Welcome to the Indie Showcase, a semi-regular column on Big Download that takes a look at games we haven't covered on the site that we really think you should play.

Wow. 2008 sure was a whirlwind year for independent games on PC and console alike. Games like World of Goo, Braid, and Everyday Shooter have defied our expectations and brought forth a sort of indie gaming renaissance. So let's take a look back at all those indie games released or significantly updated in 2008. There's a lot that can be learned from the independent and the auteur, after all. These games will be in no particular order, because I don't want to taint this list with trying to name a best, second best, and so on. They are all great games.

Click on the image above to continue reading about the best indie games of 2008

Take Two Interactive's 2K Games brand hit a home run in 2007 with the release of BioShock. The art-heavy shooter from its 2K Boston/Australia studio is already spawning a sequel which 2K Marin is developing for release this fall. But MCV reports that 2K Games could have even bigger plans for their franchise beyond just BioShock 2.

2K Games' global president Christoph Hartmann is quoted as saying, ""For BioShock, because it's so story driven, the question obviously arises: how long can you do it without turning into The Matrix?", He adds, "But, then again, look at Star Wars. It's a fight between good and evil, just like BioShock. If we spin it the right way and get the right twist of innovation, we can make six parts of it, as Star Wars did." Even with these kinds of ideas, Hartmann claims he doesn't want to "cash in" by simply releasing a ton of BioShock sequels.

"In general though, when I'm playing as Marcus Fenix or Nick Drake (or whoever), their body is my body. I don't compare it, I inhabit it. This may be unique to my experience, but I doubt it."

This was Penny Arcade's Jerry Holkins in a recent post, referring to the idea that some gamers find video game depictions of human bodies to be somewhat off-putting. To be sure, if you're in the habit of comparing yourself to the heroic ideal portrayed in games, you're bound to come up short in some respect or other. But as Tycho says, he doesn't compare his body to the game's protagonist, he becomes it. This begs the question: how big a problem is this? Does it amount to anything practical? What's the solution?

If you happen to have a little money left over from your grandmother's Christmas gift and haven't picked up the Civilization IV: Colonization or the PC version of NBA 2K9, then 2K Games has a nice deal for you. The publisher has now released a PDF coupon on their web site that can be printed out and used in select retailers to shave off $10 from the price of both those games.

Of course there are other consoles games you can use with the coupon but why would you bother with those (hehe)? The coupon can printed more than once if you want more than one game on the list. The coupon expires on Jan. 31.

Capcom is going to have a very busy February with the console release of Street Fighter IV (the PC version is due out later in 2009). Also on February 27 the second Street Fighter feature film is due in theaters. IGN has posted up the US trailer for the movie which is sub-titled The Legend of Chun-Li. Will this movie make us forget about that first horrible Street Fighter film or make us wish it was as good?

Meanwhile Capcom has released four more screenshots showing some more action from Street Fighter IV. The latest game in the fighting series (and the first to feature 3D characters) is looking like it will be one of the highlights of the first quarter of 2009.

It's perhaps the highest profile contest for indie game developers and today the Independent Games Festival announced the finalists for the 2009 edition in several catagories. The games were chosen out of 226 entries this year with the finalists picked by a number of game developers and journalists.

Winning one or more of the awards in the past has lead to bigger things for the games and their creators. Last year's winner of the Seumas McNally Grand Prize (worth $20,000) was Crayon Physics which, ironically, is due to release its commercial version for the PC later today. Hit indie games World of Goo and Audiosurf also won IGF awards last year before being released to great acclaim and sales.

The winners of the 2009 IGF will be announced on March 25 during the Game Developers Conference in San Fransisco. Check out the nominees after the jump:

The NPD Group has provided their latest top 10 best seling PC games list for the US retail store market. Unfortunately the list, for the week ending December 27, is just a repeat of the same list from last week with some changes in positions.

As expected Blizzard's MMO expansion pack World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King remains in the number one spot but EA's The Sims 2Double Deluxe supplants Spore this week in the number 2 spot. Other than that, this new list is a bit of a yawner:

1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
3. Spore - Electronic Arts
4. Left 4 Dead - Valve/EA
5. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
6. Fallout 3 - Bethesda Softworks
7. Call Of Duty: World At War - Activision
8. World of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
9. The Sims 2 Mansion and Garden Stuff - Electronic Arts
10. Bejeweled Twist - Popcap Games

It's perhaps the single biggest web data base for game mods and now Moddb.com has begun the process to pick the best mods for 2008 in their seventh annual awards. From now until Jan. 16 people will be asked to nominate their favorite mods released in 2008 as well as their favorite upcoming mods. After that the voting will begin and last until Feb. 1. The winners will be announced at the end of February.

Winners won't just get bragging rights either. A number of sponsors have donated prizes to the winners in various categories. The winning Best Mod Team in both the Editor's Choice and Players categories will get the big prize; a full Torque Game Engine Advanced license from GarageGames (valued at $295 for an indie game or $14.95 for commercial use) along with a whole suite of other game development tools.

Eidos' line-up of games for 2009 includes one that we are very interested in playing. Battlestations Pacific is the sequel to the WWII naval strategy-action game Battlestations: Midway and today Eidos took the curtains off the game's new official web site.

