We actually thought news would be slow this past week; boy were we wrong. Let's check out the big events and exclusive content for the past seven days at Big Download!
Exclusive features

• Reviews: We give our final verdicts for Prototype and Fallout 3: Point Lookout
• Happy 13th Birthday Quake: We look back at the id Software FPS franchise
• The big PC game acquisitions: In the way of id Software's purchase by ZeniMax, we take a look at other PC game industry purchases.
• Mac Monday: Our weekly Mac games column takes a look at the life sim Spouts Adventure.
• Boot Disk: Our weekly look at retro gaming centers on the classic action-RPG System Shock 2.
• Big Ideas: "Can a game make you cry?" That's the topic of our latest weekly game theme feature.
• Freeware Friday: This week our free PC game feature is about the unusual puzzle game Chauk.
• Contest: You still have time to enter our contest where we are giving away some cool Turtle Beach headsets and Say2Play PC game voice command software products

For some reason this week was a big one for demos and full games including the America's Army 3 release. Let's look, as we always do on Sundays, at the highlights of the past seven days:
Exclusive Features

• Top 10 Most Anticipated Summer 2009 PC Games: We give our pics for the games we most want to play this summer.
• Interviews: We get some answers about America's Army 3's launch issues and chat with Transformers actor Shia LaBeouf on his gaming habits (he loves Civilization).
• The Virtual US Open: We have a feature on the new web-based PC-Mac game that gives players a chance to play in an official online version of the US Open.
• Contest: You can still register to win one of 25 keys for the full version of Say2Play software along with one of five ay2Play Ear Force HPA2 Headsets.
• Mac Monday: Our weekly Mac gaming column takes a look at the time management title Mystic Emporium.
• Boot Disk: Our weekly retro games column takes a look at Blizzard's classic RTS game Warcraft 2.
• Big Ideas: Our weekly look at game themes looks at how games could contribute to a new mythology.
• Boot Disk: Our PC hardware column takes a look at how server farms don't need to be super-cooled any more.
• Freeware Friday: Our latest column on free PC games takes a loot at the genre-mixing title Triangle Wizard.

Post E3 week is always a time to reflect, to look back and also to look forward. We did all of that and more in the last seven days. Let's check out the highlights together, shall we?
Exclusive features

• E3 2009: We conclude our E3 2009 coverage with impressions of Heroes of Telara, Assassin's Creed 2, Splinter Cell: Conviction, R.U.S.E, Wolfenstein, DC Universe Online, Singularity, Alpha Protocol, and Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. We also have impressions of the Peregrine PC gaming glove. Plus check out our different take on E3 awards and also point out which major PC games were no shows at E3 this year.
• The Sims 3 review - We give our final verdict on the long awaited people sim sequel.
• Mac Monday - This week's Mac games column takes a look at the RPG Science Girls!
• Boot Disk - our retro games feature takes a look at SimCity 2000
• Big Ideas - Our weekly look at game themes is all about enemies in games
• Freeware Friday - Our weekly look at free PC game examines the creepy horror themed platform-puzzle game Eversion.

WoW Insider is now WoW.com, if you haven't yet heard, but don't worry: we still have everything you need to know about the world's most popular massively multiplayer online game, from tips and tricks to news and views. Here's our most popular posts from the past week, including news about all the new Druid forms above -- if it's in Azeroth, we've got news about it, just for you.

News

• Beware of Blood Elves selling mounts
  One of our writers' friends falls prey to the game's newest scam.
• Achieved: Level 1 to 80 with no deaths
  A character appropriately named Cautious reached the highest level in the game without dying once.
• Revamped Night Elf Druid cat forms revealed
  New looks for Night Elf Druids.
• Zarhym explains Druid form color combos
  Want to make sure your Druid has the form you want? Here's how.
• Ensidia gets world-first Algalon 25-man kill
  One of the game's biggest pro guilds downs the last major boss in the current content.

