Xbox 360 players get first dibs on the new OP:DR DLC, dropping today on Xbox Live for 400 Microsoft points with PlayStation 3 and PC owners getting it "shortly." The downloadable content includes two new multiplayer modes - the objective-based Blindside and occupation game Supremacy - along with Friendly Skies and Hostile Takeover, two new fire team engagement missions.

Take a look at the trailer for the new content below to see what Overwatch brings to the table.

It's available right now, pretty much everywhere (except Japan), with pricing to of course vary depending on where you are. In the US, for example, it's $30. In the UK, it's £20, while in Australia, it's...AUD$70 (USD$65).

The Skirmish downloadable content pack for Dragon Rising comes out for free on the PC tomorrow, bundled with a title update that will take care of various single and multiplayer issues that players have been complaining about since the game was released. The four new maps - Lumberyard, White Fang, Stomping Grounds, and Force Dispersal - along with the All Round Defence and Uphill Struggle FTE missions will be available for free download for the PC version of the game starting tomorrow.

For console owners, the 5th of November will see the release of a title update for the Xbox 360 version, with the PlayStation 3 title update following shortly after. The Skirmish DLC will be available for both consoles at a later date, running players either 400 Microsoft points or $3.99.

You can check out a full list of the title update fixes for the PC and console versions at the Codemasters community website.

The DirectX 11 effects actually look rather impressive, though I'm not sure they amount to anything that really warranted the game being delayed on the PC. I guess that's what comes of forming a strategic alliance with Microsoft to gain early access to the DirectX 11 tech.

"The opportunity to enter into a strategic relationship with Microsoft to fuse key DirectX 11 technologies with Codemasters' EGO™ Engine and set the new standard in race gaming on home computers was irresistible," said Bryan Marshall, chief technical officer, Codemasters. "By taking advantage of the DirectX 11 feature set included in Windows 7, including hardware tessellation, multi-threading and Shader Model 5.0, we will deliver the most immersive and realistic off-road racing experience yet and set the technical benchmark in the genre."

Really, they're the kind of effects you only notice if you are watching someone else race. Pretty, but ultimately unnecessary.

In this first-person shooter sequel you command a squad of marines helping to retake the island of Skira from the Chinese in a near-future teetering on the brink of war.

But no longer in the hands of developers Bohemia Interactive, can Codemaster's Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising prove itself every bit as difficult and fun as the original?

Loved
Damage System: Getting shot in Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising can have a lasting impact on how you play the missions. Besides headshots killing you instantly, you can get tagged in the legs, the chest, the arms, the head. Injuries show up on a little version of your character on the screen, if you don't fix yourself up fast (or have a medic do it) you'll eventually bleed out. And even when you do patch yourself up you still won't be able to run sometimes. The end result? More cautious gameplay, more thinking before you move. Perfect for this type of game.

Sound: I've played my share of first-person and third-person shooters and, next to America's Army 2, this game has some of the best sound effects out there. You'll hear a sniper bullet whine by your ear urging your to drop to the ground and use the report of automatic fire to pin point an enemy and listen for footsteps to alert you to nearby bad guys.

Difficulty: Played on the average setting, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is a brutal, unforgiving experience. If you don't pace yourself, using tactics and squad commands, you're going to be shot down in seconds. And those one-shot kills you land can happen to you too, so don't stand in one place for too long.

Realism: From the whine of bullets and full body damage modeling to the relatively open map, which allows for just about any sort of approach you want in a map, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising plays more like a training exercise than it does a run-in-gun shooter.

Hated
Save System: Managing and creating save points in a game can be an art. Too many and players will just trudge through the game, regardless of loss of life, knowing that they can respawn feet from where they dropped. Too few and you have Dragon Rising, which has you play for 30 to 40 minutes, cross vast tracks of terrain, take out multiple units and then die only to do it all over again. The save points improve as you near the end of the game, but the beginning is brutal and unnecessary.

Line of Sight: When a single shot can kill you instantly and save points are stretched between unforgiving distances of objectives and terrain, having a game that can't render an enemy on the horizon doesn't just look bad, it guts the action. In almost every map I played there were enemies who phased in and out of existence as they wavered on the edge of what the game could handle showing me, making sniping a near impossibility.

Brain-Damaged Friendlies: Your squad mates can be life-savers, helping you flank enemies or patching you up after you've taken a shot to the chest. But man can they be stupid. It's shocking how many times my men came to patch me up and then just stood over me with a med kit in hand, watching me die, or refused to mount a vehicle, or walked directly in front of me while I was shooting. Or the one time I had to restart a section of a mission because my squad had commandeered a jeep, drove to the other side of the map with it and then refused to join me at the extraction point. In a game so reliant on squad, this level of artificial intelligence problems is unacceptable.

Plot: Maybe this is a plus for some gamers, but if you're going to bother having a storyline, even a rudimentary one, then invest a little time in creating a story arch, characters with first names, some meaning. Look at Modern Warfare. It was a core shooting experience, but still managed to deliver a evocative and interesting story.

Not So Online: I'd love to be able to tell you what playing on the Playstation Network is like with Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, but I was never able to even connect to the servers. Going online I found a six-page thread about the problem and promises from the developer that they were looking into the issue. Apparently the same problems can be found on the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game, according to the thread.

Buggy: This game could have used a bit more time in the cooker, it also could have used a thorough once-over after it was finished. From spastic animations to clueless friendlies to missions that won't end to missing radio communications, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is a mess.

Despite the problems, and there were quite a few, I did love the concept of Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. I think games these days are too forgiving. Gamers, especially "hard core" gamers need some tough love. That means permanent death in massively multiplayer online games, overwhelming odds in strategy titles and one-shot kills in shooters.

Playing through the game was a painful, but fun experience. The bugs and overwhelming problems with the title made the time spent gaming often frustrating, but those times when the game was working properly it sang.

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising was developed and published by Codemasters for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 on Oct. 6. Retails for $59.99 USD. A copy of the game was given to us by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Played through the single-player campaign, but was unable to join any multiplayer servers over the course of four days.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

As we reported in September, long-time Archlord North American and European operator Codemasters had lost the rights to run the game, with South Korean publisher Webzen taking over the reins this month. Now the North American and European servers are live, and Webzen is accepting pre-registration for transfers from the Codemasters servers to their own, with in-game cash being offered as an incentive for making the move. Codemasters players can visit Webzen's Archlord home page for details on making the move.

Sweetening the deal for Western players is the introduction of the new Swashbuckler character class, a close-quarters female fighter sporting bunny ears, as seen in the picture here. All this, plus a bunny girl? I, for one, welcome our new South Korean overlords.

The lay-offs occurred this past Wednesday, September 30, and accounted for a third of the studio — primarily coders and QA staffers. The reason for the cuts apparently is that the studio was hoping to ink a deal for a movie-based game with a publisher, but that deal went south this week.

An internal email from studio CEO Mike Fegan reveals that Transmission was pitching another project in a well-known franchise to that same publisher:

We finally heard back from XXXX this morning and the news is mixed as [licensed movie game] is currently on hold due to a legal IP problem with the film and no indication on when this issue will be fixed. As part of our fall back plan we have now submitted a pre-prepared pitch for [a sequel to an existing IP] and they also want us to pitch on another project but the reality is we will not have another project in place with them for at least 60-90 days.

As Kotaku Australia points out, the studio also wasn't able to find a publisher for arcade style helicopter game Rotorhead. The upside? Emails obtained by Kotaku Australia indicate that Transmission will be hard at work on another cricket game codenamed Cricket 2010 for release next year. The studio's previously announced flight sim is still in production and will be published by Evolved Games.

Transmission Games Lays Off A Third Of Its Workers [Updated] [Kotaku Australia]

Luckily, Sion Lenton — Executive Producer at Codemasters on Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising — was a good sport and let "Professor Glasser" talk his ear off about real-life conflicts between Russia and Japan. You see, his game is loosely based on one of those conflicts with some, uh, minor tweaks.

In Dragon Rising, it's a few years into the future and China's economy is going down the tank. There's an island north of Japan called Skira (topographically based on real life Kiska Island). The island is contested territory between Russia and China because of its large oil reserves. Also, the US Army, acting on behalf of the Russians to "liberate" it from the Chinese.

