PC Call of Duty 4 gamers can download four maps free in an NVIDIA-sponsored Variety Map Pack due to drop Thursday.

The four maps for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare are the Broadcast, Chinatown, Killhouse and Creek maps. Furthermore, PC players will get a patch that fixes a server crash, fixes some other bugs, adds in some things and, oh yeah, enables support for the new maps.

So, PC gamers, don't say nobody never did nuthin' for ya. Xbox 360 owners had to buy this. Enjoy!

Variety Map Pack Sponsored by NVIDIA hits PC June 5th [IAMfourzerotwo]

TimeShift 360 Gets Untimely Free Map Pack

Valve had a nice little gathering of souls last night at Blondie's Bar and No Grill here in SF to show of the new Team Fortress 2 map, Goldrush. If you are reading this, you are probably a big Team Fortress 2 fan, so I'll skip explanations of the game and dive right into the details.

First of all, I loved the look of it. The name certainly describes what the map was like, looking like something out of Disney's Big Thunder Mountain railroad ride. Lots of wooden structures, water towers and mine car tracks. But the map isn't just a new area, it also features a new gameplay type called Payload. Basically how it works is this: the map has three separate areas and players are split into offensive and defensive teams. The goal of the offensive team is to push a mine cart loaded with explosives through the map, capturing the defensive team's bases as they go. The cart moves faster depending on how many people are surrounding it and leaving it unattended will cause it to start rolling back towards the beginning again. The other team of course, tries to stop the payload from reaching it's goal.

The map wasn't the only thing going however. We were also privy to the new item system that will be instituted with the next update. This also ties in with the thirty six new achievements for the Medic class. By gathering some or all of the new achievements, you can gain three new unique items. One third of the achievements will net you The Blutauger, a new syringe gun. This weapon does not give critical damage, but instead sucks health from the enemy on impact. Earn two thirds of the achievements and you will get The Critzcrieg, a new medigun that will rapid fire critical rockets. Getting all the achievements will see you receiving The Ubersaw which takes melee combat damage and converts it into Ubercharge. Four direct hits with it will charge up whatever Medigun your Medic has currently equipped.

Team Fortress fans are going to have a field day with this new map and if you want to get all those new weapons (and I know you do) take a gander at all 36 achievements after the jump!

Wait! You Might Not Want To Buy The Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack

Did we get your attention before it was Too Late? We hope so. Because if you were already interested in picking up Ninja Gaiden II, pre-ordering the game at Circuit City will score you the Halo 3 Legendary Map pack free. While the process isn't instantaneous, Circuit City will email you a redemption code within a week of your order. And seeing as Halo doesn't seem to be going anywhere in the near future, it could be a decent way to save yourself ten dollars 800 Microsoft Points.

Ninja Gaiden II (Xbox 360) [Circuit City via Xbox360Fanboy]

Hey Kotaku - a million people have probably already told you, but Halo 3's legendary map pack is up for grabs. Download speed is a bit of a crawl, as is probably to be expected, although at least it hasn't destroyed Xbox Live like the recent COD4 map pack did.

Next week, April 15, Halo 3 gamers will be soaking in new, Bungie-created downloadable content, a moisturizing formula of Ghost Town, Avalanche and Blackout. Just imagine the slurs you can toss out in these new environments! I can't promise these 27 screen shots of the new Legendary Map Pack will convince you to drop the Microsoft Points on new multiplayer arenas, but I'm pretty sure fans of scaffolding and planks will be pretty darn excited to lay their rods and cones on this pic. Simply stunning in its plank-ticity.

Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack Trailer

Call of Duty 4 Map Pack Montage

This is a great way to prep for the Call of Duty 4 map pack set to hit later this week. I'm going to have to go get in some more COD time, I've been really slack lately.

Free SOCOM 3, Combined Assault Map Packs Announced

All eyes may be on the upcoming online only SOCOM Confrontation for the Playstation 3, but that doesn't mean that the SOCOM developers have completely forgotten about their PS2 fan base.