Features

• An interview with a scammer
  The perp in the article above gets the WoW.com interview spotlight shined on him.
• WoW, Casually: Rating the classes for casuals
  Which class is best to play for a casual player?
• Arcane Brilliance: Reaching the hit cap
  Mages, here's how to make the most out of those spells you're casting.
• The lore of Ulduar
  The latest game dungeon has more than a few hooks and hints into the rest of the World of Warcraft.
• The Queue: Waterfalls
  Our Q&A column will actually go chasing waterfalls to find answers to your questions. Not just stick to the rivers and the lakes that they're used to.

E3 2009 has come and gone and we have the pictures to prove it. Check out our coverage of the annual show and keep checking next week for more post-E3 reports:
Exclusive Features

• E3 2009 game impressions: We have tons of E3 2009 game impressions from both the show floor and behind closed doors including Brink, Left 4 Dead, Rogue Warrior, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Painkiller Resurrection, APB, BioShock 2, Borderlands, Homefront, Dragon Age: Origins, League of Legends, Alan Wake, The Secret of Monkey Island SE and Tales of Monkey Island, Supreme Commander 2, Mass Effect 2, Aliens Vs. Predator, and Mafia 2.
• E3 2009 in pictures: Check out our galleries of banner ads from the convention center, along with pictures from the show floor and even more show floor pictures. We have pictures of some celebs that showed up at E3. And of course we have galleries featuring the return of the E3 booth babes!: Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3.
• Team Fortress 2 Spy/Sniper Achievement Guide: Check out Part 6 and Part 7 for the Sniper and Part 6 and Part 7 for the Spy.
• Mac Monday: Our weekly look at games for the Mac checks out the airplane action game Altitude.
• Boot Disk: Our retro game feature takes a look at the original Rollercoaster Tycoon.
• Big Ideas: Our column on game themes discusses the idea of experience in games.
• Big Iron: Our weekly hardware feature laments that E3 2009 was not a good year for major PC hardware reveals.
• Freeware Friday: Our regular look at free games checks out the puzzle shooter Every Extend

Bioware released the first cinematic trailer for their Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO, and it's so awesome you might just forget that Jar-Jar Binks ever existed. Bounty hunters, Jedis, lightsabers, blasters, dramatic orchestral soundtracks, and gravelly Sith voices making threatening statements -- if it's from a long time ago and a galaxy far away (and incredibly awesome), you'll find it in this trailer.

The trailer itself is called "Deceived," and apparently it's about the Sith Empire's sacking of Coruscant. And that's how it begins -- Sith baddies are invading a Jedi temple, and dispatching the meager forces they find there. But a Jedi temple has some strong defense of its own... and that's where the video gets really good. Bioware has also released information about something called The HoloNet, an ingame database of gameworld history, classes, planets and factions, and they've told us that the game is "fully voiced" -- every character you meet will have audio to share. Head on over to our sister site Massively for more.

The Left 4 Dead 2 announcement at the Microsoft press conference gobsmacked us this morning (didn't they just release Left 4 Dead like last November? What is this, Madden?), but apparently the sneaky folks at Rock Paper Shotgun weren't surprised: they've already seen the game in action. We're hoping to see it this week ourselves, but until then, here's a few juicy zombie tidbits to hold you over: the game takes place in the Southern United States, and the five campaigns will take you on a Southern odyssey from Savannah to New Orleans. There are four new characters also: a rough high school coach who's used to taking charge, a female cable news reporter, a rustic Southern mechanic type, and a Sawyer-style con man. The characters keep the snappy dialogue, and the campaigns will tell an overarching story as you move through them.

The tale of Guybrush Threepwood and his ascent through the pirate ranks is one of the most-loved stories from the adventure games of yesteryear, and now you can get ready for a whole lot more of it. LucasArts has announced to us at E3 that they're working with Telltale Games on Tales of Monkey Island, a five-part episodic series to be released monthly on both PC and WiiWare. LucasArts says that there's no shortage of demand among both developers and gamers to make and play as much Monkey Island as possible, so they're giving what they call "one of the forefathers of adventure gaming and the precusor to the RPG genre" the Sam and Max treatment.

