Highlights of the fix include:

• Fixed performance problem when rendering lots of decals, notably when fighting tanks with shotguns
• Fixed rcon response not working on Linux dedicated servers
• Fixed matchmaking problem matching into Advanced and Expert games
• Fix bug that would cause other specials to try to pummel a player a Charger disconnects or reconnects
• Fixed versus mode results panel being cut off in transition stats screen in non-english
• Found games: fixed non-player entries drawing the wrong type of icon in the selected item name label
• Game mode selector on main menu now takes keyboard input

There’s more via Steam.

Left 4 Dead 2 Patch Update [Steam via VG247]

Industrious Left 4 Dead modders have devised a not-exactly-simple workaround to bring the original game’s four campaigns into the sequel. The very unofficial, multi-step hack requires ownership of Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, ample patience and better than basic knowledge of editing PAK files. But, hey, it works.

Well, it mostly works. The list of issues includes numerous crashes, limitations and a dependency on console commands, but if you’re desperate to play No Mercy with Spitters and baseball bats, you now have the option. Will Valve offer a sanctioned version of this? At the risk of pissing off the Left 4 Dead owner further, we sure hope it does.

How to Resurrect the Original Left 4 Dead [L4D Mods]

Stardock boss Brad Wardell says “Our estimation is that Steam — as the current market leader — enjoys approximately 70 per cent of the overall digital distribution market with Impulse at 10 per cent and all others combined at 20 per cent in terms of actual dollars generated per month”.

While we have our doubts that Stardock’s Impulse service is at #2 (surely Direct2Drive is bigger?), Steam’s 70 per cent figure is — if it checks out — both interesting and frightening at the same time. That’s about the same level of market domination Apple enjoys in the music player scene.

Quick: Name another portable music device that’s not an iPod. Off the top of your head. Now tell me how many people you know own an iPod compared to a portable music device that’s not an iPod.

Exactly.

[via Gamasutra]

And now it’s priced at $AU80.

A 2K spokesperson explained the change:

“Unfortunately due to an internal error, Borderlands was briefly available for download on Steam for Australian users at an incorrect price. We have since reposted the game for the discounted price of AU$79.95 and apologise for the inconvenience.”

Discounted? Hmm. Sure, in store it retails for $AU89.95 RRP. But I’m not really sure how the new Steam price is a discount on the old Steam price…

UPDATE: Looks like we’re still waiting on the Steam Store to update. Shouldn’t be too long. It’s up.

Yes, that’s right, we’re now publishing reader reviews here on Kotaku. This is your chance to deliver sensible game purchasing advice to the rest of the Kotaku community.

And thanks to the very kind chaps at Madman Entertainment, purveyor of all kinds of cool, indie and esoteric film, the best reader review we publish each month will win a prize pack containing ten of the latest Madman DVD or Blu-ray releases.

This review was submitted by Ben Warwick. If you’ve played Cricket Revolution, or just want to ask Ben more about it, leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Cricket Revolution (PC – Steam)

Cricket Revolution is the first game from independent Pakistani developer Mindstorm Studios. All international teams from Australia to Bangladesh are represented, although there is no official licence attached so don’t expect to see your favourite players.

Loved

Batting: There are around 35 shots giving you plenty of choice depending on where the ball is bowled. Shots are played by pressing arrow keys, similar to a fighting game. A double-tap of the left arrow key will attempt to play a cut shot with a right-handed batsman and tapping down then left will play a cover drive.

Momentum: The rewards for gaining momentum are what you need to strive for if you want a chance of winning a match. Bowlers will unlock a special delivery if they have the skill level and batsmen will rise in level from unsettled to on fire, widening the timing window for shots.

Hated

AI: It’s very frustrating to set a packed off-side field only to have the batsman walk a metre over to where you pitched the ball and hit it through a gap on the leg side. Also when batting, more often than not a fielder will hit the stumps when you take a risky run. This makes it hard to judge whether you should take a quick single or not.

Lack of Movement: Unless a fielder is chasing a ball they will stand frozen still. When they could be walking back to their mark after a ball has gone dead or providing backup to another fielder, this gives the game a very unnatural feel.

I enjoyed playing this as much as I enjoyed Ashes Cricket, and for only $AU25 on Steam you can’t go far wrong. Considering that this is an independently developed game, it’s a very solid first up effort.

Reviewed by: Ben Warwick

You can have your Reader Review published on Kotaku. Send your review to us at the usual address. Make sure it’s written in the same format as above and in under 300 words – yes, we’ve upped the word limit. We’ll publish the best ones we get and the best of the month will win a Madman DVD prize pack.

