The always-funny duo of Sam & Max have bolstered their presence on Steam today, as Season 2 of the episodic point-and-click adventure series has been added to the Steam catalog. The season is available for $35, or you can buy both Season 1 and 2 at the discounted price of $60. You’ll also find that all of the Sam & Max content on Steam is temporarily 10% off to celebrate the release of Season 2.

In other Steam news, Assassin’s Creed is currently 20% off. That’s a pretty good deal if you’re interested in the game, but don’t expect any DirectX 10.1 support currently.

A handful of other games have also been added to Steam in addition to Sam & Max: Season 2, all of which reek of mediocrity, at best. They are:

• Iron Man
• Soldier of Fortune: Payback
• Monster Jam
• History Channel: Battle for the Pacific
• Cabela’s Trophy Bucks

Activision and the Global Gaming League (GGL), are launching the “Ultimate Mercenary Tournament” for Soldier of Fortune Payback on the Xbox 360. This first-person action game has one vs. one and four vs. four tournament ladders open for players to take part in and with the practice rounds being over – every kill now counts towards the final tally. At stake is $15,000 in prizes and the bragging rights that being the best virtual mercenary in the world get you. Winners will be flown to New York City in February to take part in the finals which will be aired on Voom’s GamePlayHD channel on Dish Network.

Players can sign-up at anytime, with their best rounds counting towards the final rankings. For complete registration information, along with rules and regulations, go here. For more information on Soldier of Fortune Payback, check out our previous posts and FileFront.

Via: Press Release

Here’s a new video for the upcoming Soldier of Fortune Payback. It basically shows the main character taking out several enemies with a sniper rifle before taking it to the streets John Woo style. The series is known for its extremely graphic gore and hit detection system, but the gore in this game seems to change from trailer to trailer. First video showed almost no blood, the second video showed limbs popping off and flying everywhere ridiculously, and now this one seems to show lots of blood, but barely any damage to the enemy models. Admittedly though, the action at least looks somewhat solid enough to peak my interests, at least for a rental.

There’s a new trailer up for Soldier of Fortune Payback. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you see it) it doesn’t show any new gameplay footage. Instead it shows a cut scene with the main character — who now looks like any other cookie cutter action game hero — mowing down enemies while a voice over reads a list of qualities from a job posting for your task. The video is already kind of tongue-in-cheek from the beginning, but it just turns laugh out loud funny with the last line. There’s an age gate though, probably due to the last line, so you’ll have to check out the video here.

Jonathan more or less called it on Tuesday when he said the anti-videogame people would be all over the newly announced Soldier of Fortune: Payback. Censors have banned Payback in Australia, as it contained “high impact violence” that is apparently too much, according to a Classifications Board spokeswoman. Speaking with News.com.au, she stated, “(The decision was based on) the different ways a player could maim and injure (other characters).”

She continued, “The violence is seen to exceed the MA classification.” A report on the game from the Classifications Board stated that “the limbs may be shot off, resulting in large amounts of blood spray and the depiction of torn flesh and protruding bone from the dismembered limb.”

As you can see in the video above, which Jonathan linked to in the game’s announcement story on Tuesday, the violence is pretty extreme. But, it’s extreme to the point where it’s over the top, with enemies spewing blood as if a fire hose got loose.

Something tells me Germany is going to follow suit and ban the game, too.

While it’s been rumored for awhile now, Activision has made an official announcement that Soldier of Fortune: Payback will be hitting the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC this November. The game will continue the story of “The Shop,” an organization of mercenaries that fight underground wars for a price. Players will take on the role of Thomas Mason, who finds himself battling an extremist army after a routine escort mission goes awry. This game will expand on previous Soldier of Fortunes with an arsenal of 30 different weapons. There will also be several online multiplayer modes and a stat-tracking system to chronicle your accomplishments.

But all that isn’t what the series is known for. The press release doesn’t highlight this, but fans of the series know there’s going to be insane amounts of gore. I’m talking limbs being severed and blood spewing like a broken water main (you can check out this video to see what I mean). Yeah, it seems to have gotten a little ridiculous in the next-gen translation, but in this age of video game violence being closely scrutinized, it’s nice to see someone go out and stick to their roots. Still, the anti-video game people are going to be all over this one.

You can check out some screenshots below:

This video has sprung up online showing the first gameplay footage for the upcoming Soldier of Fortune 3: Pay Back for the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. It’s a little odd for Activision to release a trailer like this of such low quality. It’s even weirder for them to just now start revealing information about this game when the release date is supposedly next month. Although, from the looks of thing,s that may be indicative of something. The footage doesn’t look all that impressive really or any different from your average, run-of-the-mill FPS. Seriously, where’s the crazy gore this series is known for? That’s about all that the past games had going for them. I should feel dirty after watching gameplay footage from a Soldier of Fortune game. Oh, what the ESRB hath wrought.

Via Game Planets