There aren't any other platforms scheduled for release -- while the Monkey Island special edition is being released on Xbox Live, LucasArts CEO Darrell Rodriguez was tight-lipped when it came to getting the episodic content on consoles or even a platform like the iPhone. But he did tell us that their plan is to take us back to the "halcyon days" of the company, "when people couldn't wait for a LucasArts game to come out." Considering that the last Monkey Island release was almost nine years ago, it'll be nice to have the wait for a trip to the Tri-Island Area reduced to just 30 days.

Yep, we are just hours away from E3 2009 madness. But we had a lot of pre-E3 activity to talk about last week. Before we head to the LA Convention Center let's look back at the last seven days:
Exclusive Features

• Countdown to E3 2009: We conclude our features on the games we want to see at the show this coming week with our picks in the RPG-MMO categories and for the rest of the games. Plus play along in Big Download's E3 2009 bingo prediction game. Finally check out our interview with the ESA on E3 2009.
• Guide to Team Fortress 2 Spy and Sniper Achievements: It's our latest guide to the newly established achievements for two of TF2's character classes. Check out The Spy guide (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5) and the Sniper Guide (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)
• The Top 10 PC Game News Stories of May 2009: We pick the big news items for the past 31 days.
  
• Mac Monday: Our weekly look at Mac games takes a look at the adventure title Cleopatra.
• Boot Disk: Our retro game feature this week offers a look at the classic strategy game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.
• Big Ideas: Our weekly examination on game themes takes a look at artificial intelligence and their evolution in games.
• Freeware Friday: Our weekly look at free PC games takes a look at the very distrubing horror game All Of Our Friends Are Dead.

It's a long holiday weekend which means watching basketball and racing on TV, going to the movies or for some of you reading Big Download's highlights from the past 7 days (and you are a sad lot if that's the case). Check it out now.

Exclusive Features

• Countdown to E3 2009: We continue our gallery features leading up to next month's trade show with a look at the action games we want to see at E3.
• NASCAR iRacing Interview: We get the co-founder of iRacing to talk about his plans for returning NASCAR licensing racing sims to the PC in 2010.
• Reviews: We have verdicts on the co-op shooter Killing Floor and the Thrustmaster T.16000M Joystick
• Mac Monday: Our Mac column reviews the recent port of the odd adventure game The Path.
• Boot Disk: Our regular retro games feature takes a look at the original Command and Conquer RTS game.
• Indie Showcase: Our indie games column this week takes a look at three games that are still in beta form: Aces Wild, Arc & Malice and Minecraft.
• Big Ideas: Our column on game themes takes a look at why game adaptation of movies don't usually turn out well.
• Big Iron: Our PC hardware column this week looks at input devices and how they hearken back to old fashioned tech.
• Freeware Friday: In a bit of a twist, this week's look at free PC games is also a retro feature on Grand Theft Auto 2.

With E3 now just two weeks away the rumors and the announcements will be coming in quickly. Big Download is on top of things on the PC gaming side and we will have extensive coverage of the show. But until then we will have some pre-E3 features alongside our regular news and feature coverage. Let's look at the past seven days on the site.
Exclusive features

• Countdown to E3 2009: We begin our series of pre-E3 features this week with an overall primer to the show and our wish list of first person shooter games we would like to see at E3.
• First anniversary contests: You still have time to win one of 10 $25 game codes from Nexon America in celebration of Big Download's first anniversary.
• Mac Monday: Our weekly Macintosh feature reviews the Popcap tower defense game Plants Vs Zombies.
• Boot Disk: Our retro games feature is about the Interplay 3D FPS Descent.
• Big Ideas: Our weekly game theme column looks at why non-gamers still see games as juvenile and even harmful
• Freeware Friday: Our weekly free game column takes a look at the free engineering-based game Infiniminer.

Wow! It's been a huge week for news: Lawsuits, new game reveals and the shutdown of a game developer that was working on one game for about 13 years. Oh, and we celebrated our one year anniversary this week! Let's take a look at the past seven days at Big Download.

