Because most of the people posting video game news in any sort of professional capacity know about the news before they post it, waiting for embargos to lift before sharing the information with the Internet, each morning tends to begin with an explosion of gaming news. Just a few hours into the day, however, most sites go quiet, having already regurgitated the new press releases, screenshots, and videos of the day. Particularly ambitious sites post news around the clock, stretching the definition of “news worthy” by covering Super Mario Bros. quilts, StarCraft tattoos, and Portal cakes.

Because I only cover topics I’m at least marginally interested in here, I tend to run out of content for the day fairly quickly, which is why I’m rarely left with anything post-worthy after noon or so. There are, after all, only so many MMO and DLC announcements on any given day.

So, let’s celebrate another week of half-days filled with gaming news by reliving all the best stories posted on this site during the past week which, coincidentally, just happens to be every story posted on this site. Nothing but gems here.

Monday:
Wedge55’s Game Journal – April 14
Quake engine family tree
One million concurrent Chinese connections set WoW record
Scottish schools add video games to curriculum
Mortal Online announced
Nightly Update: From the pages of history

Tuesday:
Video: Oblivion by way of Crysis
MGS4 Bluetooth heaset is ugly, expensive
7 of Pirates of the Burning Sea’s 11 severs to walk the plank<
Rumor: Engrish gaming blog claims Beyond Good &; Evil 2 may be in development
GTA-wannabe MMO Crimecraft announced
Wii Fit priced, dated for US
Metal Arms, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory coming to Xbox Originals

Wednesday:
Wedge55’s Game Journal – April 16
Soul Calibur IV dated, premium edition detailed
Team Fortress 2 Medic’s upcoming arsenal revealed
Mod makes Unreal Tournament 3 2D
Video: Yahtzee likes half of Condemned 2

Thursday:
New classes coming to Mythos
Blizzard interviews itself, reveals new Wrath of the Lich King details
Video: GameTrailers’ Star Wars Retrospective Episode III
Age of Conan open beta coming exclusively to FilePlanet

Friday:
Wedge55’s Game Journal – April 18
New Mortal Kombat game features Batman, no blood or fatalities
Call of Duty 4 sells 9 million copies, 1 million map packs
Mass Effect DLC “Bring Down the Sky” free on PC
Namco Bandai announces PowerUp Forever
Video: Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe trailer

Another day, another seven hours of downtime. I honestly start the day with an idea for a relevant introduction to make these weekly round-ups slightly more worthwhile, but waking up to find the site’s been offline since 2:00 AM gets me too upset to bother writing it.

I’ve looked into other hosting solutions, and found one that gets rave reviews across the board and offers a fantastic feature set. Unfortunately, it costs more than twice what I’m paying at my current host, and I just started another billing cycle here less than a month ago. If this site goes offline just one or two more times, however, I’ll suck it up and shell out for the superior host, even though it means I’ll probably have to eat the cost of the eleven months of hosting I’ve already paid for here. And it actually looked like this site was going to pay for itself this year.

But enough talk! We have a week to review:

Monday:<
Stephen King: Video games aren’t the problem
Dawn of War 2 website finally live, content sparse
Lost Odyssey DLC coming to Japan this week
Demigod exlusive to Impulse
Video: Red vs Blue seriously returns to Halo
DS needs Gauntlet badly
Rumor: Microsoft working on motion controller

Tuesday:
Free Kane & Lynch DLC coming April 17th
EA extends Unreal Engine 3 license to cover at least five more games
First details on THQ’s Warhammer 40K MMO
Mass Effect PC delayed
Games for Windows Magazine is dead; long live Games for Windows Magazine

Wednesday:
Ikaruga now available on Xbox Live Arcade
WoW addon lets RP players keep servers pure
Rock Band dev: Wii needs a bigger fridge
Video: Yahtzee reviews No More Heroes

Thursday:
Lair to finally get analog controls
Video: Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack mapmaker documentary
The Chronicles of Spellborn delayed to Fall 2008
Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People coming to WiiWare
NCsoft vows to down private servers, collect p|-|@7 L007z
Video: Warhammer Online closed beta footage
Metal Gear Solid 4 Limited Edition detailed, exclusive to GameStop

Friday
Video: Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People trailer
Hellgate: London is big in Korea
Wrath of the Lich King enters alpha
Left 4 Dead delayed. Again.
The Witcher gets patch, adventure editor
Actually, Hellgate: London isn’t big in Korea — Or anywhere

In his latest Entertainment Weekly column, famed horror author Stephen King has come out on the side of video games, likening the alarmist media coverage of violent games to the similar treatment of comic books sixty years ago.

“What really makes me insane,” writes King, “is how eager politicians are to use the pop culture — not just videogames but TV, movies, even Harry Potter — as a whipping boy. It’s easy for them, even sort of fun, because the pop-cult always hollers nice and loud.”

King points to HB 1423, a proposed Massachusetts bill that would outlaw the sale of M-rated games to anyone younger than 18, noting that if passed, “a 17-year-old who can get in to see Hostel: Part II would be forbidden by law from buying … the violent but less graphic Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.”

