With BioWare's Mass Effect 2 fast approaching and the studio's latest, Dragon Age: Origins, having just arrived, digital distribution platform Steam has knocked 50% off the first Mass Effect--making the futuristic RPG just $9.99 in the United States. The discount will run through the weekend, providing you with plenty of time to tackle Shepard's initial galactic adventure before the sequel arrives on January 26.

With the seasonal savings and madness of Black Friday (a.k.a. the day after Thanksgiving) fast approaching, retailer Walmart seems to be getting a head start on the craziness.

As part of the "one day in-store specials" that kick off at 8AM this Saturday, November 7, the chain will be rewarding those that purchase the $199.99 Xbox 360 Arcade console with $100 worth of in-store credit via gift card.

The sale only runs one day, with the fine print at the bottom of the advertisment cautioning: "Quantities are limited. No rainchecks. Prices and availability may vary in AK, HI, OK and WI. Not valid in Puerto Rico or on Walmart.com." Kotaku reports that more notable sales are due in the coming weeks, though its sources offered no specifics.

The Arcade model is the cheaper of the two Xbox 360 models on the market. Unlike the $299 Xbox 360 Elite, the Arcade does not include a 120GB hard drive. Instead, it packs 512MB of on-board memory for game saves and downloaded content. Xbox 360-branded hard drives are, of course, sold separately should more space be needed.

With both the weekend and a holiday mere hours away, the usual digital distribution outlets are rolling out their seasonal savings and discounts on select PC games.

It seems like everyone has temporarily knocked Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare to $23.99--a savings of 40%--with Dead Space, Ghostbusters, The Witcher and many other festive games receiving discounts as well. The highlights follow... Read more

Update 2: The sale has come to a close. We'll let you know when the new content goes live.

Update: The $2.49 sale is only running for a few hours--it ends today at 2PM PDT--so act fast.

Valve's colorful multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2 will be celebrating the impending pagan holiday for the first time, the company has revealed via official channels.

"The Terrifying Team Fortress Haunted Hallowe'en Special" brings exploding pumpkins, candy and five achievements that unlock "Mildly Disturbing Halloween Hats," along with Harvest, a new community-made King of the Hill map from Sean "Heyo" Cutin.

The new map is haunted by "the restless spirit of Zepheniah Mann... Read more

A pair of modern European PC classics are on sale at digital distributors, with The Witcher reduced by 50% and a grand 75% off S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.

The coarse fantasy world of The Witcher can now be entered for $20 on Steam and Impulse. The discounts celebrate the worldwide digital availability of CD Projekt RED's fantastic fantasy RPG, which had previously been unavailable in many regions.

Those who fall for GSC Game World's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl fall hard, so the open-world RPG-ish shooter is worth a punt for $5 on Steam. Should you be bitten by the radioactive bug, DirectX 11-enabled sequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat is due to hit North America in 2010, with gameplay closer to SoC than its prequel 'Clear Sky.'

Futuremark's zero-gravity multiplayer first-person shooter Shattered Horizon (PC) will arrive as a digital download on November 4, the company announced today.

The game will be available via Steam or directly from the official site for $19.95 / 19.95 euros / 14.95 pounds, with those that pre-order getting ten percent off.

In addition, Futuremark plans to support the title with "new levels and features" post-release, which will be "free to all players." However, those that pre-order also get the privilege of testing new levels packs "before they become available... Read more

The fine weekly tradition of bumper video game discounts at the weekend continues nicely this week, with retailers and digital distributors lining up to lighten your wallet.

Best Buy is running a 'buy 2, get 1 free' offer on all Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii games from Saturday until next Friday, making a splurge on such splendid recent titles as Brutal Legend, Uncharted 2, Demon's Souls and Borderlands very tempting indeed.

Bohemia's battlefield simulator ARMA 2 is available half-price for $25 from Steam and GamersGate. Give the demo a whirl if you're still not convinced.

GamersGate also offers a grand 50% discount on THQ's catalogue, including all Company of Heroes, Titan Quest, Red Faction and original Dawn of War... Read more

Amazon is offering a $20 voucher for future video games purchases from the retailer with copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The offer includes both the $60 regular edition and $80 'Hardened' edition--packing an art book and code for the upcoming downloadable release of the original Call of Duty.

While this offer sadly does not cover the $150 night vision goggle and plastic head-toting Prestige Edition, a $10 voucher is included with the Xbox 360 version only.

Infinity Ward's shooter sequel arrives November 10, with the PC version controversially not supporting dedicated servers. Thanks to Shacker kungfusquirrel for the tip.

Forget discounts on select titles, Toys R Us has put its entire catalog of games on sale with this week's "Buy 2, Get the 3rd Free" offer.

Available both in-store and online, the retailer's promotion runs from today until the close of business on Saturday, October 17.

A few standard restrictions apply: the free game "must be of equal or lesser value to the lowest priced item purchased," and pre-orders for upcoming titles don't count.

Then again, given the loaded last few weeks of releases, not to mention Uncharted 2 and Brutal Legend this week, that last bit may be more of a blessing than a curse.

It's the weekend, and you know what that means: every PC digital distribution outlet out there is slashing prices as they try to separate you from your hard earned cash.

