Shortly after the announcement of some new, free content for Mass Effect 2, BioWare follows it up with some paid content for the fans. Rounding out the cast will be Kasumi, a female thief who will take up the 12th squad member slot on the Normandy. Kasumi will be arriving with what promises to be 90 minutes of gameplay, a new achievement, a flash-bang grenade loyalty power, and a new "Locust" SMG.

No price has been announced yet for the DLC, but hopefully the interactive dialogue scenes will improve upon the lackluster ones that came with Zaeed's tall tales.

Kasumi's Stolen Memory [Joystiq]

In what can only be described as a slap in the face to Infinity Ward and Activision, the people at DICE and EA have updated their blog with a post poking fun at the "Mapathy" campaign from a few days ago.  The second free map pack for Bad Company 2 will be available on March 30th on all platforms to those who have entered their VIP code in game and will include the following:

Arica Harbor Conquest mode - US Command launches a break through action directly at the Russian base. Collateral damage is of no consequence. Capture and secure tactical positions in Conquest Mode across the vast Arica Harbor map.

Laguna Presa Rush mode - The valley and surrounding mountains possess a strategic value in the battle for South America, and an infantry assault supported by light armor vehicles is likely by both armies as US forces defend the nearby Dam.

As for the negative marketing going on, I'll let you decide for yourself if there is some bad blood here or if it's just friendly competition:

It also plays a vital part in making sure you, the players get proper value for the money you’ve invested in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. This is why these map packs are available at no extra cost, contradicting the industry standard and what our direct competitors are doing. Of course, it also helps avoid segmenting the community, making sure everyone can play together having the same maps available. There will be future paid downloadable content as well but these packs will focus on expanding other parts of the game experience rather than the selection of maps available for the basic game modes. We’re dedicated to taking care of this product for a long time – helping you avoid “mapathy” without getting nickel-and-dimed.

It's been announced that cloud gaming service OnLive will be rolled out to consumers during this year's E3 event, with a target date commencing on June 17. An initial monthly service fee of $14.95 is subject to change, but it will be the price charged to any new adopters. To entice some people to try out the service at launch, an early pre-registration sign up has begun for the first 25,000 individuals willing to sign up and qualify. If selected, your first three month's service fee will be waived which amounts to a $45 savings.

"This marks a huge milestone for both OnLive and the interactive entertainment landscape as a whole, changing the way that video games are developed, marketed, accessed and played," said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. "We are opening the door to incredible experiences for gamers and enormous opportunities for developers and publishers."

The OnLive service is said to include some now industry standards such as gamer tags, user profiles, friend's lists, and chat. Some new offerings by this service will be Brag Clips, which are pretty self explanatory, and the ability to pause your game at anytime and resume anywhere else, even on a different platform.

Pricing is my immediate concern with this service. I'm not too sure how the industry will gravitate towards spending $180 per year for the benefits OnLive is offering. Couple that fee with the yet unannounced rental fees and digital purchase fees, and you may be better off just getting an existing console to satisfy your needs.

The initial game lineup will be revealed at E3 2010, but these are the confirmed games so far: Mass Effect 2™, Dragon Age Origins™, Assassin's Creed® II, Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands™, Borderlands™ and Metro 2033™.  More info will come along once E3 2010 is upon us, so stay tuned.

If you have access to the Cerberus Network, then you'll have access to this small piece of new weaponry released today as free DLC. It's not much, but it's free; so we really can't complain about having a new weapon that throws out lighting to fry up some Geth with. Here's the full description of the Arc Projector:

The Arc Projector ionizes targets with a non-visible laser to ready them for a high-voltage electrical attack. As the lightning-like bolt hits its first target, a sophisticated auto-targeting system paints succeeding targets with the ionization laser, allowing the electricity to take the path of least resistance and arc between them. An entire enemy strike team can be shocked to death with a few pulls of the trigger. Careful aiming will also allow the user to arc shots to nearby explosives as well.

Hopefully this little taste of DLC will open up the floodgates and bring the previously mentioned Hammerhead hover tank to us, along with some new episodic content. Two screenshots of the Arc Projector can be seen below.

