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Following on from the success of its Zombie co-op shooter masterpiece Left 4 Dead, Valve has announced that the first major content update for the game will be coming this spring, bringing with it an entirely new game mode and more versus support.

The update, headed to both Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game, will include the as yet un-detailed “Survivor” game mode, which we wouldn’t be too surprised if it turns out to be something along the lines of the very popular Horde mode in Gears of War 2 or the Zombie Survival bonus level in Call of Duty: World at War, with the survivors defending a single position against ever increasing mountains of enemies.

The new versus content, currently described as just two new campaigns, will likely be the much anticipated versus play of the original’s Dead Air and Blood Harvest campaigns which was left out of the retail release – good news for those who enjoy the glee of authorised griefing with the help of 40ft prehensile tongues and exploding fatties.

The update will also bring with it the much anticipated Left 4 Dead SDK, finally allowing the mod community to start creating its own campaigns and levels – something that Left 4 Dead, with its limited four campaigns, has been crying out for.

No news on release dates or pricing yet, but we thoroughly expect Valve to release the pack as a free update as it has done previously with new content and maps for Team Fortress 2.

Zen Studios released a half dozen screens and a trailer today for their upcoming “arena-based” first-person shooter The Punisher: No Mercy. The game is set for a spring release on the PlayStation Network.

The online multiplayer shooter runs on the Unreal Engine 3 and allows players to choose from Punisher allies and villains. The areas will let up to eight players shoot it out at a time. The game will also include a story mode that features exclusive artwork from Marvel artist Mike Deodato.

Here is a Video !

I’m not convinced that Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 2 co-op campaign screens look all that different from campaign screens — but they’re pretty either way

Things have gone a bit pear-shaped lately for the Nottingham-based developer of Timesplitters and Haze, Free Radical Design – but according to game scriptwriter and one-time bit-tech.net columnist Rob Yescombe, the company may finally be out of the woods after being bought by Crytek.

Speaking to 1-UP.com the Haze writer confirmed that Crytek had bought the company for an undisclosed amount.

The news couldn’t have come too soon either, with the UK developer having to shut up shop in December and staff turning up to work to find the offices locked one morning.

What made the news all the more shocking was that not only did the closure of Free Radical Design see a confirmation of the rumours that the company was working on Star Wars Battlefront III, but that a fourth Timeplitters game was also in the works.

While Yescombe hasn’t given on any details on what this buy might mean for the company and whether we’ll see Free Radical’s irreverent humour start to work itself into the Crysis games or not, we’re sure that an announcement is forthcoming. One thing we do know for sure though is that Lucasarts has reclaimed the Star Wars Battlefront III license and that Free Radical is now longer working on the title.

We’ve been hearing suggestions of a new Battlefield game announcement all week and the latest rumours are that the franchise will be returning to World War II, based on information that existed on the New York Comic Con website.

EA CEO John Riccitiello confirmed earlier this week that Battlefield: Bad Company would be back in 2010, and just this morning we reported that it looks like Battlefield Heroes will be released this quarter as well.

While Heroes marks a stark move away from tradition for the popular multiplayer shooter, the rumoured Battlefield 1943 would return to the franchise’s roots.

A cached version of the New York Comic Con schedule says Battlefield 1943: Pacific postcards will be handed out during the show on EA’s stand. It has since been removed from the page, but whether that is because EA and Dice want to push back the official announcement or not is unclear.

It could be that BF1943 was supposed to be announced on Monday during the snowed-off press event, but the weather has pushed the reveal back – it is one of EA’s biggest franchises, after all.

Is this the Battlefield title that you’re most looking forward to? Share your thoughts with us in the forums.

If, in your eyes, computing is all about the megahertz race, you’ll want to hit up Toshiba for one of its latest smartphones – the first to feature a 1GHz processor.

As reported over on CNet, the company has become the first to launch hardware based on the Snapdragon platform from communication chip specialist Qualcomm. Dubbed the TG01 and running Windows Mobile, the device features a 4.1” 800×480 resistive touch screen, support for 3G and WiFi connections, and in-built GPS with A-GPS support it’s a fairly standard smartphone at first glance, albeit one with a particularly high resolution display.

It’s once you start to look beyond the obvious that you realise the potential behind the Snapdragon platform. For starters, the device is a mere 9.9mm thick – which is no mean feat, when you compare it to Apple’s iPhone at a rather chunkier 11.6mm. The real star of the show, however, is the silicon.

The Snapdragon platform on this particular handset is running a RISC-based processor at an impressive 1GHz – which makes it powerful enough to decode and play 720p HD video, render 3D graphics at a rate of up to 22M triangles per second, run displays at up to XGA resolutions, and easily chuck around graphics from a 12 megapixel camera. This isn’t your average smartphone chip, that’s for sure.

