Dead Space 2 isn't out until January 25th, but somehow the launch trailer is so exciting that it's managed to travel back in time. You'll find explosions, aliens and exploding aliens in the video, embedded below.

There's a surprising amount of talking for the first half of the video, then come the explosions, and the hard rock, and the hordes of horrible alien creatures. That's more like it. For more on the game, check out the official Dead Space 2 site.

A recent update from 2K has confirmed that the Protector's Trials DLC is on schedule to enter certification at the end of January, while Minerva's Den should be finished up by the beginning of March.

2K Elizabeth made the statement on the 2K forums, saying: "as of today, we’re tracking to submit the Protector Trials to certification at the end of January. Minerva’s Den has some more work to be done on it still and is tracking to submit to certification in the beginning of March."

Certification means the DLC is essentially finished and is being submitted to Microsoft to clear and release.

The Protector Trials contains six different scenarios in which you must protect a little sister as she harvests Adam from a corpse. Minerva's Den presents a self contained single player story in which you play an Alpha series Big Daddy who must fight his way into Minerva's Den to take out the rogue AI that controls Rapture.

There is also a final Bioshock 2 patch in the works. 2K Elizabeth says " I don’t have a final patch list for you yet, either, but one item I know many of you will look forward to: we have fixed mouse sensitivity issues and many v-sync option bugs."

2k announced that work had resumed on the DLC last year, when they also announced that the Protector Trials and the patch would be released for free. Pricing plans haven't yet been announced for Minerva's Den.

It's time to bring out the Lycra and brush up on your eye lasers. Superhero MMO, Champions Online, will be free-to-play on January 25th, meaning we get to rid the world of evil and injustice without having to pay a penny.

There are a few limitations when playing for free. You'll be restricted to a number of character archetypes, with pre-ordained sets of powers, when creating your superhero. Paying members will be able to mix and match the abilities.

The good news is there's no level cap and all of the areas in the game can be accessed, barring the additional adventure pack scenarios. Those can be bought from the C-Store, which will also sell costume pieces and items as microtransactions. It will also still be possible to subscribe to the game as a gold member. This unlocks more character and costume slots.

For more information about the free-to-play version of the game, check out the official Champions Online site.

As of last night, Minecraft has sold a staggering one million copies. Not bad at all for a game that's still in beta.

Notch made the announcement on Twitter and his blog, and celebrated with champagne and French rap. Meanwhile, the number of celebrating Minecraft players brought a server down. Notch bravely proceeded to continue to celebrate, fix the game and tweet his progress at the same time: "Minecraft.net got all weird.. Working on it now. The champagne isn't helping. Where's enter?"

To find out why one million people would by an unfinished game created by one man in his bedroom, check out our reasons for nominating Minecraft as PC Gamer UK's game of the year 2010, or Tom's epic Minecraft experiment.

The problem with putting out a set of jaw-dropping CGI trailers for your game is the follow-up. It’s tough to make an action game look as good as a whole load of pre-canned people doing set animations; it’s nigh-on impossible to make an MMO look even half as exciting.

It’s a problem The Old Republic hasn’t got away from. The game’s first set of trailers used LucasArts’ heft to put together the best Star Wars vignettes since Revenge of the Sith’s last lightsaber battles. The trailer for its warzones doesn’t have close to the same visual impact – using in-game footage and relying on the MMO’s stylised combat – but it does share its CGI cousins’ sense of cinematic scale.



The Old Republic’s warzones are the game’s PvP arenas. When you and your buddies elect to bash some fellow humans, you’ll hop into a warzone from your current location; once complete, you’ll zip back to where you were, resplendent in your new and useful gear. So far, so MMO, but The Old Republic differs from the pack by steeping its PvP combat in lashings of Star Wars lore.

There’s no abstract point collection or artificial fight club context: the warzones are zones for war, conflict that ties in with the universe as set out by LucasArts and compounded by BioWare’s hive of storyobsessed writers. The first shown was set on Alderaan (Leia’s exploded adopted home in the ‘current’ Star Wars timeline), and centred around a planetary defence cannon. Lead PvP designer Gabe Amatangelo explained how having a set objective would change the usual PvP template. “Other MMOs have arbitrary points or something to win – actually having something visual to aim for makes it much more epic.”



