Enjoy a good point-and-click adventure? Love freebies? Good Old Games has got your back for the day. The oft-beloved digital distributor of PC classics hit the 100-game milestone with the release ofTeenagent(I see what they did there), which can now bedownloaded for freeas a way of saying thanks for all the support. While you’re at it,Lure of the TemptressandBeneath a Steel Skyare still completely free, and come highly recommended....

Happy first birthday,Heroes of Newerth! S2 Games, the developer of the real-time strategy PC/Mac title is celebrating with not only a game update, but with over a week of free-to-play goodness. The update brings an entirely redesigned item shop to the game, mainly revamped around making it easier to navigate. Also look out for fully interactive and customizable hero guides, as well as new in-game “tooltips” designed to ease new players into the game....

Black Ops, the latest iteration of the Activision-published juggernaut franchiseCall of Duty, has received its first (of presumably many) DLC packs as a timed exclusive for the Xbox 360. While most gamers fall into either the “don’t care” or the “already bought it” camps, some casualCall of Dutyfans may be on the fence about a purchase. With four new competitive multiplayer maps and one new zombie map bundled together at the current standard price of $15, the First Strike DLC just might be worth it to that hypothetical third group of gamers....

Turtle Cream’sCut & Pasteis a game I’ve briefly mentioned before. It was a student entry for this year’s Independent Games Festival, and while it did not place (see the tough competitionfor yourself), it was charming and showed signs of promise. The team behind the uneasily-categorized game was kind enough to let me know about the full version becoming available as a free download, so I thought I would return the favor....

It wouldn’t be Christmas without some good ol’ fashioned Christian intolerance, would it? A bunch of radical wingnuts have taken issue withModern Warfare 2,declaringthat all decent people should denounce it and the “massacre level” contained within. “All decent people should denounce the video gameModern Warfare 2and join in opposing the sale and use of such games,” says Maine’s Christian Civic League, promoting the love and understanding that Christianity is known for....

In the U.S., it seems like everyone is trying to get into videogames: filmmakers, actors and actresses, fast food mascots. But it Japan, some of the old boys from back in the day are still making games. Is that a bad thing? Regardless, that’s something that Square Enix CEO Yoichi Wada hopes to change. “From the developer side, the Japanese games industry became so successful that we didn’t recruit new people,” he said....

[Editor’s note: Community member walkyourpath did this great interview on his local arcade scene. — CTZ] The rumors of arcade gaming’s demise in America have been greatly exaggerated. If you know where to look, you can still find those brilliant electronic cathedrals where the acolytes of the hardcore gather to worship at regular intervals. There’s something in the blood of these players, who could be at home on the couch with controller in hand, but instead choose to make their weekly or even daily pilgrimage to bring fresh round metallic offerings to their cabinet idols....

And you thought killing zombies with a Dreamcast keyboard was ridiculous. This summer, Epicenter Games will releaseRock of the Deadfor the Wii, a title admittedly influenced by Sega’sTyping of the Dead. Originally released for Japanese arcades in the late 90s, Sega’s title had players using a QWERTY keyboard to type out words to kill hordes of shambling zombies and other abominations. It’s an idea so crazy that it worked; the game was not only educational, but completely ridiculous and a hell of a lot of fun....

The King of Fighters XIIsite is go. The opening page is kind of an eyefu*k, but I think that was the point. The site is packed full of videos, sound bytes, imagery and lots of other cool stuff to get you excited about the upcoming game. I love this quote from the news page: We couldn’t be happier that SNK Playmore got the money together to make an HD fighter. Thanks,Doki Doki Majo Shinpan!...

Yes, I know “badical” isn’ttechnicallya word, but that’s the term Nick Chester used to describe the opening cinematic toLEGO Rock Band, and I couldn’t think of a more appropriate or accurate word. So there you have it:badical. There’s a cute little LEGO band rocking out to “Grace” by Supergrass, which implores you to “save your money for the children” — a subliminalbuy this for your kids for Christmasmessage to parents, perhaps?...

Great news: playing Grasshopper Manufacture’sLollipop Chainsawis just as insane as watching it in action. Suda51’s latest tale of a zombie slaughtering cheerleader is as quirky and demented as fans have come to expect. While we only had a chance tosee the game in action at gamescom, publisher Warner Bros. brought along a more refined build of the game to PAX this year. As the show floor opened yesterday, I made a beeline towardsLollipop Chainsaw‘s booth — a makeshift high school hallway splattered with blood and zombie limbs — to get my first hands-on with the upcoming title....

Finally! After a worrying period of silence, non-specific delays, and vague mumblings about standing behind the game, Take-Two havespoken out about their true feelings onManhunt 2‘s recentsavaging at the hands of the world’s ratings boards. It seems going quietly into the night isn’t high on their list of things to do today … Speaking at a recent meeting, Chairman Strauss Zelnick stated that the company is “dealing with the challenging development in a professional and highly focused manner” and plans to release the game “as unvarnished and unchanged as possible” and “in a responsible fashion....

This was alreadyaddressed, but it seems like fanboys are still causing trouble with their tendency to use Metacritic’s user reviews as giantwang-measuring contests. Feeling the sting from havingKillzone 2‘s user rating reduced to kibble by 360 fetishists, it wouldappear on the surfacethat Sony fans responded in kind to upcoming 360 exclusiveHalo Wars, giving it a delightful 0.8 out of 10. That’ll hurt sales! This recently made news because people were wondering why Metacritic was still allowing this kind of silliness to continue....