The deal spans recent Codemasters-published releases, such as the internally developed racer DiRT (PC, X360) and Triumph Studios' strategy action-adventure hybrid Overlord (PC, X360), as well as impending releases, including MercurySteam's spooky first person shooter Clive Barker's Jericho (PC, PS3, X360) and Spark Unlimited's alternate history FPS Turning Point: Fall of Liberty (PC, PS3, X360).

The games will be available from both GameTap's subscription-based service and its online store. Upcoming Codemasters titles will arrive ... Read more

• Anderson & the Legacy of Cthulhu Demo
  Fan made horror action game based on H.P. Lovecraft stories. Game is out soon in Europe.
• ThreadSpace: Hyperbol LAN Demo
  This sci-fi action / turn-based strategy game can now be tried offline. An online version can be found on Steam. Not a bad little indie game.
• Ship Simulator 2008 Demo
  This year's release features "weather changes, emergency flares, environment changes, ship motions on waves and big bow splashes" among other changes. I can barely contain my excitement.
• Civilization IV Beyond the Sword Demo #2
  More Civilization goodness from the Firaxis team. This one includes the Charlemagne scenario.
• GODS: Lands of Infinity: SE Demo
  With Strategy First releasing the English language version of this fantasy RPG in North America, here's a new demo.
• Pro Cycling Manager 2007 Demo
  Multi-language demo for Pro Cycling Manager 2007 - Le Tour de France. No doping required to play. I hope.

First announced last month, the Steam Community promises features such as voice chat support, user profiles and groups, organized matches, and opponent tracking. "This latest update is just the start," said Valve founder Gabe Newell when Community was announced. "We've got a long list of items that we're working on to make it easier for gamers to connect and play games on Steam."

With Microsoft currently promoting its Games for Windows Live online service and marketing the service to PC game developers, it is likely that the Steam Community will find itself competing with the Microsoft-run initiative.

In other news, indie dev Chrono Logic's gooey physics-infused platformer Gish, winner of the 2005 Independent Games Festival, was today released via Steam for an initial price of $7.95.

• Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword Demo
  This demo just hit the net in the past couple of hours so I can't tell you if it's any good, but it's hard to go wrong with a Civ game, isn't it? As an added bonus, you can test our new Quicksilver download servers with this demo. Hit it with a download manager and ten connections!
• Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn Client
  The grandfather of MMOs has been reborn. You can check out a trailer of the revamps before you go downloading a couple of gigs.
• Upshift StrikeRacer Client
  If car combat is your thing, this demo is probably worth checking out. It doesn't really have the graphics to blow you away but it's a nice distraction for about a half hour--although the gameplay isn't really all that hot either. Ok, it's probably not worth bothering. Sorry. ... Read more

San Francisco-based Perpetual is the developer behind the upcoming ancient Rome-themed MMO Gods & Heroes as well as the farther off Star Trek Online. Its MMO platform assists with numerous aspects of operating large-scale online games, including infrastructure, billing, player support solutions, and numerous game features such as voice chat, guild systems, and friends lists.

Today's announcement marks the latest in a series of MMO tech licensing agreements that has also seen BioWare adopt technology from StreamBase and Simultronics.

BioWare Austin's MMO project is due in 2009.

Following FarCry developer Crytek's 2004 deal with publisher EA to create a new game--which eventually would become the much-anticipated shooter Crysis--Ubisoft was left alone with the rights to the FarCry franchise. News of the company's planned sequel broke after images were accidentally included in an Ubisoft press kit.

"Far Cry marked the beginning of a new era for shooters. An era... Read more

Available today are Relic Entertainment's Company of Heroes, Iron Lore's Titan Quest and Titan Quest: Immortal Throne, and Pandemic Studios' Full Spectrum Warrior and Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers. Each has a 10% discount from its standard price until July 24.

THQ plans to make available several additional games in the near future. On the way are GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, Relic Entertainment's Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Gold Edition, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Platinum Edition, and Warhammer 40,000:... Read more

Today's announcement may be indicative of a larger ongoing plan on Valve's part to expand the number of gaming-related services offered by Steam beyond its primary purpose of selling and managing digitally distributed games. Speaking to Shacknews in response to inquiries regarding today's announcement, Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi noted that Valve hopes to continue expanding Steam out to support additional types of content.

Recently, the company laid out initial details for a suite of upcoming community features planned for Steam, transforming it into a social... Read more

• Quake 4 Multiplayer Demo
  Support for Quake 4 has been admirable post-release, with continued patches. Its multiplayer demo is worth downloading just to see the Quake 4 version of a classic Quake II DM map. The comments, however, weren't so kind.
• Harry Potter And The Order Of The Pheonix Demo
  As far as Harry Potter games goes this one has been greeted surprisingly well. If you're into this sort of thing, it's worth checking out or sharing with the kids. I had a choice to either play this demo or hit myself with a hammer a few days ago. I chose the hammer. It greeted me well.
• Bee Movie Game Demo
  This one kind of flew under the radar (yeah, I said it). Unsurprising, since the release of the demo comes strangely early given the game's website notes it isn't planned for release until November 2007.