The Best of Big Download: November 10-16

by Joystiq Staff @joystiq on Nov 16th 2008 8:30PM

The holiday shopping season is about kick into high gear....keep your stress down about buying presents for your mother-in-law by checking out a week's worth of highlights from Big Download:

Exclusive features

Playing Together: Co-op in PC FPS Games: Doom started the whole co-op mod in PC shooters and we look back at the trend on the eve of the launch of Left 4 Dead.
Microsoft talks about Games For Windows Live plans: Microsoft's Michael Wolf gives us the 411 on their plans to revamp their Games For Windows Live service include their upcoming Marketplace additions.
America's Army AA3 screenshot comparisons: America's Army is developing an Unreal Engine 3 revamp of their free multiplayer shooter and we have detailed screenshot comparisons of both the current and upcoming versions.
League of Legends interview: We chat with Riot Games about their upcoming multplayer fantasy action-strategy game.
Reviews: We review the latest American McGee's Grimm episode King Midas
MODMonday: Our mod column this week is about a graphical revamp of Wolfenstein 3D, WolfGL
Big Iron: Our hardware column this week takes a look at the perils of system restores in PC rigs
Mac Monday: This week's look at gaming on the Mac takes a look at the recent fantasy RPG Kivi's Underground.
Independent Minds: Our regular look at the indie game scene takes a look at titles made with the Unity platform.
Boot Disk and Virtual Bargain Bin: Both our retro gaming and value priced game columns this week are about the turn based strategy game Disciples: The Sacred Lands.
Big Ideas: Our regular look at trends in gaming is all about game reviews and how useful they really are.
Freeware Friday: Our regular look at free games this week is about the procedural RTS game Dyson.
BigCast: Our weekly podcast on PC gaming has some guest chatters this time round from sister sites Joystiq and GameDaily.
Contests: We are giving our readers a way to win one of three copies of the PC version of Quantum of Solace and we still have beta codes to give out for Battleforge.

Downloads

MotoGP 08 Demo: Try out this latest game in the motocycle racing sim series from Capcom
FIFA Manager 09 Demo: It's the demo for the latest in the series of soccer management sim games
Call of Duty: World at War Patch: Download this first patch for the just released Activision WWII shooter
Virtual Skipper Online Full Game: Check out the full free version of this sailing sim title
Sacred 2 Intro Trailer: Check out the intro to CDV's new action-RPG.
Tomb Raider Underworld Sinking Ship Trailer: It's a sinking feeling for this trailer to the Eidos action-adventure game.