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Mass Effect 2 The Stars Trailer - holy famous people, batman!

- found and shared from: Chenzotumblr

That's the Georgia Aquarium. In the suit? Harrison Krix, a graphic designer who made the Big Daddy outfit and ADAM syringe. Bravo, bravo!

AMAAAZING Bioshock Cosplay At Aquarium [Geekologie]

- found and shared from: Kotaku

Man, we’re already into the final week of November, and then only one month left of 2009. Next week, I’m going to do a rundown of how Harmonix is doing on the “1,000 DLC tracks by year end” goal. But for now, let’s find out what’s coming out next week for DLC.  Looks like Tom Petty indeed made it into the DLC offerings, as rumored here.  What else can we expect?

Xbox 360, PS3, Wii:

• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “A Thing About You (live)”*
• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “American Girl (live)”
• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Even the Losers (live)”
• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Here Comes My Girl (live)”*
• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Mary Jane’s Last Dance (live)”
• Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Refugee (live)”*
• Kelly Clarkson – “Miss Independent”*
• P!nk – “Who Knew”*
• The Go-Go’s – “Our Lips Are Sealed”*

* Denotes tracks that are Family Friendly and capable of being played in Lego Rock Band.

The Tom Petty 6 pack will be $9.99 or 800 MS Points.

There doesn’t appear to be any Rock Band: Unplugged DLC tracks for next week.  I will update if that changes.

[Official announcement]

- found and shared from: RockBandAide

Zombie obliterators who've managed to survive Left 4 Dead 2's "Dark Carnival" campaign are probably familiar with the Southern rock outfit known as the Midnight Riders. While they're not exactly an enormous focus in the game's overarching story, a teaser page featuring the heavily bearded band (and a cryptic "Coming Soon") is leading some folks to believe that the Riders will soon play a much larger role in the game's proceedings.

Given the number of facial hair-sporting members of the band (see: four), we're really hoping to get some form of DLC that turns them into playable characters. Perhaps even a new campaign, in which they cure the global zombie infection using nothing but the power of their rock music. How about it, Valve?

Left 4 Dead 2's Midnight Riders get a gloriously bearded teaser page originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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- found and shared from: Joystiq [Xbox]

Those already knee-deep in Left 4 Dead 2's Southern undead will be familiar with Jimmy Gibbs Jr, who is only the greatest stock car racer of all time. Or shall we say, was.

Enterprising modder samm5506 was digging around in Left 4 Dead 2's code the other day when he stumbled upon a zombie model not found within the game itself. Dropping it into a level, he found it was none other than Mr. Jimmy Gibbs Jr. himself, who aside from being a particularly tough zombie, also brings out a few custom one-liners from the survivors, like Nick's "God damn that Jimmy Gibbs Jr.!".

To drop Gibbs into a game (PC version only, naturally), enable the console, then from the main menu enter these commands:

map atrium
sv_cheats 1
z_forcezombiemodelname common_male_jimmy
z_forcezombiemodel 1

Then have at him. The fact he's dead - and trying to bite your face off - makes stealing his car totally OK.

Hidden Jimmy Gibbs Zombie! :D [L4Dmods.com]

- found and shared from: Kotaku

There's an interesting statistic to be found in a Gamasutra interview with Steam's Jason Holtman, published earlier today. Concerning Team Fortress 2, and just how often Valve feel the need to tinker with and improve the game.

Apparently since the game was released two years ago, there have been 97 updates for the game. 97! That's roughly one a week, and has to be some kind of record. Were there a place/organisation bothering to check for such things, anyways.

Sure, that speaks volumes about the commitment of Valve to the game and the ways Steam allows them to directly service their customers. That's surely why the point was made. But I like it because it shows how insanely passionate (not to mention important) TF2's vocal player base is, that their over-bearing presence has Valve so on their toes that they're updating a game on a weekly basis.

Valve's Holtman: Digital Direct Gives Developers More Pricing Freedom [Gamasutra]

- found and shared from: Kotaku

As rumored from earlier this week, next week will be the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band as DLC for the Beatles: Rock Band! Individual tracks not already included on the Beatles: Rock Band game disc (”Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” “With A Little Help From My Friends,” “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” “Getting Better,” and “Good Morning Good Morning”) but included on this DLC pack include:

• “Fixing A Hole”
• “She’s Leaving Home”
• “Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!”
• “Within You Without You”
• “When I’m Sixty-Four”
• “Lovely Rita”
  
• “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)”
• “A Day In The Life”

Pricing is $1.99 per track (160 MS points) or $13.49 (1080 MS points) for the entire album.  See screenshots from the new DLC after the break.

And as an FYI, “Rubber Soul” is still intended for a December release.

Images below from The Beatles: Rock Band Facebook page.

- found and shared from: RockBandAide

If you pay even a little attention to the weekly DLC announcements, I’m sure you’re aware of the amount of Foo Fighters tracks that have been released for Rock Band.  I once gave away a Pepsi code in the summer to whoever could tell me how many Rock Band songs Dave Grohl was in.  I think the correct answer was 34… and this was before the most recent Foo Fighters DLC and the Tenacious D song Tribute (for which he also contributes).   I think that takes us up to about 38 tracks now.   So yeah, having Dave Grohl comment in an interview (on MTV no less) that he likes Rock Band is not the most shocking of statements.

- found and shared from: RockBandAide

Say what you will about the merits of Grand Theft Auto IV as a game, there's no disputing how magnificent a technical achievement it is. After all, few games could make a clip like this so interesting.

It's 15 days in Liberty City, recorded via timelapse. Hypnotising, no? Sadly, it's not embeddable, so you'll have to hit the links below to watch.

Vid [Eurogamer]
Vid Mirror [Rockstar]

- found and shared from: Kotaku

PC Pro looked into the bloatware included on new laptops by major manufacturers, measuring how memory, HDD space and boot times are negatively effected. And good lord, it's worse than you thought.

Bloatware, the crap software that manufacturers pre-install on their computers that include demos, media software and other junk you never use, is infuriating. And seeing the numbers, it's even more insane that these companies are crippling their own products with this junk. Here's how the worst offenders break down, compared to clean installs on the same machines:

Acer: 2:01 longer boot time, 952MB larger memory footprint, 2.4GB less HDD space
HP: 1:35 longer boot time, 1.06GB larger memory footprint, 2.18GB less HDD space
Dell: 0:52 longer boot time, 1.18GB larger memory footprint, 3GB less HDD space
Sony: 1:54 longer boot time, 1.11GB larger memory footprint, 1.3GB less HDD space

Pretty repulsive stuff; at least Microsoft isn't including this garbage on PCs sold in their stores. Be sure to check out PC Pro for the full study and results. [PC Pro via Slashdot]

- found and shared from: Gizmodo