For King, parenting should be left to the parents rather than mandated by legislature. He reminds his Constant Readers that “videogames, like movies, have a ratings system, and ones with the big M or A on the box mean ‘Not for you, baby brother.’”

Even though King admits “videogames are not [his] thing,” he realizes that our culture is inherently violent, and this violence manifests itself in television, movies, music, and all forms of media; video games don’t have an exclusive license.

Stephen King: Videogame Lunacy [Entertainment Weekly via Sensible Erection]

This week we suffered through International Lie Day together, reveled in the release of pent-up announcements on April 2, and desperately scrounged for anything remotely interesting to post on April 3 and 4, stretching the definition of “newsworthy” to new extremes. Now, let’s relive this completely forgettable week together.

And yes, the site was just offline for the last ten hours. Expect plenty of annoyed ranting on Monday.

Monday:
Hellgate: London to get single player, multiplayer patches
Original shows headed to Xbox Live
Portal’s ‘Still Alive’ comes to Rock Band tomorrow for free
Capcom acquires K2, MotoGP license
Free SOCOM 3, CA map pack now available
Nightly Update: The horror! The horror!

Tuesday:
April Fools: Blizzard does it right
April Fools: The Battle of Amon Hen
April Fools: Microsoft announces Xbox Live The Board Game, other peripherals
April Fools: The Legend of Zelda movie trailer
April Fools: Guild Wars endgame armor replaced with stick figures
Actual news: Ubisoft bringing over 40 new titles to Steam

Wednesday:
ESRB creates games rating search widget
Fulton: Gamers’ online behavior driving down sales
Indie game Mr. Robot now free on GameTap
No joke: Stormfront Studios closes doors after twenty years of game development
University researcher: World of Warcraft relaxes players
Dual Shock 3 coming next week
Video: Yahtzee tries to cut down on the gay jokes while reviewing Army of Two, fails
Persistent, online-only Company of Heroes in the works
Penny Arcade launches digital distribution platform

Thursday:
THQ officially announces Dawn of War II
Ubisoft announces Tom Clancy’s HAWX
Double Fusion brings in-game ads to City of Heroes
Epic and Intel offer $1 million to “Make Something Unreal”
Video: Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack ‘Darkness’ trailer
Video: Hour-long Warhammer Online presentation

Friday:
Puzzle Quest expansion gets name, becomes real game
Sony to shut down servers for PS2, PSP games
Telltale Games confirms Sam & Max for Wii
Free TrackMania Nations sequel coming April 16
Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack bringing new Forge goodies

Bill Fulton, who started and led the Microsoft Game Studios User-research program and served as a designer on 2007’s Shadowrun, believes that gamers’ behavior online is scaring away casual players and ultimately negatively affecting game sales.

In a Gamasutra article on this very subject, Fulton writes, “Of all the ways I spend my free time, playing games online is the only one I would describe as ‘frequently barbaric.’ Insults of all kinds, including racist and homophobic slurs, are commonplace.” As Fulton sees it, the biggest problem facing online games “isn’t connectivity issues, or even the quality of the games — it is how people are fuckwads online.” In fact, it’s this juvenile behavior that causes many players to give up on a game after only playing online a few times.

Fulton claims that “the online behavior of our customers is dramatically reducing our sales, and continues to stunt the growth of our industry. Non-gamers simply don’t love games enough to put up with the crap they get online.”

Of course, he has a few solutions to this problem, but concedes that there’s no easy (or quick) answer.

Fulton, who has four years of graduate training in Social Psychology and Research Methodology at the University of Washington, suggests that many of online gaming’s problems can be addressed through social design, pointing to the movie industry’s ability to combat cell phones ringing during movies through a “silence your cell phones” advertising campaign.

Fulton notes that filtering profanity from chat and dividing up rewards for beating opponents in team-based shooters have already been proven to reduce harassment and selfish behavior online. He goes on to give himself a congratulatory pat on the back for Shadowrun’s clever vote-kick system, which recognized when feuding players were abusing the mechanic and forced them to risk getting booted from the game if they wished to continue.

Unfortunately, Fulton is rather short on solutions to what is obviously a pervasive and damaging problem, but still does a good job of addressing a complex issue that often goes ignored. He notes that as games like The Sims, World of Warcraft, and Rock Band continue to expand the gaming audience, developers will need to allocate more resources for social design to ensure they don’t lose valuable casual players to the loudest hardcore jerks.

Fixing Online Gaming Idiocy: A Psychological Approach [Gamasutra]

Another week, another weekly round-up. Between World of Warcraft’s last content patch before Wrath of the Lich King, Mythos’ last major patch before the open beta, and new Halo 3, Turok, Warhawk, and Unreal Tournament 3 maps, the theme of the week was post-release content. Oh, and there were Unreal Tournament 3 PS3 mods and custom EVE Online avatars too. Extending the lifespan of a game is awesome.

