Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Limited Edition is up for pre-order on Steam for $49.99.

The limited edition version includes several gameplay perks that will not be available at a later date, including improved vehicle armor and a tracer dart pistol which allows you to tag vehicles so you can blow them up with rockets from increased distances.

The game does not actually become available until March 2, 2010, but Snake, Tald, Beesod, and I have already made the commitment.  Help bring back the glory days of spotting enemy boats!  Pre-order now!

Here is a link to an absurdly high-resolution version to see it in more detail.

Preparatory stages:

And some extra citizen sketches that we had to hand in.

Here’s the previous assignment from Caricature Class, along with prep sketches and some bonus Barackage.

For an actual review of MW2:

Valve offering exclusive L4D2 hat for TF2 if you pre-order now!

I’m still very much on the fence about the whole Left 4 Dead 2 thing.  I’m sure that at some point in time, I will be tempted into buying it (probably when it’s offered at some crazy Steam discounted price).  For the time being, however, I don’t feel particularly compelled.  New L4D content would be nice (be it in the form or L4D or L4D2), but things have been rather stagnant for some time now, leaving me more than somewhat bored with L4D in general.

I’ve lost a fair bit of interest in TF2 as well.  Though I think it’s interesting and nice that Valve is throwing in bonuses for one game (TF2) by purchasing another game (L4D2), it’s still not enough to convince me to pre-order.  I know that pre-orders for L4D2 have exceeded those for L4D (not entirely surprising given that L4D now has an actual fanbase), and I stand dangerously close to being considered a stubborn hater by continuing to hold out.  I’m not clinging to the old arguments that Valve has abandoned L4D or stabbed its players in the back.  I’m just not that interested in what’s being offered so far.

Kotaku:

PC gamers may find one more reason to grumble about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, as Infinity Ward has confirmed that the maximum number of players in the game’s multiplayer mode has taken a hit from 32 to 18.

A max of 18 players has been the norm for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of previous entries Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: World At War, but it’s considerably less than previous iterations for the PC. Infinity Ward’s Mackey McCandlish and Vince Zampella confirmed that 9 versus 9 multiplayer battles would be the max going forward to the chagrin of a few PC gamers already feeling burned by the switch from dedicated servers to the IW.net service.

McCandlish explained that an 18-player cap was related to “the number of players we focused on when we were balancing map size, perks, classes, challenges, etc.”

That lead to one fan venting in the Infinity Ward developer Q&A session hosted by Best Buy’s Geek Squad. “Please explain how a 9v9 match is a multiplayer experience? I’d have more fun serving lunch at a local nursing home,” complained a user named “Axen.”

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Live Chat Session – Transcript [Best Buy Forums]

Looks geeeewd

Kotaku: The spirit of Halloween has infected Valve’s Team Fortress 2 Team, spawning a Haunted Hallowe’en Special update, complete with new achievements, a ghost-infested new map, exploding pumpkins, and scary hats!

Today through November 2nd, Valve invites the spirits of the dead into Team Fortress 2 in the form of terrifying paper bag hats. The masks are unlocked via five new update-specific achievements, with names like “Candy Coroner” and “Attack O’ Lantern,” the latter of which might have something to do with the exploding pumpkins added in the update.

The update also brings a new KOTH map called Harvest, through which wanders the restless spirit of Zepheniah Mann. Crossing his path will cause you to freeze with terror, leaving you open to all sorts of deadly Halloween mischief. On top of that, “the mangled corpses of the recently deceased will plague the living… with candy!” I have no idea what that means, and I’m a little scared to find out.