Electronic Arts has announced that owners of the PC version of Bioware’s sci-fi RPG Mass Effect will be able to download the Xbox 360’s premium DLC Bring Down the Sky for free when the game arrives in stores on May 28.

Bring Down the Sky introduces the new Batarian alien race and a 90-minute mission in which Shepard and his/her squad must prevent a hijacked asteroid station from colliding with a colony world. The extra downloadable content costs 400 Microsoft Points ($5) on the Xbox 360.

PC Version Of Mass Effect To Get Xbox 360 “Bring Down The Sky” DLC For Free [Shacknews via Evil Avatar]

Call of Duty 4 continues to dominate the console FPS space. The latest NPD data for March shows that Infinity Ward’s first-person shooter has sold more than 9 million copies worldwide since its release.

Additionally, over one million players have downloaded the recently-released Variety Map Pack, which features four new multiplayer maps and is currently only available on Xbox Live. The new maps will be arriving on PSN on April 24th in the US and May 4th in Europe.

Clearly, there is plenty of money to made through DLC if you offer up worthwhile content. Bethesda never had reason to brag about their horse armor sales.

CoD4 sells over 9 million copies and breaks DLC Records [IAMfourzerotwo]

Lair, Factor 5’s freshman PS3 effort that was universally taken to task for its poor motion controls, will finally be getting support for analog controls in a free update scheduled to hit Japan (and presumably the rest of the world) on April 17.

The new update will also introduce rumble support for Dual Shock 3 controllers, the option to display a targeting icon, and the ability to download and use the Wind Dragon and Poison Dragon in all stages.

I seriously wonder if the resources spent developing this update wouldn’t have been better spend elswhere. Is there really anyone willing to give Lair a second chance? Or even a first one?

Analog Controls Coming to Lair [IGN via Evil Avatar]

Eidos is bringing four new multiplayer maps to Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. The new maps will come conveniently bundled in a free map back titled The Dope Bag, which will be free to download over PSN or Xbox Live starting on April 17.

Each of the four maps will expand upon the game’s Fragile Alliance multiplayer mode, which promotes greed and betrayal and tasks the player with coming out ahead through any means necessary. The four maps, Clean Cut, Flying High, Hasta La Vista, and Hooker’s Trail, are set in an LA construction site, a Venezuelan jungle, the streets of Havana, and Tokyo, respectively.

No word on when this new content will be arriving on the PC.

Eidos Offering Free Multiplayer Maps for Kane & Lynch: Dead Men [Gaming Today]

Lost Odyssey, Mistwalker’s Xbox 360-exclusive RPG, will be receiving yet another round of downloadable content in Japan this Thursday.

The new content will cost 400 Microsoft Points (about $5 or ¥592) and will introduce a new underwater dungeon on the game’s fourth disc. Playing through the dungeon will unlock a powerful new item that reduces the magic cost of spells.

No word on when this new Lost Odyssey content will arrive on the Xbox Live Marketplace in the West.

While I’m all for expanding a game’s content and extending its lifespan after release, even I have to admit that five bucks for a single dungeon only accessible from a very specific point in the game hardly seems worth it. At 89 MB, at least we can download knowing we’re not just paying to unlock content already on the disk.

Xbox News: Lost Odyssey DLC out this week [CVG]

The upcoming Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords expansion is now officially known as Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords - Revenge of the Plague Lord. Yes, it’s a mouth full, but we applaud the use of an n-dash rather than another colon. Bravo, Infinite Interactive.

The name was chosen from the entries of a contest to pick the expansion’s subtitle. A. Puchniarz of Pasadena, CA, who came up with the winning title, will receive a free copy of the expansion. The two runner-ups, “Sorceress of Malbec” and “The Scourge of Antharq,” submitted by J Hagaman of Apple Valley, MN and J O’Conner of Van Buren, AR, respectively, will also win a shiny new copy of the expansion for their efforts.

When Revenge of the Plague Lord arrives this spring, it will introduce four new hero professions – bard, rogue, ranger, and warlock – as well as 25 new quests, 50 new spells, and more than 40 new items. In other words, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords - Revenge of the Plague Lord has enough content to match that monstrous title.

Puzzle Quest [Official site via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Microsoft has a new trailer available on Xbox Live to get everyone good n’ hyped for the upcoming Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack. Seeings as how none of us are using Xbox Live to access this page, however, let’s enjoy this embedded GameVideos copy of the trailer instead.

Players eager to try out the new Halo 3 maps – Avalanche, Blackout, and Ghost Town – will need to keep waiting until April 15. Just keep replaying the trailer until then.

Halo 3 Legendary Map Pack Trailer: Darkness [Major Nelson]

Another day, another FPS map pack. Out of nowhere, Sony has released a new map pack for SOCOM 3: U.S. Navy Seals and SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals Combined Assault (released in 2005 and 2006, respectively) which features classic SOCOM and SOCOM II maps Crossroads, Fishhook, Frostfire and Guidance.

This is the third map pack for the two games, and is entirely free to download and play. Additionally, Sony is making up for the impending pain the games industry is about to suffer through on April Fool’s Day by also releasing the two previous SOCOM 3 and SOCOM CA map packs free of charge. At this point, I think it’s safe to assume everyone who was going to pay for them has already done so.

NEW SOCOM 3 AND SOCOM CA MAP PACK RELEASED… FOR FREE! [SOCOM.com via N4G]

Still Alive, the famous (on the Internet) ending theme to Portal, will be arriving on Xbox Live tomorrow as a free download for Rock Band. And no, this is not an April Fool’s joke. The song will come to PSN on April 17.

If you think this quirky song’s catchy lyrics haven’t yet been completely run into the ground due to their Internet meme status, just wait until it gets even more attention through Rock Band. “This is a triumph,” “huge success,” “it’s hard to overstate my satisfaction.” Sigh.

DLC April 1st! Huge success! [Rock Band Forums via Joystiq]

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]