The single-player experience in the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game is largely the same, with a few obvious differences. There’s the controller layout of course, and being a PC gamer long before I was a console gamer I will always be much more comfortable with a keyboard and trackball mouse than I ever will be with a standard Xbox 360 controller. I could argue that it allows for better accuracy, but it seems to me at least that the hit boxes are skewed more towards console gamers in the PC version, meaning that accuracy isn’t as important as it is in more PC-centric titles.

The graphics seem a tad bit sharper on my PC, but that could just as well be a factor of the clarity of my monitors and the fact that my current gaming rig — an Intel Core i7 2.6GHz with 6GB of RAM and dual GeForce GTX 275s — is a bit beefier than what I’m used to playing on. It really isn’t a huge difference, however, so I wouldn’t call either side the winning one graphically.

Basically, as far as single player is concerned, the games are relatively similar. Which brings us to the multiplayer side of things.

The PC version of Modern Warfare 2 has of course gotten a great deal of flack from the PC community for imposing console player-limits and removing the ability to create dedicated servers for online multiplayer, a feature that’s been standard in previous games in the series.

This having been said, the PC version loses a point to the Xbox 360 as far as local multiplayer options go, with the ability to network multiple 360 consoles together via System Link. There are no LAN options for Modern Warfare 2, and of course no split-screen multiplayer either, so the console is coming out on top so far.

Aside from the LAN options and a few smaller details, such as PC text chat, that’s where the differences end, which I suppose is why many PC gamers are incensed. The PC version features the same, network-controlled matchmaking system as the Xbox 360 version, without any of the advanced controls that PC players are used to. You can still set up a private game and tweak options like number of lives and friendly-fire, but for the most part it’s click, join and go.

As for reports of the PC version being open to cheaters and hackers, I’ve yet to see an instance of obvious cheating in my brief time on Steam, though in all fairness I do spend an awful lot of time dying.

As a PC gamer myself, I find the lack of dedicated servers to be frustrating, but then I am also a console gamer, so this is the sort of thing I’ve gotten used to over the past few years. When all is said and done, it’s a matter of personal perception whether the system is inferior or not. Should you feel slighted for getting what is essentially the same thing on both platforms? That’s completely up to you.

Keep in mind that I’m not the most dedicated or skilled Modern Warfare 2 player by a long shot, and your personal experiences with the two different versions may vary. If they do, they ball all means, tell us.

To be honest, Torchlight hadn’t originally made it into our fall reviewing schedule, being a budget-priced game in a season filled with blockbuster PC and console titles. Our readers were adamant, however, and after an outpouring of support via our tips email, we decided to give this unapologetic Diablo clone a good hard look.

Set in the mining town of Torchlight, which serves as the player’s base of operations, the game sends the player into a twisted underground dungeon network in order to root out a source of corruption that could endanger the entire world. With our trusty pet at our side, we delve into the dark depths of Torchlight.

Loved
Diabloriffic Gameplay: If you are looking for a quick and dirty Diablo alternative, this is it right here. Torchlight is your basic click-to-move isometric dungeon crawler, with fast action, randomly generated dungeons, experience points, red healing and blue mana potions, random named boss monsters, and enough equipment dropping to have you clicking on your Town Portal scroll every 10 minutes or so just to unload and restock on Identify Scrolls. It’s so unabashedly a Diablo clone that I’d laugh — if the gameplay weren’t so enjoyable.

Customisation: Torchlight features a wealth of character customisation options, from talent points granted when your character gains an experience or reputation level, to socketed gems that add stats and elements to weapons and armour, to the random enchanter, who can power up your equipment beyond belief or strip it of your favourite features. Each of the three classes has multiple talent skill trees to delve into, meaning going back through the game with the same class could yield you a relatively unique experience. If you’re as big a fan of tweaking little details as I am, then there’s plenty here to sidetrack you from the main event.

Man’s Best Friend: Each character in Torchlight starts off with either a dog or a cat companion, a feature lifted directly from the Fate series of dungeon crawlers. Your pet follows you on your adventure, gaining power as you do, fighting by your side. By pausing in your adventure to do a little fishing, you can catch magical fish that transform your pet into another creature entirely, making an entirely new set of abilities available until the magic wears off. Torchlight may lack multiplayer options, but you’re never quite alone with your trusty kitty by your side.

And a Side of Questing: Torchlight allows you to take a break from the main story line to do a little questing on the side. Certain NPCs grant you side quests, which either involve finding objects in the main story dungeons or journeying into levels created specifically for the quest. You can also purchase dungeon maps from certain vendors, which will give you even more new areas to explore.