The two teams engaged in the warzone – one from both Republic and Imperial sides of the big Force-fence – set down on Alderaan to nab the cannon for their own purposes. Once there, it’s a case of supporting your team and pushing through to capture points, before getting control of the big gun itself. With it under your team’s control, you’ll start taking automatic potshots at your enemy’s dropship. If your team holds the superweapon long enough to bring down your foe’s craft, hooray! You’ve won the day. But your position on the gun can be usurped and the cannon aimed at your own ship to knock your ride out of the sky.

Arena matches and more traditional quests both consciously occupy the same universe, so BioWare haven’t narratively cockblocked the rewards players can be handed for doing well in this portion of the game. With so much pure data to mine for back-story, it’s not surprising TOR’s developers are towing the game so close to the fiction – but for an inveterate Star Wars geek, it’s reassuring.

Ludum Dare is a challenge in which competition entrants must create a game in two days. The games are all based on a theme voted for by the competition's participants from a selection of ideas. Once the games have been completed, they're released into the wild so the general public can play them and rate them. The results are now in, read on for a look at some of the best entries.

The theme for Ludum Dare 19 was one of discovery. All of the games can be downloaded and played for free. Here are a few of the stand out entries.
Attack of the time travelling pygmy from outer paleolithic (aka Time Pygmy)

Coming first in the Fun, Theme, Humour and Overall categories, Attack of the time travelling pygmy from outer paleolithic is one of the best entries in Ludum Dare 19. Even ignoring the fact that everything, from the background art to the animation, was done in 48 hours, it's still a hilarious little flash game that's well worth a quick play. You are a paleolithic pygmy kicking his heels in his prehistoric cave when suddenly a portal to 1981 opens up. You have to wander around the '80s household discovering new objects to take back to paleolithic times.
Mother Robot

Mother Robot leads the Ludum Dare 19's Innovation category with its interesting system that has you controlling two separate robots. You have to use your droids to target beams at power sources to light up the surrounding area. If you wander into the dark your robot is violently dismantled, turning this game of exploration in to a smart little puzzler in which you have to leapfrog your bots through the caves, searching for the next power source to light the way.
Batcave

Batcave was the runner up in the Innovation category. In Batcave you play a bat who has lost his bat-wife in some pitch black underground caverns. A button press sends out a glowing sonar pulse that reflects off nearby geometry. You have to flap your way through the narrow caves, picking up stars and clues as to your wife's whereabouts. She's in there somewhere.
Frolicking Furballs Safari Resort

The winner of the Graphics category, and runner up in the Humour and Coolness categories. Frolicking Furballs Safari Resort stands out from the pack because it's in 3D. Somehow the game's creator, Sos, managed to create a huge 3D environment, populate it and create music for the game in 48 hours. Cannot ... compute ... mind ... boggling.
Universal Conquest

Taking the vanted Coolness top spot, Universal Conquest clocks in at 100% cool. That's cool enough to get away with wearing shades indoors, so Universal Conquest is not a title to be trifled with. It's the scope of the game that impresses. You're given a number of star systems to visit. In each of these there are a number of orbiting planets that you can roam in your space buggy. If you're lucky enough to find some resources you can buy upgrades for your ship in the shop. Somewhere in the universe there are even aliens to find, and inevitably shoot in the face.

Our own Tom Francis entered Ludum Dare 19, and in line with the theme, quickly discovered that making a game in 48 hours is no easy task. You can read all the trials and tribulations here.

You've probably noticed that the internet is one hell of a busy place. Almost too busy. We've decided to post a daily round-up of the things that we don't have time to cover in detail. You'll find the remainder of the PC gaming news that you need to know about for Wednesday after the jump...

WoW lead designer Greg Street talks about how Cataclysm is really, really hard. And why it’s fun again.


