-up game by themselves, as this patch has apparently been in the works for months. On the bright side, considering NBA 2K is an annual franchise, maybe the next installment won’t have the same problems?

Let us know if you’re frustrated with the PC version of NBA 2K10.

After digging through the open beta files, Steam forum members found Mac OS X-specific graphics, such as the open, maximize and minimize jewel icons that are used in the operating system’s windows, reports Kotaku.

The site says that while those icons could be chalked up to Steam’s change to a WebKit-based rendering engine for the client, there are a few other Mac-specific graphics buried within including system dock graphics and a handful of OS X menu files.

How important would it be to Mac owners to have the option of buying games through Steam, with the reduced prices and the ability to game without a disc in the drive?