Here's a keeper for the weekend: Valve has just put new updates up on Steam for Audiosurf and Race Driver: GRID, the latter being part of the follow up the version 1.1 patch that released for the retail editions of the racing game. While Audiosurf seems to be gearing up for additional content in the future, the GRID patch corrects issues with game initializations and shut downs. More at the full story.

One of Russia's most distinguished game developer and publisher, 1C company, has announced two new game projects that will be their first on the next generation consoles. The two games are based on Captain Blood novels and the successful IL-2 Sturmovik flight combat simulation series.  Both are now heading to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (to North America with help), but even handhelds will feel some love as well.

And just to settle the score against the competition, EA Sports' NHL 08 (for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) producer David Littman recently made a blog entry for the next hockey sports title and passed new gameplay features and improvements that players might be interested to know. And according to him, from now until shipment, fans of the game can keep checking blogged updates on new developments.

But first, let's see what EA Sports has in store for the new hockey successor to NHL 07, featuring cover athlete Eric "Gunner" Staal this time around. Littman pointed out that all the NHL 07 skating issues have been addressed and that players should have complete, 100% control over each of their players.

"Overall, our goal is to create the tools and the brain of an NHL player, input them into our game, and then leave the rest to you," blogged Littman. So expect brief flicks on control sticks should equate to a precise unique reaction on a player in the game, like a 10% tap in one direction should reflect a player zipping in that location in 10% speed accordingly.

And how about stopping to line up the right pass or shot? That's been improved, too. In any case, the length of time it takes for you to tap the stick on your gamepad, the controlled man will take that long to stop. A simple tap backwards makes a brief controlled halt, and tapping back forward again will cause your player to skirt in that direction again.

And skating has also been improved to the point that animation and gameplay mechanics become more practical and realistic. Teammates on the defense positions will now keep to the blue lines, facing their upper torso toward the puck so that they're always ready to receive a pass from the puckhandler.

Cross-over turns are now just controlled by a genuine, quick roll of the stick, if you want to skirt behind the goal for example to clear up a newly retrieved puck for a new offensive dash toward the opponent's end. He also adds that it keeps player's speeds up while allowing them to change direction.

Skill Stick features in NHL 07 have been further developed to practical levels in NHL 08, and the team behind NHL 08 will also be addressing goals trickling past the goalie and new team-based AI. More on that once they come in.

Dubbed simply as the "District," this map was inspired by the Xbox's original single player mission on New Mombasa. By integrating the gameplay potential and elements of the New Mombasa outskirts with the aesthetics of the Turf multiplayer map, the District was designed with both close-quarters and open-spaced frag fests in mind.

In an interview with GameSpot, David Mertz (lead designer for the Windows version of Halo 2), Matt Van Gorder (content lead) and Kevin Weston (network developer) revealed that the map would have balance for medium-range combatants against snipers, and gunners on-foot can still duck or dive for cover into the urban alleyways of District - away from vehicle-loving enemies.

District will allow up to 15 vehicles to spawn, with three Scorpion tanks that can be optionally set to spawn at a predefined area in the settings menu.

But that's not even counting the two standard and two optional turrets that can be manned in the map. The map provides a riding slot for everyone, except for the Spartans who love to hike.

District in itself is not just an urban map for hide-and-seek: it's four times larger than Turf and around two-thirds as large as Coagulation. The map is huge, and in order to navigate it properly, Hired Guns created the level with landmarks to guide players on what to capture and where to make their stand.

Given that the game is coming before the first half of 2007 ends, the game will be catering to users of Windows Vista only and be made playable on Games for Windows Live against Xbox opponents, in addition to introducing the first Achievements for Halo 2. In order to ensure that PC gamers won't have a superior edge over the gamepad fraggers, they've claimed to have made adjustments to keyboard-and-mouse sharpshooters to give equal footing to all Halo 2 gamers.

Wing Commander, X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, Descent: Freespace, Star Trek: Legacy, Battlecruiser/Universal Combat, Battlestar Galactica (which one?), and now Galactic Command. So as long as there in man lies the need to explore strange new worlds, there lies that... darker need to blow stuff up in those strange new worlds. Here are two gameplay previews from GameTrailers showing off space - and atmospheric - combat.

At least the GUI is indeed friendly: anyone who's hopped into an F-16 in Falcon will recognize the HUD and MFD displays. Ship models look good, but this being a newly announced game, we are presuming this is only the graphic's beginnings, and we will see improvements later on. Combat didn't seem that dynamic, none of the yanking and banking you'd expect a space ace to pull - or maybe the player was green. Still a good start for the game, though. We hope to see more of it in the coming weeks.

With the game making a dual appearance on the PC and the Xbox 360, we're wondering if this could easily become a Live Anywhere game, with console owners and PC owners duking it out for space supremacy. With gamepad support on the PC (or conversely, someone finally comes up with a good mappable flight joystick for the 360), this game could easily become the best game to have a multiplayer PC/360 game with, as opposed to Shadowrun (FPS advantage to mouse control) or Age of Conan.



Going down to the hard deck after the jump.

Swedish independent developer Muskedunder Interactive has recently released a revamped demo of their PC game called Ninja Loves Pirate. The indie dev mentioned that massive online interest and requests have pushed them to amp the demo. Of course, at the end of the day, it all boils down to giving in on what your consumers want.

Just in case you have no idea on what the game is about, Ninja Love Pirate is a nostalgic sidescrolling platform arcade adventure that lets you play as a ninja, a pirate, or both. Fight against zombies, robots, big bosses and all those meanies. It was even nominated in 2005 for the best Swedish independent game for 2005.

Anyhow, the revamped version now has a sneak preview of new enemies, gamepad support, support for German keyboard, smoother game play, and and in-game control scheme. Not bad for a demo. The original demo has since been distributed on over 145,000 DVDs worldwide through magazines such as U.K.'s PC Gamer and Sweden's DVD Gamer. There has been no word on how this revamped demo would be distributed.