FPS

Last December, Valve announced that their zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead 2 had sold over 2 million copies in retail stores in the game's first two weeks of release. This week, Electronic Arts, which distributed the game in retail stores, announced during their conference call to investors that the game has sold over 2.9 million copies worldwide for both the PC and Xbox 360 ports.

Naturally both these numbers do not include the number of PC copies of the game that have been sold directly via Valve's Steam client. Valve has kept those numbers completely secret but its likely that if added to the retail sales it would increase the total unit sales to well over 3 million copies.

We had a feeling about this last week and for once we were right. Ubisoft has officially announced what they have been teasing us about for a year. A new Ghost Recon shooter game is in the works. Officially titled Ghost Recon Future Soldier, the game is due for release before the end of 2010. Ubisoft trademarked the title late last year.

Developed by Ubisoft's Paris studio, the publisher is keeping most details of the game to itself. It does state that the game will feature "prototype high-tech weaponry" and high end tech along with both single and multiplayer modes. There's no official word yet if the game will be released for the PC although almost all of the previous Ghost Recon games have been released for the PC platform.

Update: A "tweet" on the Twitter page of Ubisoft's community manager Kimi Matsuzaki states, "For those wondering: We will tell more about the PC version later." A later "tweet" seems to indicate the PC port will be released sometime after the console versions.

It looks like Electronic Arts is going back to war a bit faster than anticipated. During their financial press release today, the publisher announced that their next Medal of Honor game is now currently scheduled to be released in their second 2011 fiscal quarter, which means a third quarter 2010 calendar release (between July and September).

The game's earlier release is perhaps a way for EA to get the game out before Activision releases their next Call of Duty game which, while not officially announced is expected to be released in the fall quarter of 2010. As we have reported before, the new Medal of Honor game is set in modern day Afghanistan and will feature a single player campaign made by EA's Los Angeles studios and multiplayer modes made by Digital Illusions.

In the summer of 2008, Electronic Arts announced they would be publishing a new action game from developer Epic Games and their subsidiary People Can Fly (creators of the original Painkiller). Little has been revealed about the game since that announcement. Today, however, EA has confirmed a first quarter 2011 time frame for the game's release.

That falls inside EA's fourth quarter 2011 fiscal time schedule. Interestingly EA's press release states that the game will be a co-publishing deal but there's no word yet on what the other publisher will be. Last December, People Can Fly registered the name "Bulletstorm" but there's no word if that title is the one that will be used for this game.

Looks like we will be putting on the Nanosuit to combat some aliens by the end of the year. As part of their financial press release today, Electronic Arts announced that Crysis 2, the sequel to the sci-fi first person shooter from developer Crytek, will be coming out in EA's fiscal 2011 third quarter. That's the same as the fourth quarter 2010 calendar year (October-December).

As we have reported before, this will be the first game in the series that will be released for consoles as well as the PC. It's also the first game to use Crytek's CryEngine 3 technology . Crysis 2 is supposed to move the setting of the first game from a tropical Pacific island to the urban jungle of New York City.

It's been a while since we have heard anything new on the Shattered Horizon front but today the zero-g first person shooter's developer Futuremark Games Studio offered an update and new screenshots from the upcoming free Moonbase expansion pack.

As we have reported before the free expansion will contain four new maps which when released will double the number of levels in the full game. The locations include a mass driver installation, a lunar hotel, a communication dish that was once on the Moon and a cargo ship. There's still no word on when the Moonbase expansion pack will be made available. Last December it was revealed that layoffs had occurred at Futuremark Games Studios although it was not clear how many people on the team were dismissed.

The indie spirit of developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment continues as they work on their sci-fi FPS-RTS hybrid game Natural Selection 2. The developer has been pretty shy about releasing actual media from the game but this weekend they posted a brief gameplay trailer on YouTube.

The pre-alpha footage, which can be seen after the jump, shows off some space marine action which includes showing off some auto-cannon action. It also shows some brief alien battle action that really has some teeth behind it. As we have reported before,the developer is letting its in-house level editor be released for anyone who pre-orders the game. Natural Selection 2 is due for release later this year.

Pre-orders for the PC version of Battlefield Bad Company 2 continue to do well on Steam. The latest weekly top 10 sales list for the download service shows the upcoming first person shooter at the number one position. However, the indie FPS MMO Global Agenda from Hi-Rez Studios came in at number two for the past week. The game officially launched on February 1. Steam is currently the only place to download the game (Hi-Rez is also selling a box copy via Amazon.com).

