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This is one of the better trailers we've seen for Rage, as it combines our two loves - story exposition and game footage - into one delicious whole. This trailer gives a little background into the current mythos, showcases game mechanics for both on foot and in vehicle sections, and even has a fat man telling you about the rules of his little game. There's no developer interviews or walkthroughs here, just action and more action. It's a pretty interesting trailer and it just gets us more pumped for Rage's release.

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Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!

id is well known for two series of games: Doom and Quake. While we've certainly covered Doom before, and Quake's multiplayer offering, we've never really gotten to the core of the Quake franchise. Therefore, we should take a look at one of the most revolutionary games of all time. While it certainly doesn't seem like it, Quake sent shockwaves through the first-person realm that are still felt today. It's even more important than Doom, although only slightly so, and thanks to wider availability of retro games, Quake is open to those that wish to play a classic first-person shooter with high-end systems.

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

Most rogue-likes tend to be of the role-playing variety rather than the action variety. Instead of whipping out guns, you hack apart goblins, gain levels, and traverse through dungeons. But what if it was much more simple, action-oriented, and just plain fun for your average joe? That's where DoomRL comes in. A rogue-like of id's classic shooter, it manages to be both a great remake into an interesting gameplay system as well as a compelling game on its own. It could easily be adapted to different settings or expanded to include even more goodies, which is the real beauty of it.

Welcome to a new regular feature here on Big Download! Each week we find more and more free games that do not quite fit into the freeware mold. Games that do not require a subscription fee to play, but encourage player usage of money through microtransactions or special subscription services. This is Playing For Free, a column that showcases these games.

Quake 3 is a classic of the FPS genre, and is still played today. Everyone deserves a slice of that classic gameplay pie. id knows this, and in their infinite wisdom, created the free browser port Quake Live. You might ask how good can a browser game be, and if you've played Quake Live you know the answer: incredible. There's a lot to Quake Live behind the scenes that sets it apart from the game that it is ported from. So let's take a look at this incredible port of an incredible game and just why it should absorb your time so much.

The fallout (pun intended) from Wednesday's news of id Software being acquired by ZeniMax Media is still being felt and today our sister site Joystiq and other media outlets got to speak with id co-founder John Carmack and the other principles involved. Here's a quickie summary of the important bits:

• Joystiq asked about the possibility of the id Tech 5 graphics engine being used in other games that are being developed by ZeniMax Media. It's CEO Robert Altman said, "We'll certainly take advantage of the expertise and brain of John Carmack throughout the organization. Specifically, what we will do with the technology, the id tech engine, and the proprietary technology that's been developed here, is to be discussed. We haven't determined how we are going to handle that proprietary technology, going forward. So, it's just one of the agenda items for us as we integrate these organizations."

Let's face it: id Software could charge for Quake Live if they wanted to. For a game that was first released in the now-fossilized year of 1999, Quake III: Arena is still the crux of many competitions, user-created mods, and casual LAN parties. Yes, id could charge $20, $50, or even a monthly subscription fee, and most Quake-aholics would gladly submit their dollars into John Carmack's overflowing bank account.

They could make you pay -- but they won't. After Quake Live wraps up its beta phase, the browser-based re-release of id's 1999 multiplayer opus will be available free of charge for anyone with a web browser and an itchy trigger clicker. Big Download recently delved into the Quake Live beta to sift out the new from the classic, and to relive a cherished FPS that the world will continue to enjoy for years to come.

Yesterday we reported that last October's Max Payne movie adaptation was making a fast track to a January 20 release on DVD and Blu-Ray. Today High-Def Digest reports that an older game-based movie will finally be released in Blu-Ray format. It's Doom, the 2005 Universal Studios film based (very loosely) on id Software's first person shooter.

Doom was one of the first movies to be released in the now defunct HD-DVD format that burned out earlier this year. The Blu-Ray release of the movie will be out on February 10 and will include all of the bonus features of the earlier HD-DVD release. It will also have BD-Live enabled features including a "Director's Chat" feature, access to a download center, and My Scenes Sharing.

While Xbox 360 and PS3 users have worked themselves into a veritable tizzy over downloadable content, PC users have been accustomed to having the lifeline of their favorite games extended far past their in-the-box values since the days of Doom - and even before that. What's more, we're used to downloading new levels, weapons, characters, and new episodes absolutely free of charge.

Big Download understands that a five-hour game can be extended by hundreds of hours via total conversions, brand new monsters, and weapons you've always wanted to see in your favorite title. In the spirit of extending a title's longevity beyond mere out-of-the-box expectations, MODmonday celebrates the best modifications for games new and old. Half-Life, Half-Life 2, StarCraft, Diablo II, Doom and more will all be represented here, ensuring a wide spread of mods available across every possible genre of PC gaming.

This week's MODmonday column features WolfGL, a source port of Wolfenstein 3D.

As the typical five-year lifespan of a console winds toward its conclusion, gamers inevitably pose questions of backwards-compatibility. They wonder, as is only logical, whether the dozens, hundreds, or thousands of dollars they invested in their gaming library will be relevant when the new generation of hardware emerges. Sometimes, as with the Xbox 360's update-oriented system, most last-gen titles will still function properly. Other times, as with the PlayStation 3's confusing array of SKUs, the answer alternates between "maybe," "hopefully," and "who knows"?

Despite occasional hardware hiccups and OS woes, the PC platform has managed to retain its awe-inspiring catalogue of titles, thanks in large part to an active community of uber-geeks intent on doing whatever must be done to ensure that disk-based classics don't fade into obscurity.

Welcome to Boot Disk, a weekly column dedicated to covering PC gaming's impressive and length history. Every Tuesday, we'll examine one of the platform's many titles that still lend themselves to eminence five, 10, 15, or decades' worth of years later. This week's Boot Disk features a look at Doom, the first-person shooter that bathed the industry in the gratifying hell-fire of deathmatch, mods, and LAN parties.

Read Boot Disk: Doom, or browse the Boot Disk Archive.

While Xbox 360 and PS3 users have worked themselves into a veritable tizzy over downloadable content, PC users have been accustomed to having the lifeline of their favorite games extended far past their in-the-box values since the days of Doom - and even before that. What's more, we're used to downloading new levels, weapons, characters, and new episodes absolutely free of charge.

Big Download understands that a five-hour game can be extended by hundreds of hours via total conversions, brand new monsters, and weapons you've always wanted to see in your favorite title. In the spirit of extending a title's longevity beyond mere out-of-the-box expectations, MODmonday celebrates the best modifications for games new and old. Half-Life, Half-Life 2, StarCraft, Diablo II, Doom and more will all be represented here, ensuring a wide spread of mods available across every possible genre of PC gaming.

This week's MODmonday kicks off an extended examination of classic games and the mods that make them a blast to play in our modern day and age. We begin the series by inspecting the Doomsday Engine, a port that adds modern mechanics to Doom, Doom II, Final Doom, Heretic, and Hexen.