Exclusive features

• First anniversary contests: We turned one this week so we want to give our readers a chance to win cool stuff all month long. We began on Friday with contests where folks can win codes to win free copies of Left 4 Dead and any GoG.com game.
• The graveyard of online PC game services: We take a look at the many online game services that launched and failed ... and a couple that didn't even launch.
• A look back (and forward) at PC Star Trek games: With the new movie now out, we look back at some of our favorite Trek PC games over the years and look forward to two upcoming Trek PC titles.
• The Long (Dead End?) Road for Duke Nukem Forever: We look back at the history of 3D Realms' FPS which may now never be released.
• Mac Monday: Our weekly Mac feature takes a loot at the sim game Virtual Families.
• Boot Disk: Our retro game feature takes a look at the turn based tactical game Jagged Alliance 2.
• Mods: Before the release of Killing Floor this week we look back at the UT 2004 mod that was the basis for the new co-op shooter.
• Big Ideas: How do you manage to promote a game without over-hyping it? Our weekly look at game themes has some answers.
• Big Iron: Our weekly PC hardware column takes a look at the importance of backing up your files.
• Freeware Friday: Our weekly look at free PC games also turned one year old this week so we look back at some of our personal favorite titles.

We are now less than a month away from E3 and new game announcements are coming fast and furious. Oh, and lots of other news, features and downloads. Let's check out Big Download's coverage of the last seven days:
Exclusive features

• We love the 90s (for PC games): We have a final feature looking at some games that we missed in last week's multi-part feature along with a wrap up of the entire series.
• Top 10 PC game stories for April 2009: We give our choices for the biggest PC game stories for the past month
• Demigod post-release interview: We chat with Stardock's Brad Wardell as he admits to the issues that happened to their RTS game after its launch.
• Left 4 Dead Guide: Survival of the Fittest: We give you a guide to how to play the new Survival mode for Valve's zombie co-op shooter
• Braid Review: We give you our final verdict on the PC version of Jonathan Blow's unique downloadable game
• Nvidia on more PhysX game support: We report on a Nvidia conference call where they talk about more games supporting their PhysX game physics effects
• Mac Monday: Our weekly look at Mac games is another two-fer as we examine Fishie Fishie and Spirited Heart
• Boot Disk: Our weekly look at retro games is about Bullfrog's odd sim title Theme Hospital.
• Big Ideas: How important is creating empathy for games? Our weekly look at game themes tries for an answer.
• Freeware Friday: Our weekly look at free games examines the puzzle title Mind Wall.

As we get closer to E3 we are starting to see new game announcements become more frequent in the news. While we still have a few weeks to go before the E3 info dam bursts, we can look back at the previous seven days over at Big Download:
Exclusive Features

• We Love The 90s (for PC Games): We look back fondly at the decade that some consider to be the golden age for PC gaming. Check out 1990-1991, 1992-1993, 1994-1995, 1996-1997, and 1998-1999.
• Reviews: We give our final verdicts for Demigod and Zeno Clash.
• Mac Monday: Our regular Mac feature takes a look at two games this week; Pixie and Rubber Ninjas.
• Boot Disk: Our weekly retro games feature takes a look at the original StarCraft.
• Big Ideas: Our weekly feature on game themes takes a look back at the text adventure game and if it can make a comeback.
• Big Iron: Our weekly hardware feature is all about sound and speaker set-ups for PC games.
• Freeware Friday: Our weekly free game feature takes a look at the free music title osu1.

Tons of interesting news and a couple of big demos and patches were a part of the past week for PC gamers. As always Big Download now looks back at the past seven days:
Exclusive features

• Battlefield Heroes hands-on: We get a chance to play with the upcoming free-to-play FPS from Digital Illusions and EA
• City of Heroes Mission Architect review: We give our final verdict on the recent mission editor for the NCsoft MMO
• Mac Monday: Our weekly Mac game column takes a look at the casual game title Westward 2.
• Boot Disk: Our retro games feature this week is all about the classic action-RPG Deus Ex.
• Independent Minds: Our weekly indie games feature looks at the need for mod support in games
• Big Ideas: Our weekly column on game themes is a little different as the column questions how long Penny Arcade can stay popular.
• Freeware Friday: Our weekly free games column is all about the recent puzzle game DUOtris.