[View with PicLens]

All of the signs hinting that this would be announced from the not-so-cryptic images sent out last week turned out to be true.  Valve will be bringing their Steam gaming service and Source gaming engine over to the Mac, and the upcoming Portal 2 will be the first title to be simultaneously released via Steam on both PC and Mac.  The past catalog of Source games from Valve will be available this April and the titles mentioned in the press release include Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series.

"We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation," said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. "The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows."

Good news for Mac owners who also happen to be gamers for sure.  It will be interesting to see if there is a significant spike is user base this Summer and how well multiplayer games on both systems will jive together.

Shinji Mikami, SEGA, and PlatinumGames today announced the first set of details on their upcoming third person shooter set to arrive this year on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Set in the near future, the United States and Russia are competing for what little remains of the planets energy supplies. During the struggle, the Russians sabotage a United States owned space station used for converting solar energy and direct it's gathered energy back towards San Francisco, which destroys the city.

You will be tasked to take the role a government agent within a battle suit to stop the Russians from using the space station on their next target, New york City.

“VANQUISH™ is a game where we’ve tried to inject the extreme pace of an action game into a shooter. The gameplay and staging are all put together around the keyword ‘intensity’. I think it’s very rare to come across a game where shooting loads of robots is so much fun,” said Shinji Mikami, Game Director of VANQUISH™.

No solid release date was given, but there is a Winter 2010 target stated in the press information, and since it's starting to warm up around my parts, my guess would be a holiday release since Winter is on it's way out. See below for several screenshots.

[View with PicLens]

Valve continues to stay in the news today by sending out several images to news outlets across the web strongly hinting at an upcoming announcement relating to Apple. As can be seen from the images in the gallery below, you can see Gordon Freeman's crowbar blocking what appears to be a Mac logo on his chest-plate. Another not-so-subtle image depicts the turrets from Team Fortress 2 and Portal reenacting the "I'm a Mac and I'm a PC" campaign. The remainder of the images sent out all depict some Valve character tied to a past marketing campaign by Apple.

The six images in total were sent out to MacRumors, MacNN, Shacknews, Eurogamer, Macworld, and Rock-Paper-Shotgun. At this point, your guess would be as good as mine, but I'm sure this will be cleared up soon enough.

[View with PicLens]

With the official beta launch still two months away, the good people at Bungie have revved up the hype machine for Halo: Reach by releasing a trailer captured from the alpha build of the game. Halo: Reach is the story of Noble Team, a group of elite Spartan soldiers and their final stand on the planet Reach, which is humanity's last line of defense between the Covenant and Earth. The multiplayer beta is on track to be the largest beta program of it's kind on any console and is expected to have millions of participants.

The Halo: Reach beta will officially unlock on your Halo 3: ODST discs on May 3rd of this year. Enjoy the new trailer below, and thanks to community member TeamOverload for the tip.

SEGA has officially announced that Obsidian Entertainment, the company that brought us Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II and Neverwinter Knights 2, has it's new espionage infused action-RPG arriving in time for Summer.  If you're not familiar with the title, you'll be assuming the role of a typical blank-slate rookie spy named Michael Thorton.  Early on, you will be tasked with tracking down the source of a terrorist attack on a commercial airplane, which will act as a springboard into the espionage world.  From there, the outcome of the game will be based on who you kill and who you trust; which will also coincide with fully customizable skill and weapon trees.  Another feature set that will be available to players is a unique Dialogue Stance System, which will keep you on your toes when interacting with any NPC, as they can and will react to almost every word you choose to speak, so choose your words wisely.

Alpha Protocol will be releasing on May 28th in Europe and June 1st in North America on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC.  For some new screens, see below.

[View with PicLens]

The details and pricing for the upcoming Xbox LIVE Block Party that was announced at the X10 event in San Francisco a few weeks ago have finally surfaced.  Larry Hryb, aka Major Nelson, has updated his blog with the pricing and roll-out schedule.  The biggest selling point is that if you purchase all three titles, your account will be credited with a 400 Microsoft Point refund.  Xbox LIVE Gold Members will also receive a free month of LIVE service for doing the same.  Silver Members fear not, you will be able to access all of the multiplayer components of all the Block Party titles for free during the weekend of March 29th.  Follow the break for the release dates of the titles: