Blood, mostly. Here, take a napkin, wipe it off ... These are 19 new screenshots of Left 4 Dead that NeoGAF put up earlier this week. Lots of dismemberment and bloodspatter, but I'm not seeing any mid-spew vomit money shots here. The full gallery is on the jump. NeoGAF has them at higher resolution.

New Left 4 Dead Screens [NeoGAF]

When I heard there was going to be an ultra gory MMO, my interest was piqued. But, after seeing some screens and now this trailer, my pique has waned a bit. It looks nice if not a bit generic and there's not nearly as much blood and gore as I had hoped for something with "bloody" in the title. But, who knows, it could shape up to be a really amazing game for all I know and then who will be laughing out of the other side of his face? The real question though is: Does lots of blood equal a good MMO?

Soldier of Fortune without blood and flying limbs? I don't think so. Turns out that vid we posted last week was an old, tame, marketing pitch for the upcoming game. Hit the jump if you're at least 18 and want to check out the full-on, limb-flying, blood-spewing version of SoF we all know and love.

Ps. Still not thrilled with the graphics, but this seems way better than the other.

We got a curious email from Hampa, pointing us to this video of his bizarre, bloody turn-based fighter, Toribash. "I know you featured the game Toribash a bit before!" Hampa insisted.

Unfortunately, we haven't, which is a shame, because it looks awesome. How can you not like a game with a description like this?

"Toribash is a turn-based fighting game. Create your own martial arts movies in single player sandbox mode, or join the competition in the multi player modes. Focus is on tactics rather than reaction and button mashing. The game features physics, full dismemberment, decapitation and comic style blood."

And — developers take note! — there's even an OS X version! Time to take Toribash for a spin. Florian Eckhardt

Toribash [Official Site]

The gorehounds over at Flicker Gaming have singled out this screenshot of Gears of War as the pinnacle of next-gen gore. It's certainly plenty great. Note the syrupy spurts of blood; the huge chunks of grey matter flying through the air. Flicker Gaming enthuses:

So, with each new generation of consoles, we have received better and better graphics. I just picked up this screenshot from Gears of War and I just have to ask: is this gory enough? It's about damn time we finally see some increase on the grotesquery in games, and this is a great way to go.

Is it gory? Undoubtedly. Is it gory enough? Absolutely not. I envision a level of butchery in my games that would cause our nation's constabulary of Jack-Thompson-protected children actually turn inside out into mindless, hedonistic goblins of blood-and-offal soaked carnage.

A good start would be someone finally realizing American McGee's original vision of Quake, in which he claimed that you would be able to cut off an opponent's head with your rusty axe, then sodomize the moist, spurting stump. Compared to that, this Gears of War screenshot looks like lollipop playtime in Snugglepook Land. Of course, you have to start somewhere. Florian Eckhardt

Is this gory enough for you? [Flicker Gaming]

This vid comes from Aeropause. I'm leaving on a road trip on the 5th, but will be bringing a 360 with me so that on the 8th, somewhere in eastern Montana in some god-forsaken Walmart host body of a town, I can plug that sucker into a hotel TV and rock out, zombie-style.

But I'm scared, see. The last time I got really excited about a zombie game, it was Stubbs the Zombie. Thinking about it just makes me weep with disappointment all over again. Eliza Gauger

The ESRB has concluded that the game deserves a rating of Mature because: 1) partial nudity in the PC version of the game can be created by modders; and 2) the game contains excessive blood and gore that go beyond a Teen rating. The facts are as follows:

There is no nudity in Oblivion without a third party modification. In the PC version of the game only - this doesn't apply to the Xbox 360 version - some modders have used a third party tool to hack into and modify an art archive file to make it possible to create a mesh for a partially nude (topless) female that they add into the game. Bethesda didn't create a game with nudity and does not intend that nudity appear in Oblivion. There is no nude female character in a section of the game that can be "unlocked." Bethesda can not control tampering with Oblivion by third parties. Bethesda is taking steps to ensure that modders can not continue to hack into Oblivion's art archives to create partially nude figures.

With regard to violence, Bethesda advised the ESRB during the ratings process that violence and blood effects were "frequent" in the game - checking the box on the form that is the maximum warning. We further advised that the game contained occasional torture, vulgar acts, and gore. We gave accurate answers and descriptions about the type and frequency of violence that appears in the game. We submitted a 60-page document listing the explicit language, acts, and scenes in the game. Oblivion packaging already contains warnings for "Violence" and "Blood and Gore."

Bethesda responds to Oblivion re-rating [Gamespot]