Qualcomm isn’t content with the current performance, either: the current QSD8250 chipset, as used in the TG01, will eventually be replaced by the QSD8672 – a dual-core version running at 1.5GHz with full 1080p HD video support and in-built ATI graphics processing. To put it into perspective, that’s several times the power of my original-model Eee PC. In a smartphone.

If you’re not too keen on the styling of Toshiba’s offering, but still want to get your hands on some Qualcomm Snapdragon goodness, fear not: both Acer and Asus are also currently working on handsets based on the platform, but have been pipped to the post in this instance. So far, neither company has issued a timescale for release – but Toshiba is hoping to have the TG01 out in Europe some time this summer, at an unknown pricing level.

It’s interesting how things come in threes; today Harry finished Mass Effect on the PC finally, I’m wearing a Mass Effect t-shirt and Electronic Arts has confirmed a 2010 release date for Mass Effect 2.

Apparently meant to be unveiled at the cancelled EA press event the other day, EA has today confessed that Mass Effect 2 is on track for a 2010 release on multiple platforms.

Which platforms exactly haven’t been confirmed, but a PC and Xbox 360 release seems likely given that BioWare has already announced intentions to let players bring characters from the first game over to the sequel via their savegames. A PlayStation 3 or Wii release is still possible though, with BioWare having previously mentioned being interested by a Mass Effect DS game too.

That wasn’t all that was set to be unveiled either, it seems. During a conference call regarding the Q3 financial performance of the company, CEO John Riccitiello confirmed that EA was also going to be porting Dead Space to the Nintendo Wii in the future, though no dates were laid down.

Going further, Riccitiello confirmed rumours about a new Battlefield: Bad Company game for consoles, which is apparently the next project of Battlefield developer DICE. The game will apparently be a direct sequel to the first Bad Company, be console-exclusive, use the same engine and tech and be ready for 2010.

If you’ve been hoping that Windows 7 might heal some of the divisions Windows Vista caused with its multifarious and often confusing editions, think again: the new OS is due to ship in no less than six different versions.

According to an article over on Engadget, Microsoft is due to launch six individual versions of Windows 7 – while aptly demonstrating that it didn’t learn from the outcry over Windows Vista’s confusing licensing.

Windows 7 will be offered in Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. The breakdown of which versions do what is perhaps a little counter-intuitive, and shows no improvements over the Vista SKU system.

The Starter edition will only be available under an OEM licensing agreement, and will restrict users to three running applications at any one time – and will not feature the revamped Aero interface. It’s clearly designed to be a “try-before-you-buy” route to convince users to pay an additional fee – via the Windows Anytime Upgrade system which first featured in Vista – to upgrade to a more functional version. It’s also possible that Microsoft is hoping that this will prove a possibility for future netbooks – devices not given to too much multitasking.

Home Basic, on the other hand, has the restriction on simultaneous applications lifted – although will still be missing the Aero interface. Microsoft is describing this edition as being aimed at “emerging markets,” and should be releasing this version in both OEM and retail editions. Quite what the company calls an “emerging market” – and whether that means we’ll see it in the UK or not – is as yet unknown.

Home Premium is the version that most people will be using on a daily basis. The first world-wide Windows 7 release, Home Premium will feature the Aero interface, multi-touch functionality, gaming and media functionality by default, and the ability to set up a home network.

Professional builds on Home Premium with the introduction of support for domain-based networking, remote desktop support, and “presentation mode” – a technology aimed at improving the use of external displays in addition to in-built notebook screens.

Strangely, the Professional – despite its name – isn’t the version that most business types will be using: that honour will go to Enterprise, which will only be available via one of the company’s volume licensing schemes. Building on both Professional and Premium, Enterprise adds BitLocker drive cryptography support, the ability to boot directly from a virtual hard drive, and the branch cache functionality which aims to speed up WAN data access for multiple users.

If you simply must have the Enterprise version, but can’t quite swing enough cash to spring for a volume license agreement, there’s always Windows 7 Ultimate: it’s Enterprise in all but name with all the functionality that implies. Sadly, Microsoft is describing this edition as “limited availability” in both retail and OEM form, so you might have a battle on your hands to get this version for anything resembling a reasonable price. Why the company has seen fit to artificially restrict supplies is anyone’s guess.

If you’re confused about the options available, that makes two of us – hopefully Microsoft will be releasing a better breakdown closer to release. Better yet, they could ditch the whole concept and go back to Windows XP era licensing – “Home” and “Professional.”

Have you picked your edition of Windows 7 already, or are you holding out for a version of Windows that doesn’t require a gigantic feature comparison grid to drill down to the version that’s right for you? Should Microsoft rethink the whole licensing scheme prior to launch? Share your thoughts over in the forums.