The new site has more info, a new dev blog, official forums and new official screenshots from the game that will pit American and Japanese planes, ships and subs against one another in the Pacific campaign of WWII. The game is a Games for Windows Live title so expect things like achievements and other features to be supported. The game is due out sometime in 2009 but no specific release date has been announced.

Australia has been known for some time as one of the hardest countries to get an adult-oriented game approved by the local ratings board. The lack of an adult rating for games (unlike their movie industry) is the main cuprit. Now a title that was once banned for sale in the country, Silent Hill: Homecoming, has had that decision overturned.

According to a Gamespot AU story, Australia's Office of Film and Literature Classification has now given Konami's survival horror game a MA15+ rating, the highest a game can get without being banned for sale. It's currently unknown if the publisher made a push to release the game as is or if any edits to the game's violent content were made. Last month a simiar ban on Monolith's upcoming horror shooter F.E.A.R 2 was also overturned.

Update: Games On Net confirms that the game was in fact edited for contest in order to receive the MA15+ rating

Last month the rumor mill started circulating that Ziff Davis was going to sell off its 1Up.com network of gaming web sites to UGO (owned by the Hearst Corporation), Well, 1Up.com has now made that deal official; the web site has announced that UGO has bought the main site along with GameVideos.com, MyCheats.com and GameTab.com. Specific financial terms were not disclosed. Another 1Up.com site, Filefront.com, is not included in the purchase. According to an internal Ziff Davis email posted at Gamasutra, Filefront will continue on Ziff Davis' PCMag network of sites.

Also not part of the purchase is Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine, the multi-platform gaming mag that has been in existence since 1989. Again the internal email stated, "With demand for print continuing to decline amongst both advertisers and readers and the content being produced by 1UP no longer available for use in the publication, it simply did not make sense for us to move forward with this business any longer." The January 2009 dated issue which was sent out in December will be the final issue. There's no word yet on how subscribers to the magazine will be compensated.

Update: Our sister site Joystiq is reporting that quite a number of 1Up.com's staff have been laid off as a result of the purchase by UGO. Our thoughts go out to all of the staff affected by this move.

If you have been waiting for a playable demo for the PC port of Lord of the Rings Conquest, you are officially out of luck. Big Download has learned that the Electronic Arts fantasy action game, due for release next week, will not see a demo released for the PC platform unlike the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles.

Big Download contacted EA's spokesperson for the game at developer Pandemic Studios who told us flat out, "There is no plan for a demo on PC." The spokesperson did not elaborate on why the PC version will not see such a release. A multiplayer demo for the game was released for PS3 owners just before Christmas and the Xbox 360 console got the same demo the day after New Year's Day.

EA has been notoriously stingy of late in releasing PC demos for its multiplatform games. Two such games released in 2008, Mirror's Edge and Dead Space, had demos for the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles but not for the PC version. And of course neither the PC nor consoles got a demo of EA's 2008 driving game Need For Speed Undercover.

It's one of our most anticipated PC games of 2009 and today the official community web site for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II has officially revealed the system requirements for the upcoming RTS title from Relic and THQ, Not only that but the site states that info on how players can get into the beta test for the game will be announced on Thursday.

With that out of the way let's get to the system specs:

Minimum Requirements
* Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista SP1
* P4 3.2 GHz (single core) or any Dual Core processor
* 1 GB RAM (XP), 1.5 GB RAM (Vista)
* A 128MB Video Card (Shader Model 3) - Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT / ATI X1600, or equivalent
* 5.5 GB of Hard Drive space

Recommended
* Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista SP1
* AMD Athlon 64×2 4400+ or any Intel Core 2 Duo
* 2 GB RAM (XP and Vista)
* A 256MB Video Card (Shader Model 3) - Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT / ATI X1900, or equivalent
* 5.5 GB of Hard Drive space

The newest trailer for The Lord of the Rings: Conquest shows gameplay using the different classes familiar to the Tolkien world. Players will have a chance to battle as front line soldiers, either on the side of good or evil, in the war that spans Middle-earth.

Download HD The Lord of the Rings: Conquest Trailer 5 (31 MB)
Check out all The Lord of the Rings: Conquest Downloads

The news on the HP Firebird gaming PC was leaked out last week but this week HP and its subsidary Voodoo PC made the news official this week. The slimmed down and powered down gaming PC product will be made available for purchase online later this week with the starting price of $1,799.

However, many people (including some of our comments at Big Download) have questions whether the new HP Firebird is indeed a bargain at its price with some saying they could make a PC using the same or better componants for less. On his official blog site, Voodoo PC owner Radul Sood says HP worked with Nvidia to create new video cards that are smaller but have comparible perfomance to their larger counterparts. Creative Labs was also asked to make a smaller version of its X-FI sound card for the system.

That and other changes make the Firebird unique, according to Sood. He states, "You're going to hear a lot about the HP Firebird with VoodooDNA, because I truly believe it breaks new ground for the performance PC industry. It's the first of its kind, not only for HP, but for all of our partners." He adds, "Sure there will be people who say things like 'I can build one for less' – but they simply cannot. You will not be able to build a PC that offers a balance of performance, silence, size, scalability, reliability, and efficiency for less."