EA are set to reveal Battlefield 3 at this year's GDC.
Blizzard have made Tol Barad easier to attack (because it’s rock solid right now).
How to use a PlayStation 3 controller on Windows 7.
Valve have changed their recommendation system. Gamers are buying in sales but not playing. (Via reddit)
The Super Meat Boy soundtrack is now available to buy.
Fantastic Bulletstorm Halo ripoff trailer is ready to watch and lol at.
Ready-to-blast-off Missile Command Movie based on the 30 year old game exists. Somehow.
World War 2 FPS in which Hitler has his own DINOSAUR ARMY.
Dead Space 2 characters have appeared in Battlefield Heroes, weirdly.
City Interactive's Ghost Warrior sequel to use Cryengine 3.

Aside from writing a magazine and packing PCGamer.com with content, the UK team have been busy playing all kinds of PC games today. Tom's been playing Greed Corp while Graham has been indulging in Back To The Future: The Game (expect reviews soon). Tim is still doing daily WoW quests, daily, while the remainder of us enjoyed some lunchtime Supreme Commander 2 co-op action.

What's your favourite story of the day? What have we missed? As always, let us know in the comments.

We can probably all agree that there aren't enough songs in the world celebrating the highs and lows of the first person shooter. Youtube user oplim77 is taking steps to address this, with his own unique version of Toto's Africa. His rendition gets right to the heart of the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 experience. You'll find the video embedded below.

'Arica' is based on Toto's classic song, Africa, though oplim77 has skilfully changed all of the words to reflect life on the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 front line, with lyrics like this:

"I hear a gunshot echo in the night,
It's quiet here on Nelson Bay when wookies get their camp on,
I take him out with my 4x Noob sight But he'll be back,
To piss me off as soon as he can respawn"

Elemental's first expansion has been announced. It's called Fallen Enchantress, and is set to add new weapons, spells, magical equipment, creatures and lands to the game. The expansion is due to arrive in the next few months, and will be free to those who bought Elemental in 2010.



One of the major updates promised by Fallen Enchantress is the addition of wild lands to conquer. These lands will contain unique locations populated by storied special characters. One example involves the Bhinadmi Fissure, a huge gorge infested with demons and earth elementals. To tame the fissure you'll have to ride up to the edge, challenge the elemental lord within and defeat him to take the land. These new areas will be populated by a number dangerous characters that can be hunted and slain for great rewards.

Fallen Enchantress will also add the ability to recruit champions that specialise in magic. These champions can then be tooled up with items discovered though exploration. If things are going particularly badly, the new spells added by the expansion will let you sacrifice a champion to summon an even stronger demon for a time. Other new abilities include a spell that can ice over an entire city, and another that can tear a hole in space time, through which even more demons can be summoned.

There's no precise release date yet, and no pricing details for those who bought Elemental this year, but Fallen Enchantress is due before summer. Check out the Elemental site for more information.

A gigantic StarCraft 2 patch has arrived, adding chat channels to Battlenet and applying a ton of bug fixes and balance changes to the game. The StarCraft 2 editor has also received a lot of attention with new tips and hints and a suite of new tools. The patch also adds a Master League for the very best StarCraft 2 players in the world.

The patch notes are huge, but you can see the whole list on the Battlenet blog. The major additions made by 1.2 are the chat channel function that lets players communicate via public and private channels. Customisable hotkeys are now supported and there is a new 'Extreme' graphics option that lets the beefiest PC's squeeze a bit of extra polish out of the StarCraft 2 engine. As well as all this, the following balance changes have been made:

General

Players can no longer block off ramps with two 2×2 buildings.

 
Protoss

Hallucination research time decreased from 110 to 80.
Observer – Cost decreased from 50/100 to 25/75.
Phoenix – Build time decreased from 45 to 35.
Void Ray – Now deals 20% more damage to massive targets.
Flux Vanes speed upgrade removed.

 
Terran

Repairing SCVs now assume the same threat priority as the unit they’re repairing.
SCV construction movement has been made more consistent.

 
One of the biggest sections in the patch notes belongs to the StarCraft 2 editor, which has received additions like "a behavior flag to suppress fidgeting" along with a bazillion other improvements that should make the powerful editing tools even more flexible.

For more on StarCraft 2 check out our review, and find out why it was chosen as our strategy game of the year.