I think my political science professor would flunk any of his students who couldn't name all of the things wrong with that premise. For one thing, Kiska Island is in Alaska – which is pretty far from any of the Kuril Islands north of Japan that are actually contested territory. For another, those islands are contested territory between Russia and Japan, not China – and I don't even think they have oil; they're just in a really sweet strategic spot. Also, China's economy is going lots of places these days – but none of them look like the tank. And the US acting on behalf of Russia against China? It wouldn't just have to be the future; it'd probably have to be a whole different planet.

Video Games | Operation Flashpoint: DR | Fog of War Featurette

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

I related all of this to Lenton as a roundabout way of asking if Japanese forces would be included in the upcoming downloadable content that Codemasters is planning for Dragon Rising. In real life, the Japan Self-Defense Force couldn't do anything to Russia (or China) unless Japan really did own the islands and Russia (or China) really was moving in on them with armed forces. But, hey, if we're not worried about realism, why wouldn't you want to get Japan in the mix?

Lenton said Japan would deserve more attention than just DLC ("That would really be a whole separate game," he said). However, he was intrigued by the idea of an overarching security dilemma as motivation for stealth gameplay.

Bear with me – I got an A- on my thesis for this. A security dilemma is a situation in which two countries both want the same thing. One can sell out the other to get that thing, which sort of sucks, but usually doesn't lead to war. Or, they can both try to sell each other out to get what they want and that almost always leads to war. Or – what usually happens – they get stuck in a staring contest where neither of them doing anything and so neither of them gets what they want. But nobody goes to war.

This was my roundabout way of asking if there was stealth in the game. After all, if Russian forces claim to shoot down Chinese planes in Russian territory but can't prove it with physical evidence, it's be really hard to convince the whole world that declaring war on China is totally cool. So, it would sort of make sense to have stealth in the game, right?

Lenton seemed to like the idea, but sadly it's not actually part of Operation Flashpoint. That's not to say the developer was totally unaware of international relations. After all, Lenton explained, a lot of work went into figuring out how to explain why US forces were involved in the conflict (*cough* oil *cough*). And the basic message of the game – that war is scary – certainly is a nod toward realism.

But after our little chat, I wonder if Lenton or other war game developers will look into security dilemmas as a basis on which to build a war-torn future to play in. After all, sometimes real-life is scarier that the "what-ifs" video game developers imagine for us.

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is out October 6.

Actually, the explosions in Dragon Rising might not be what you're expecting, based on past war video game experiences. The developers behind the game did research, you see, and concluded that explosions are more about smoke and oily fumes than about fire and debris.

That's not the only streak of realism the game is going for. Check out our preview for some of the other ways Dragon Rising goes for authenticity and keep an eye out later for a rant about the one thing the game doesn't get right when it comes to rendering the reality of war in a console shooter.

Skira Island has long been a place of turmoil. Luckily its real-life inspiration, Kiska Island, which was the scene of much strife during World War II. In 1942 the Japanese captured the island, one of the Rat Islands group of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, owned by the United States. After staging several bombing runs, the Allies brought in a force of 34,426 troops in 1943, only to discover that the Japanese had evacuated the island under cover of fog without the Allies noticing. Despite encountering no human opposition, booby traps and friendly fire caused close to 200 casualties.

Now the site is a U.S. Historic Landmark. Unfortunately its fictional counterpart hasn't fared nearly as well.

The Orcs, Elves, and Humans of Chantra will be moving to a new home on October 3rd, when Korean publisher Webzen takes over the operation of the game in North America and Europe. According to an email notice sent out to players, Codemasters was unable to come to a renewal agreement with Korean ArchLord developer NHN, resulting in a rather speedy transition between the two companies. Codies shuts things down on the 1st of October, and Webzen looks to have things up and running two days later. That trick never works, but we've got our fingers crossed.

According to the ArchLord transition FAQ posted at Codemasters' website, Webzen will be receiving all of the character data for the game, so players shouldn't have to worry about losing their hard-earned gear or experience. As a precaution, Codemasters has shut down new account generation and the game's cash store to ensure that there are no outstanding issues come October 1st.