Monday:
Sonic the Hedgehog fan unleashes Sonic Unleashed ahead of schedule
Play as Master Chief, Cloud, Spawn in Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3
Custom EVE Online avatars are animated, creepy
Rumor: EA purchased GTA fansite network for $3.2 million
Video: Mega Wicker Man
Nightly Update: Aimless on the Internet

Tuesday
World of Warcraft 2.4 patch is now live
Final Halo 3 Legendary map is Lockout remake
Darwinia confirmed for XBLA
Sega Master System games coming to Virtual Console

Wednesday
Morning Update: When the server’s down, update in the morning
Warhammer Online delayed, Collector’s Edition detailed
Take-Two rejects EA’s buyout offer
Yahtzee likes Zack & Wiki, is one of the good guys
Mythos beta gets major patch
Video: Bungie’s favorite things
Turok Velociraptor Map Pack coming tomorrow, March 26
Nightly Update: All quiet on the DORK Club front

Thursday:
Impressions: Mythos Zone 3 patch

Friday:
Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 2 coming in 2009
Video: Fourth (and final) Grand Theft Auto IV trailer
Unreal Tournament 3 gets free Bonus Map Pack
Warhawk Operation: Broken Mirror priced, dated, and ready to fly
Play Prey for just $5

For this weekend only, you can buy the Doom 3-engine-powered, topsy-turvy FPS Prey for just $4.95 through Steam.

In Prey, players enter a living spaceship which enslaves alien races and devours humans for lunch. Prey turns the first person shooter genre upside down with awesome new gameplay features like wall-walking and gravity flipping, making for intense single-player and multi-player experiences.

Regardless of how terrible or great the game may be (Game Rankings has it sitting pretty at 83%), it’s hard to pass up a relatively new first-person shooter for so low a price. At worse, you’ll be left with a painfully generic FPS to keep you entertained this weekend, and all for less than lunch at the local drive-thru. Something tells me the Prey multiplayer servers are about to get the most traffic of their lives.

This Weekend Only – Prey Only $4.95! [Steam via Voodoo Extreme]

Warhawk’s second booster pack is done and ready to play, and will be available on the PlayStation Store for $7.99 starting April 17. To celebrate, the original Warhawk will be available for $29.99 through April 15, giving any players inclined to do so a chance to catch up before the new content hits.

Operation: Broken Mirror includes the new armored personnel carrier capable of making those glorious giant bubble shields (officially called an E-POD); Vaporfield Glacier, a new map with 10 different layouts; and 10 new layouts for the original maps, allowing you use the new APC.

Eight bucks seems a bit pricey for what boils down to a new vehicle and just one new map, regardless of how many times Sony uses the number “10″ to confuse people. Still, Warhawk is one of the best exclusive games on the PS3, and still a strangely unique experience on consoles. I guess everybody’s still too busy ripping off Halo to bother with Battlefield clones just yet.

Warhawk Operation: Broken Mirror details, trailer [PlayStation.blog via N4G]

Epic has joined the map pack party, releasing three new maps for Unreal Tournament 3 for the PC and PS3. The 160MB Bonus Map Pack is entirely free to download and play, and includes remakes of fan-favorites Facing Worlds and Morbias along with Searchlight, an all-new capture the flag map.

Now every major FPS released in the last six months has a downloadable map pack, or will within the next couple weeks. In an age when GameStop continues to turn record profits, thanks in part to trade-ins and used game sales, developers are scrambling to extend the lives of their games – even AAA titles with stellar multiplayer components – to keep people playing rather than trading in their latest title.

As someone who’s never traded in a game and only buys used games when there’s no other alternatives, I saw bring on the fresh content! Ultimately, $10.00 (or better yet, free) DLC is cheaper than a brand new game.

Downloadable Content for UT3 Now Available [Unrealtournament3.com via Game|Life]

The big Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 2 announcement is still coming in next month’s issue of PC Gamer, but Belgian gaming magazine PCGameplay has beat the US publication to the newsstands and has all the juicy details on the upcoming RTS.

Relic Entertainment has been hard at work on Dawn of War 2 since September 2006, and is hoping to have the game on store shelves in 2009. The game uses an upgraded version of the Essence Engine used by Company of Heroes, and takes full advantage of Havok physics, DirectX 10, and multicore processors. Visually, the game looks surprisingly close to Dawn of War’s opening cutscene, and there will no doubt be plenty of high-resolution screenshots to drool over after PC Gamer’s reveal.

So far, only the Orkz and Space Marines are confirmed as returning. While other races are to be announced later, only the Orkz and Space Marines will have co-op campaigns. You’ll use the same squads from mission to mission in the campaign, which will feature plenty of customization options to really tweak and personalize your individual squads.

The focus this time around will be on much smaller skirmishes, with control limited to just six squads. Like in Company of Heroes, unit positioning will often determine the outcome of a fight, and you’ll be able to garrison your units inside buildings, but Relic promises more than just “Company of Heroes in space.” For example, the series’ trademark visceral violence will return in spades, with fully destructible environments and the possibility of units damaging or breaking individual pieces of armor in combat.

Between Dawn of War 2 and StarCraft 2, it’s a very good time to be a fan of sci-fi real-time strategy games.

Dawn of War 2 Confirmed! The Immortal Emperor Be Praised! [NeoGAF]