BioShock 2, due for release next week, comes in at number three on the list with Mass Effect 2 and Modern Warfare 2 at number four and five, respectively: The full list is as follows:

1. Battlefield Bad Company 2 - Digital Illusions/EA
2. Global Agenda - Hi-Rez Studios
3. BioShock 2 - 2K Marin/2K Games
4. Mass Effect 2 - BioWare/EA
5. Modern Warfare 2 - Infinity Ward/Activision
6. Aliens Vs Predator - Rebellion/Sega
7. Mass Effect 2 Digital Deluxe Edition - BioWare/EA
8. Titan Quest Gold - THQ
9. Left 4 Dead 2 - Valve
10. Star Trek Online Digital Deluxe Edition - Cryptic Studios/Atari

This week's new PC game releases include a sequel to an acclaimed first person shooter, a mini-expansion to a great space strategy game and a downloadable action game based on a long running sci-fi TV and movie franchise that isn't Star Trek. In addition to those games, players will be able to download a unit add-on for Empire: Total War (Elite Units of the East) and a new game in the Galcon strategy game series (Galcon Fusion). Also scheduled to ship to stores this week is Windchaser, a fantasy RPG that was first released in Europe back in 2008.

BioShock 2: 2K Marin takes on the first person shooter franchise with this sequel to the 2007 game that was first created by Irrational Games. The single player game takes place 10 years after the original with the player now in the role of a prototype Big Daddy in the underwater city of Rapture. The sequel also has a multiplayer mode, developed by Digital Extremes, that takes place just before the fall of Rapture.

Last July it was announced that the action figure company NECA would release action figures based on BioShock 2. Now comes word that those action figures have begun to ship to stores. Obviously their release are being timed with the release of the 2K Marin-Digital Extremes first person shooter sequel.

In fact one of the figures, the Big Daddy Deluxe version, has been in stores since November. The BioShock 2 series 1 figures are now avaiable which include the Big Sister and Subject Delta (the player character). In addition NECA is selling two life-sized game props; a Big Daddy plush toy and a Eve Hypo Syringe. You can order all the action figures and props at the NECA web site.

The Battlefield series of first person shooters began with Battlefield 1942 and now it looks like the latest game in the series, Battlefield Bad Company 2, will return players to that conflict briefly in single player mode. According to a content listing for the game on the ESRB ratings web site, "players conduct missions on an unnamed Japanese island during World War II" before entering the game's modern day era.

Of course the big question is, "What's the connection between the WWII intro missions and the modern day campaign?" A bigger question for PC owners is, "When are we getting our promised port of Battlefield 1943?" The downloadable game was supposed to be out by the end of this quarter but there's been no updates on that game's progress for the last few months by developer Digital Illusions.

[Via Blue's News]

As we await the release next week of BioShock 2 (and the early reviews have thankfully been solid) 2K Games' Cult of Rapture community site has posted word of two cool collector's items that related to the first person shooter sequel. One of the items you can see above. It's a Sinclair Solutions Syringe Pen that is engraved with the Sinclair Solutions logo and comes in that nifty looking case with the BioShock 2 logo. Pre-orders for the pen are now being taken. The pen itself will ship at the end of February for $34.99. It's supposed to be a limited edition but there's no word on how limited the availability will be.

On sale right now are four special BioShock 2 art prints created by various well known illustrators (including the Penny Arcade team). Each of the four prints will set you back $19.99. You can order both the prints and the pen at 2K Games' online store.

Although it may seem like humans are at a disadvantage when it comes to battling against other species, it turns out heavy firepower goes a long way toward holding off the alien menace... at least for a little while. Aliens vs Predator releases on February 16.

Download HD Aliens vs Predator 'Marines' Gameplay Trailer (119 MB)
Check out all Aliens vs Predator downloads

While we wait for the next major content update for Left 4 Dead 2 to be released, Valve continues to push out new updates for their zombie co-op shooter via Steam. Today a new patch was made available and while it's mainly bug fixes it does have something interesting; a way for banned players to get a little reprieve.

Folks who Valve banned from playing the multiplayer portion of Left 4 Dead 2 via Valve's own VAC anti-cheat system can now play the game again . . . but that access is limited to the game's single player campaigns. They can also check out the end credits and even Valve's extensive in-game commentary. All in all it's a nice thing to offer people who can't play fair in multiplayer games.

The patch also has some other fixes and changes including enabling PZ bots and fixing some issues in the Left 4 Dead 2 SDK release.

Fact 1: Ubisoft has said a new Ghost Recon game has been in the works for over a year.

Fact 2: Ubisoft has not revealed any details on that new Ghost Recon game although it has trademarked the title Ghost Recon Future Soldier.

Fact 3: There is a Twitter account for "UbiKimi" who is actually Kimi Matsuzaki who works at Red Storm. The studio has been the primary developer for the Ghost Recon series.

Fact 4: Her Twitter account announced today, "TGIF all! Looking forward to a Big announcement coming up next week! :)"

Add all that up and it's pointing in the direction of maybe, just maybe, we will get the first details on the next Ghost Recon game in the next seven days. Or maybe it's something else entirely.