This time around, we've got some savings on three of IO Interactive's four Hitman titles, along with the conclusion of Direct2Drive's $5 anniversary sale and a variety of pre-order discounts, including Left 4 Dead 2, Machinarium and Borderlands... Read more

There's now even less of an excuse for not owning Diablo 2, StarCraft or Warcraft III as Amazon is today offering 50% off the Battle Chest editions of Blizzard's classics.

$10 nets you the StarCraft Battle Chest, containing Blizzard's absolutely essential real-time strategy and its expansion pack Brood War, plus strategy guides for both.

The deceptively-named Diablo Battle Chest might not contain the original Diablo but does give Diablo II and its expansion pack for $20, and of course those guides. The Warcraft III Battle Chest similarly grants the game, expansion and guides for $20.

The offer runs until midnight PST so get your Gore Riders on if you don't get this joke.

The final week of digital distributor Direct2Drive's five dollar extravaganza brings a cadre of war games down to the low price point. There's a lot of gold to be had in this installment, with Company of Heroes Gold, Supreme Commander Gold and World in Conflict Gold all getting the $5 sticker price through October 11.

For a full list of the discounted games, click through:... Read more

Though the PC release of Borderlands isn't due until October 26--a week after the PlayStaiton 3 and Xbox 360 editions--digital distribution outlet Steam is looking to make the wait a little easier on your wallet by knocking 10% off PC pre-orders.

That brings the price of Gearbox's shooter-RPG down from $50 to $45 on the PC--$15 cheaper than the $60 console editions. Of course, you'll need to make sure your rig can run it--thankfully, the developer passed along these system requirements... Read more

Throwing yet another pre-order incentive into the mix, Valve today announced that those who pre-order Left 4 Dead 2 from "participating retailers" will get 10% off the game.

The offer brings the PC version to $45 and the Xbox 360 edition to $55. Of course, the company's own PC digital distribution outlet Steam is among those participating.

The developer is also offering those who preorder an exclusive melee weapon, the American baseball bat, and early access to the demo. Valve utilized similar techniques for the first Left 4 Dead, with pre-orders getting early demo access and a discount.

The controversial zombie shooter sequel hits PC and Xbox 360 on November 17.

As promised, Valve today released the downloadable "Crash Course" campaign for the PC and Xbox 360 editions of its cooperative zombie shooter Left 4 Dead.

The expansion, free for PC players and 560 MS Points ($7) for those on Xbox 360, delivers a new two-chapter campaign playable in single-player, co-op and competitive multiplayer. The download also adds several new maps for use in Survival mode.

In celebration of the DLC's release, Valve is offering 50% off the PC edition of the game--bringing it down to $14.99--until Saturday, October 2. The company has previously said that it plans to keep supporting the original Left 4 Dead even after Left 4 Dead 2 arrives on November 17.

"The primary goal of 'Crash' is to deliver a complete Versus mode experience in just 30 minutes, resulting in a streamlined version of the game's existing Versus campaigns," Valve explained, with patch notes for the PC version just below... Read more

As it did last year, Microsoft has chosen to follow up the recent Xbox 360 price cuts with a holiday-themed hardware bundle, and new for this year, a controller-game pack.

The Xbox 360 Elite Holiday Bundle packs two games, block-busting beat 'em up LEGO Batman and offroad racer Pure, along with the hardware itself for the usual $299. The bundle ships to stores today--if you act fast, you could still get in on the $50 rebate.

Microsoft also unveiled a $59.99 controller game pack that bundles a wireless Xbox 360 controller (usually $49.99) with four downloadable Xbox Live Arcade titles: Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, Lumines LIVE!, Bomberman LIVE! and Ms Pac-Man.

The fourth week of Direct2Drive's big five dollar sale sees a number of indie games brought down from their already-cheapened price points. 2D Boy's World of Goo is there of course, but so is Hidden Path's tower defense game Defense Grid: The Awakening and Chronic's platformer Gish. Paradox's Mount and Blade and Tale of Tales' The Path also made the list.

The full cadre follows:

• Mount and Blade
• World of Goo
• Defense Grid: The Awakening... Read more

Though it's only Thursday, Steam has already kicked off its weekend deal, a half-off sale on Monolith's shooter F.E.A.R. 2 and the downloadable "Reborn" expansion. That puts F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin at $24.99 and the downloadable add-on at $4.99.

In addition, the retailer is offering UK residents 10% off its entire EA catalog until September 27 to promote the fact that it's now selling those games in the territory.

Now free of the shackles that limited its availability to pre-orders, the downloadable demo of Double Fine's Brutal Legend is now available for Xbox Live Gold members.

The promised demo for Turn 10's Forza Motorsport 3 arrived as well, offering a one-track, five-car glimpse of the Xbox 360-exclusive racer due out October 27.

As usual, each demo is restricted to Xbox Live Gold members for one week, meaning Silver members will be able to give them a go on October 1. That's the same day that the Brutal Legend demo hits PlayStation 3, with the full game due at retail on October 13.

Having cut the Xbox 360 Elite's price by $100 to $299 only last month, Microsoft today announced a USA-only $50 mail-in rebate on Elites bought between now and October 5.

Details on the rebate program's specifics beyond what the press release states are scant for now as its website is not due for launch until later today.

Brought down to $249 by the rebate, the Elite will briefly once again be cheaper than a PlayStation 3, after Sony launched the new trim PS3 Slim for $299 earlier this month.