North American and European players are urged to visit Webzen's ArchLord page for more information.

Thanks to Paul for passing this info along!

This DiRT 2 vid features the hottest cars on the hottest tracks, with real-life and in-game footage mixed together in an inspirational music video format that rally fans just can't resist. Can you tell the difference between the real footage and the game footage? Of course you can. You are a sharp bunch.

DiRT 2 races onto store shelves on September 8th, 10th, and 11th in North America, Europe, and the UK respectively.

Cricket dates back to the 16th century. It's one of the world's most popular sports (thanks, India!). Some variations can last for five days, others for a single evening. This particular title—Codemasters' Ashes Cricket 2009—is named after the oldest of such competitions, The Ashes, a series between Australia and England that's been going since 1882.

Up to speed? Great. Then let's see how this game manages to capture the spirit of this historic, misunderstood sport.

Loved
Attention to detail – The game features real player likenesses, names, sponsors, stadiums, TV-style graphical aides (Hawkeye!) and two teams even have fully licensed kits and logos. There's even a selection of real commentators, who do a great job with their long, varied conversations during the game's slower moments. Cricket games have never gone to this much trouble before, and it's definitely appreciated.

Quick Single – For such a tricky sport (to watch, play and understand), gameplay is remarkably easy to get a handle on. Comprehensive tutorials will help explain the nuances to non-players, while experienced types will just see the helpful on-screen guide buttons and go from there.

A for Effort – This game was developed by a small Australian studio by the name of Transmission Games. They are most definitely not EA Sports. Yet despite their small size and what was surely a tiny budget, they've got some areas of this game – particularly in terms of presentation - looking far more big budget than you'd expect.

Bowled Over - While there's some issues with batting in the game, bowling is a delight. It's intuitive, and on-screen displays let you adjust everything you need, from the line to the length to any swing you want to put on the delivery. Most pleasing is the way the game handles spin bowling, since most previous attempts at depicting it in cricket games have been dismal failures.

Hated
Tail-Ender – Cricket isn't just a sport. Batting is so fluid, so open to interpretation that it's often labelled an art form. So it's a shame that the batting options in this game are so limited. You're restricted to a set template of moves that apply a shot depending on where the ball lands (which the game sometimes gets wrong), and because the perspective for the game is always from the bowler's point of view, it's difficult as a batsman to get an idea on the flight of the ball.

Silly Mid-Off – There are soul-crushing bugs throughout the single player game. Sometimes, you'll take a catch that's simply not recognised as a catch. There's a sweet spot where leg spinners bowling to right handed batsmen nearly always hit the stumps. I once bowled an over where I had four LBW appeals, all of which were shown to be right on the money, turned down. I could go on, but you get the idea.

"Players" – There have been attempts to make in-game players look like their real-life counterparts. Attempts. And while the likenesses are quite good considering the template used, the template used looks like it was based on the Cabbage Patch Kids.

Difficulty Spike – Perhaps in part due to the difficult batting mechanic, but mostly I think to do with the game's raw, unpolished state, single-player games suffer from a tremendous spike in difficulty. Even first-time players will find "easy" too little a challenge, yet playing the game for a week I could only win a single game on "normal", as poor opposition batsmen became supermen, and teams like Ireland and Bangladesh started playing like Australia or South Africa.

I so wanted to love this game. It's a cricket game, I'm a cricket fan. The fundamental controls for bowling are almost perfect, I'm happy to see somebody making retail cricket games again after a two-year hiatus, and it's come at the perfect time to cash in on Ashes fever in Britain and Australia.

But the game is just too… under-done. Too raw, too broken. Single-player glitches and a punishing difficulty spike make the game attractive only as a multiplayer game, and even then, the game's dodgy AI (especially for umpire appeals and running between wickets) will eventually lead to arguments between friends or swift disconnects.

Still, the foundations are there. Hopefully the team at Transmission Games can build upon the parts they've got right first time around, fine-tune the disjointed AI and dodgy mechanics, and rebound next year with a cricket game that fans of the sport can really look forward to.