The Look, The Sound, of DiabloCraft: The presentation of Torchlight is definitely Diablo meets Warcraft, resulting in a world that’s definitely lighter than the dark realm of the former, with elements that seem lifted almost directly from the latter — the first time you run into a goblin riding a steampunk mech, you’ll feel as if you just ported in from Warcraft’s world of Azeroth. Aiding the similarities is a musical score by Diablo composer and sound designer Matt Uelmen, whose string arrangements bring you right back to the unfortunate town of Tristam.

The Random Item Vendor: I love the Random Item Vendor. He presents you with a list of statless weapons and armour, and only after you pay an exorbitant amount for them will you find out what you just bought. In one instance I walked away with an epic bow for my Vanquisher character (think rogue / ranger), which had me slaughtering smaller trash mobs with a single shot. It’s a gamble, but when it pays off it is definitely worth it.

Hated
Something Vaguely Evil This Way Comes: An evil force is corrupting the magical ember beneath the mining town of Torchlight, and it’s up to you to ignore any story points and go back to mindlessly slaughtering anything in your way. The story is simply a thin excuse to keep the player moving, and not much more than that.

The Random Item Vendor: I hate the Random Item Vendor. He presents you with a list of statless weapons and armour, and only after you pay an exorbitant amount for them will you find out what you just bought. In one instance I walked away with a set of armour that I could never hope to have my character wear without completely forgoing her main attribute to focus on one she had little need for. It’s a gamble, and when it doesn’t pay off it really bites.

To really enjoy Torchlight you have to accept it for what it is. It’s a Diablo clone with bits of Warcraft and Fate thrown in, sure, but when the development team consists of people directly responsible for those titles you pretty much have to give them a pass. Once you overcome the initial shock of seeing just how much familiar material the team has pulled from previous projects, you can begin to appreciate the high level of polish they’ve given that material, and the proficiency that comes with their experience.

While it would have benefited greatly from a deeper story and a multiplayer component, Torchlight is one of the best Diablo-style games you’re likely to find without the Blizzard logo displayed prominently on the front of it.

Torchlight was developed by Runic Games and published by Perfect World Entertainment, Inc. on October 27 for the PC. Retails for $US19.99 on Steam, with a retail version coming early next year. A copy of the game was acquired via Steam press pass for reviewing purposes. Played through the entire story as a Vanquisher, dabbling briefly with the Destroyer and Alchemist classes.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Apparently since the game was released two years ago, there have been 97 updates for the game. 97! That’s roughly one a week, and has to be some kind of record.

Sure, that speaks volumes about the commitment of Valve to the game and the ways Steam allows them to directly service their customers. That’s surely why the point was made. But I like it because it shows how insanely passionate (not to mention important) TF2’s vocal player base is, that their over-bearing presence has Valve so on their toes that they’re updating a game on a weekly basis.

Valve’s Holtman: Digital Direct Gives Developers More Pricing Freedom [Gamasutra]

While there are a number of Left 4 Dead 2 boycotters who caved and played any way, a much larger number are enjoying other Steam titles, such as Counter-Strike Source, Team Fortress 2, and the original Left 4 Dead. There are even several playing Modern Warfare 2, which just goes to show you can’t boycott everything.

Special thanks to Jeremy for reminding me to check this.

Says Valve, on the L4D2 blog:

Due to an ongoing debate in the office and online as to whether “12 AM” means noon or midnight (we’re still sticking with midnight), it’s been more challenging than we realised to tell people when exactly our game will be available. Factor in the Earth rotating around the sun, daylight savings time, some of our fans insisting on using the Mayan calendar, and we’re just going to try and make this as specific as possible:

Alright, ready? Get out your pens, flip open your calendars, synchronise your watches, take your index finger and stick it in the middle of your palm to form a sundial, however you keep time. Here’s when Left 4 Dead 2 unlocks:

• Monday, Nov. 16, 9 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
• Monday, Nov. 16, 10 p.m. Mountain Standard Time
• Monday, Nov. 16, 11 p.m. Central Standard Time
• Tuesday, Nov. 17, 12 a.m. (midnight) Eastern Standard Time
• Tuesday, Nov. 17, 5 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time
• Tuesday, Nov. 17, 8 a.m. Moscow Time
• Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2 p.m. Japan Standard Time
• Tuesday, Nov. 17, 4 p.m. Sydney Eastern Daylight Time

As you can see, the US west coast gets a three-hour head start (technically) against the console street-date, London and Moscow will be getting up or on the train to work, and Tokyo’s hosed. Hey, I don’t make the rules.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, you might want to pre-load that six-gigabyte sucker, so that you’re not waiting an additional zillion hours to download the game on unlock day.

A Slight Clarification … [Left 4 Dead Blog via VE3D]