Five new screenshots for Portal 2 have made their way onto the internet, courtesy of Valve and Gamescom. The screenshots seem to show new areas, blue slime, and malevolent machine overlord, GLaDOS repairing the former Aperture Science Center. Oh,and I should probably note that the areas shown here are from the all new co-op mode , not the single player mode.

In case you missed it, EA’s modern relaunch of the  Medal of Honor franchise had a multiplayer beta that was only accessible to those who had  preorderd the game. I didn’t play the beta myself, but from what I understand the game had quite a few issues plaguing it. The good news is that EA and DICE have been paying close attention to the feedback and are already working on addressing some of the most frequent complaints. Here is what Matthew Puritt, EA Community Manager said today on Playstation Blog:

Good ‘ol Valve has just revealed the new DLC mission “The Sacrifice” for Left 4 Dead 1 and 2. Yeah, that’s right both of them will be compatible with this new expansion. This won’t be the only DLC mission available for both games either, since they’ll be updating the No Mercy campaign from the first game so it can be played by Left 4 Dead 2 players as well.

The Sacrifice, which hits in October, will be a retelling of the Left 4 Dead 2 mission “The Passing” from the first L4D cast’s perspective. It will explain how they managed to meet up with the second game’s crew and end with you getting to choose for yourself which L4D1 character will die. Which sucks since I really like all the characters… Along with this will be a digital comic next month that catches everyone up on the campaign thus far.

As usual, The Sacrifice will be free DLC on the Master Race PC and [sub-race] Mac, but will cost you on the lowly Xbox 360.

I guess after all these years, Sega still really sucks at advertising their stuff. Sonic Colors’ lead designer Takashi Iizuka is talking down the upcoming Wii game saying that anybody that liked Sonic back on Genesis should stop looking forward to Colors and firmly tries to establish the game as a “children’s game.” Um… okay… all Sonic games are technically children’s games though. Here’s the confusing ramblings of a crazy man who doesn’t like money that I’m talking about:

“We know there are sometimes opinions about control from core gamers, but we’re intending Sonic Colors to be played by children of probably between six and twelve years-old. So, with Sonic Colors we have aimed to make a game that everyone can control and have fun in. So, it’s not really a game for the core gamers. If you take the rail grind, it’s something that’s fast, not difficult but is fun to do and looks great. It’s about making a game that’s right for the core audience of the game.”

Uh huh… so what he’s saying is that this game is for 6 to 12-year olds, but is something everyone can control and have fun with, but is really not a game for core gamers. Dude, just say it’s like the daytime levels from Sonic Unleashed and people will be cool with it… as long as they fixed it up. Honestly, though, I was pretty interested in this game, but with the developer trying to make me not get excited for the game, I have a feeling its probably going to suck and he doesn’t want the backlash that comes with high hopes.

Bah, I’ll get it anyway. I want that awesome Sonic Hat.

EA confirmed today that Crysis 2 will now be hitting store shelves next March, rather than this holiday season.  EA had announced last week that the game may be pushed out of the 2010 holiday lineup.  While many prayed that they were lying, it seems that the game won’t be out for over seven months.  To somewhat cushion the blow, developer Crytek did give a concrete date for the game.  According to a tweet from the developer’s account, Crysis 2 will be in stores on March 22nd, 2011.

Doom developer id has at long last announced the release date for their upcoming FPS Rage at QuakeCon today.  Rage will be in stores on September 13th, 2011 in the US and the 15th in Europe.  For those of you that haven’t heard of the game, Rage is an FPS set in a Road Warrior-esque post-apocalyptic world.  Please resist the urge to call Rage a Fallout clone; the game has been in development since 2007.  id is the founder of the FPS genre; any game they make deserves your attention, so mark your calendars and add Rage to the list of things you plan to do in 2011.

Irrational Games lead designer Ken Levine unveiled his studio’s next project, a follow-up to their 2007 epic Bioshock, to a select group of reporters in New York on Wednesday night.  The studio sent an ambiguous invitation about the event to reporters a week ago, and then teased the announcement with a cryptic website; whatisicarus.com.  Last night, those reporter were shocked to find that Levine’s big secret was not some unimaginable new project, but an unimaginable sequel, Bioshock Infinite.  Those in attendance got to see a trailer, which you can see after the jump, and a guided demo played by Levine.

Warner Bros. Interactive finally gave Batman fans the tiniest bit of info about the highly-anticipated sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum.  Titled Batman: Arkham City, in the game players will lead the dark knight through a new prison, Arkham City, located “in the heart of Gotham city”.

Bungie doesn’t like jackasses.  Halo 3 was the first game to have an “asshole” button; the ability to mute individual players who shit-talk a little too much online.  Again taking a pioneering role in the fight against undisciplined 12-year old boys, Halo: Reach community manager Brian Jarrard says that the developer plans to punish players who habitually quit matches early.  ”Rage-quitters” are a pain; they ruin matches by screwing up balancing in any team-based game.  While leaving a game early may not be a big deal to some, for players who care about their stats, quitting is a cardinal sin and rage-quitters are the worst of the worst because they might quit from many games in a row if they’re having a bad day.

Jerrard, speaking to Xbox360Achievements.org, said; “I think one of the new things people will be excited about too, is how we’re going to be able to penalize people who are habitually quitting out of games, which isn’t exactly cheating, but it creates a really negative experience for everybody else in the game…  We want to be able to remove them from the population so they can’t make everyone else keep having a bad time.”

The question is, what exactly does he mean by “penalize”?  Will Bungie be banning people, possibly for having a life outside of video games?  Probably not.  Realistically, Bungie’s wrath will come in the form of a mandatory cool-down period, which would punish rage-quitters without hurting people who simply have to leave.