A new lobby browser has been added to the PC version of Left 4 Dead via an update released by Valve. The browser shows a list of optimal games that they can join, paring down the thousands of lobbies and games to make it easier to find the best ones available.

Since the death of Michael Jackson last week, the internet has come alive with tributes for the late King of Pop. One of them is this mod of Left 4 Dead (PC, Xbox 360), where the game music is replaced by some of Jacko's most popular songs. And when it comes to the Left 4 Dead, it doesn't get any cooler than Thriller.

Don't get us wrong: these are two totally related things, though Crytek isn't behind both of them. Somewhere among the awesome texture mods proposed is news that a modder will be improving the particle effects in Crysis via modifications. And in addition to that, we also heard that Crytek might be looking for great modders to use in upcoming Crysis Warhead.

If your strumming hand for Guitar Hero is becoming a bit worse for wear, then good news: Ben Heck, modder of all that is next-gen, has come up with a way to make your foot do all the work instead. Introducing Ben Heckendorn's own brand of pedal controllers, a peripheral that lets you strum and whammy with the merest movement of your foot. All the details in the full article.

Here's one example of a hellish PR nightmare: customers mobbing your company's forums, wielding pikes and pitchforks of utter hate messages. That's what's happening right now for Creative Labs when they tried to stop a modder from distributing custom driver, that greatly enhanced the performance of their sound cards with Vista. Read all about it in the full article.

Tired of sending your Xbox 360 console back to Microsoft? A modder has a good idea of making a broken Xbox 360 useful: modding it into a PC case. Check out the video to see the sweet-looking Xbox 360 PC.

So you fancy yourself as a game developer and dream of becoming the next John Carmack? Well, here's an opportunity for you to prove it. 

The beta version of the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars software development kit (SDK) has been released for public use. Want more details on the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars SDK? Head on over to the full article by clicking the "read more" link below.

It's a sad day for rally fans as the team that has been behind Half-Life Rally has recently announced that they are ceasing development for Half-Life Rally 2. They have cited "limitations of the Source SDK" as the cause for this decision. Among the issues which they have enumetated include:

• Vehicles were controlled by the server making them latent and not fun to play on the Internet
• Predicting the vehicles on the client failed as the client and server simulate the physics differently, causing the vehicles to get rapidly out of sync
• Correcting the predicted vehicles position made the game feel unresponsive and caused the vehicle to travel unexpected paths
• Valve themselves said that it was currently impossible to predict and therefore network vphysics objects accurately (think of the barrels in  CS).
• The SDK does not allow for direct modification of physics
• Could not implement manual transmission due to SDK limitations
• RPM calculations were erratic and more often than not incorrect
• RPM values could not be recalculated accurately

In any case, they will be hosting parts of their souce code for any modder to pick up and use, and perhaps even come up with the solutions that the HL Rally dev team couldn't find.

Aww. The exploding (yes, "exploding" and not "explosive") races and the "nearly-wrecked car reaches finish line" moments will be sorely missed.