We’ve all seen pictures or heard stories of Korean professional gamers raking in cash by playing Starcraft for crowds of adoring fans. We’ve also seen similar success here in the States, albeit on a smaller scale, with gamers like Fatal1ty marketing his own brand of gaming hardware. I’m sure many of you have asked yourselves, “How does one get involved in competitive gaming?”

Hopefully, I can help put you on the right path. A few years ago I was heavily involved in competitive Counter-Strike: Source. My team, GameBangers, and I had a pretty successful run winning several tournaments, and although I may not have been rolling in money like Fatal1ty, I did manage to get through high-school without a job. In hopes of opening up the rewarding world of competitive gaming, I decided to write up a very basic guide.

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Today publisher THQ announced that Relic’s RTS/RPG Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II will be receiving an expansion Spring 2010.

Dubbed Chaos Rising, the expansion adds twenty missions, a raised level cap set at 30, and new wargear including Chaos-tainted items that may have “dreadful consequences”. In terms of multiplayer, the new features include the Chaos Space Marine faction, new units for every existing faction, new maps and “a suite of innovative multiplayer options.” Read more… »

You read that right, this is not a fault of the emergency broadcast system. A group of loyal, and clearly somewhat obsessive, fans have recreated various parts of Monkey Island 2 utilising the Cryengine level editor.

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Aion already appears to be getting off to questionable start, not only with our previously reported epic queues, but now players are being banned for merely joking about gold sales.

Below is a copy/paste of the email banned Aion player Redmoons sent us.

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Well, Aion is technically here, and it’s not looking good so far. The official forums are flooded with complaints over insanely large queues for an event that was supposed to allow people that pre-ordered the game to play two days early with a pre-claimed character.

While this is fairly typical of MMOs (and this isn’t even technically a true launch), it seems like NCSoft wasn’t able to meet the initial demand despite pre-order and pre-registration statistics they had far in advance. Whether this problem will carry over to launch day come this Tuesday is yet to be seen. Read more… »

Somehow, someway, you’ve played either Crackdown, GTA IV, or Saints Row 2. Whether or not you liked them is a different story (I wasn’t too impressed with Crackdown), but at the very least, you can enjoy this brand new trailer for Real Time Worlds’ free to play MMO.

I think the best part about this game is how you can recreate a Tango & Cash tandem cop team with the fully customizable avatar system. If anyone wants to be Cash, let me know: he’s still available! Read more… »

As most of the MMO players amongst you know, the recently Westernized Aion opens its servers for pre-purchased customers on September 20 (tomorrow!) for North American, Australian and New Zealand players.

It was announced a few days ago that NCSoft had decided to listen to the large Oceanic community and create a server with a GMT+10 timezone, so AU/NZ/SP players could participate in events and endgame raid schedules! The server, Nezekan, is currently available for character selection and will be active on launch.

A couple of members from the local Aion Oceanic community have asked us to spread the word – If you’re an Aussie, choose Nezekan!

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Its no secret that the Australian video game classification system is backwards. Earlier this week ,Valves blockbuster Left 4 Dead 2 was refused classification in Australia. A recent comment from Valves own VP of marketing Doug Lombardi has told Shacknews that “everyone at Valve is pretty bummed”.

Well yeah… so are we.

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In honor of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, Telltale Games is offering the world a free, no-strings-attached download of the first episode of their new Tales of Monkey Island.

Not just to play today, but to OWN today, and forever!

Hit the jump for a link!  Do it now!

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There are plenty of casual puzzle games jostling for your attention during those scant few hours when you’re not killing dudes in Call of Duty or traipsing through the barren wastelands of Fallout 3.  Not every game aspires to be a sprawling epic.  A lot of games enjoy being merely “casual.”

QuantZ is one such game.  A seemingly simple match-four puzzle game with a slight twist and a beautifully dreamy aesthetic.  Does it differentiate itself from the pack, or is it just another “me too” puzzler?  Read on to find out.

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PopCap Games’ niche of delivering simple yet stylistic and entertaining games is truly amazing.  Rolling off a profound success with Plants vs. Zombies and a handful of other little jazzy titles, it’s not surprising that PopCap Games is the leading developer and publisher for the casual game market.

Their latest creation, Zuma’s Revenge, reinvents the wheel with a ball-blasting adventure.  With numerous levels to explore, various bosses to defeat, numerous power ups, and a handful of modes to test your skills, you’ll be stuck to your computer like spilled Pepsi on a movie theater aisle.  Read on to find out more. Read more… »

Following on from their massive half-price sale of 2K titles earlier this year, Direct2Drive are celebrating their five-year anniversary with 50 titles for $5 each.

Every week, ten new titles will be added to Direct2Drive’s bargain bin, with Week Two being announced as “Action Games Week”.

Hit the jump to check out what titles you can add to your el cheapo inventory.

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