Ashes Cricket 2009 was developed by Transmission Games & Gusto Games, and published by Codemasters for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 (version reviewed), PC & Wii. Released on August 7 in PAL territories. Played Twenty20 series to completion, ODI series and test match to completion. Tested local multiplayer on PS3 review copy (my PS3 is currently unable to connect to the PSN, though the game does support online multiplayer).

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Those expecting an easy run of things will be...wait, were any of you really expecting an easy run of things? New developers or not, this is a Flashpoint game, only now with fancy graphics. And as you can see in the recommended specs, that'll be asking quite a lot of you, thanks very much.

Minimum requirement
Operating system: Windows XP SP2 or later
GPU: DirectX 9.0c GPU: Shader 3.0 (GeForce 7900 GT / 256 MB VRAM or higher)
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
1 GB Memory: 1 GB
8 GB Hard disk: 8 GB
CPU: Dual Core CPU 2 x 2.4 GHz
DVD-ROM DVD drive: Dual Layer DVD-ROM

Recommended System
Operating system: Windows XP SP2 or later
GPU: Shader 3.0 (GeForce 8800 GT / 512 MB VRAM or higher), DirectX 9.0c
Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
Memory: 2 GB
Hard disk: 8 GB
CPU: Quad Core CPU
DVD drive: Dual Layer DVD-ROM

Can't think of too many other games on the horizon recommending a quad core system.

[Codemasters, thanks everyone who sent this is in!]

Codemaster's "sequel" to Bohemia Interactive's 2001 classic has a limited edition that comes with an army helmet. A full-size army helmet, that looks like it's made from metal (plus a dog tag), giving the game a box that wouldn't look out of place in the Rock Band aisle. Or a stinky old army disposal store.

No word on price yet, or availability (this is a European version), but hey, on the bright side, unlike the MW2 box, this one will be made available to PC users.

[thanks Chris!]

Apparently I am not the only one with a craving for action-packed, massively-multiplayer online space combat. According to Codemasters, more than 250,000 individuals have signed up for a chance to test out NetDevil's baby, with more flocking to the website to register every day. Needless to say, the developer is extremely excited.

"Our players' enthusiasm continues to exceed our expectations at every milestone and we are extremely excited to achieve such fantastic support," said Scott Brown, President of NetDevil. "We have thoroughly enjoyed obtaining some valuable feedback from the people in our Friends & Family test, helping us to take the next major step towards launch."

See? I didn't need to say it.

Of course, more folks signing up means less chance of you getting in, but look on the bright side...okay, I got nothing.

September 8th is when the next version of Codemasters' venerable rally racing series hits North America, dishing Dirt 2 for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, DS, and PlayStation Portable. Three days later the game hits the UK, perhaps because it goes under the name Colin McRae: Dirt 2, which takes slightly longer to type out. The PC version has been pushed to December in order to implement DirectX 11 features.

Codemasters celebrates the imminent release with a series of new screenshots featuring cars and dirt, which are the two things you'll be seeing the most of while playing.

DirectX 11 already? Most games are still trying to catch up to DirectX 10 support, but Codemasters wants to make sure they deliver the "most realistic, immersive and exhilarating racing experiences in the business", and that means the Games for Windows Live version of Dirt 2 is just going to have to wait a few months. With the console versions still on target for a September release, PC users will have to wait until December before they get a much nicer version of the title, provided they have the hardware to support it, of course.

Why not simply release the game and patch in DX11 support later? Perhaps Codemasters is taking a cue from the previous generation, where PC developers' promised Direct X 10 patches trickled out far later than originally planned, impressing less people in the process.

The game actually doesn't seem to have suffered too much from the transition. Sure, it's nowhere near as detailed as its big brothers on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but it looks like Codemasters has done a pretty reasonable job of keeping the core game play intact while tweaking the graphics so they don't simply seemed like a dumbed-down version of something from a much more powerful console. Good for them!

Maybe because it's based on Lord of the Rings, maybe because it's actually good, we don't know, but we do know that, according to developers Turbine, the game's user base is on the up and up.

Good for you them! The more viable games (and thus alternatives for players) in this genre the better.

LotRO growing, no plans for server-merge, says Turbine [VG247]