The team just announced the release of a new downloadable map pack for SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy SEALs and SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Combined Assault. This third downloadable map pack includes SOCOM and SOCOM II maps Crossroads, Fishhook, Frostfire and Guidance.

The third and final map to be included in the upcoming Legendary map pack for Halo 3 should be familiar to fans. Known as "Blackout," the map is a remake of Halo 2's "Lockout" and joins "Avalanche" and "Ghost Town" in the forthcoming downloadable. The official Bungie site has a quick Q&A with the "Blackout" design team in which much hilarity ensues. Ha ha. There are also pictures!

Legendary Map: Blackout [Bungie]

April 3rd will see the launch of Call of Duty 4: Game of the Year Edition and with it, the roll out of the Modern Warfare Variety Map Pack. Each copy of COD4:GOTY will come with a download token for the new multi-player maps, or you can download it from XBL for 800 MS points. Here's a quick rundown of the details:

The Variety Map Pack includes four new multiplayer maps. "Creek" is a wide-open village ravaged by combat where concealment is the difference between life and death. In "Broadcast," fight throughout an enemy communications building with confined corridors and wide-open parking lots. "Chinatown" is a foggy downtown district, lit only by a full moon and the neon glow of the city. "Killhouse" features a desolate training warehouse filled with a variety of building mock-ups and soft and hard cover points.

More details including an early sneak peek of the maps at select GameStops can be found on the Xbox COD website.

Modern Warfare Variety Map Pack [Xbox]

With just a few days to go until its release, we are already getting some bonus content for Rainbow Six Vegas 2. GameInvasion is hosting a special "Comcast Event Map" that can be downloaded from their site as soon as the game hits your PS3 or 360. No word on exactly what the map will contain, but I have to admit, the title has me scratching my head. "Comcast Event Map" dredges up some strange thoughts involving dicey connections, rude customer service and an On-Demand system that only works about 40% of the time. Let's hope this map involves none of these.

You can get complete instructions on how to load up this special map her on the GameInvasion website.

Just minutes after the Halo 3 map packs were supposed to hit, and hadn't quite yet, we had already received an email from a very antsy and very agitated Halo fan. So it's probably worthwhile to note that the Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack is now available.

The pack, which was recently shown off by Red Vs. Blue, features three new maps with endless customization possibilities.

Standoff's symmetrical valley, with its entrenched bases and fields of boulders is ideal for mid-sized objective and Slayer game types, while Rat's Nest's vast, labyrinthine passages bring something new to the "Halo" multiplayer experience: an indoor vehicle paradise, strongly influenced by the Campaign mode, ideal for big team battles. Finally, Foundry is the ultimate Forge map - players can edit every single object in this voluminous industrial warehouse, place stairways, walls, bridges and tunnels to create an entirely new play space and build almost any kind of map they can think of.

The pack will set you back 800 points if you get it now or nothing if you are willing to wait until this coming spring.

Red Versus Blue On Halo 3 Map Pack

The Red Versus Blue guys bring their cheeky, dare I saw whimsical, sense of humor to this preview of the upcoming Halo 3 map pack. On second thought, strike the whimsical, anything that involves shooting a huge set of balls at someone's face could probably use a better adjective.

Frankie doesn't spill much over at Bungie, but he does mention that the multiplayer design team is cooking up a special Halloween treat for Halo 3 players.

Our multiplayer design teams are hard at work on a couple of things. One of them is a fun, seasonal addition to the matchmaking playlist which should keep you entertained for about 27 hours around Halloween. No specifics yet, but suffice it to say that if you want to spend your witchy holiday playing Halo 3, we'll give you some spooktacular reasons to do so.

Frankie then commences to tease us again with little detail about the first downloadable map pack that will be coming to the game, talking about how he first hated a map he nicknamed Purple Reign because of its symmetry and now he loves it. Bah!

On a bright note he did hand out two sets of Recon Armor to gamers who suffered particularly embarrassing deaths in the game. The Rubber Bullet guy and the guy who managed to shoot himself in the head with his own Sniper Rifle both got a set.

Bungie Weekly Update

UT3 Bursting With Multiplayer Maps