Steam, it seems, may finally have tromped across the proverbial bridge too far. The online PC games storefront with the sales leverage of a lion but the transparency of a two-way mirror reportedly signed a deal with Activision to load its Steamworks technology into retail and digitally distributed PC copies of Modern Warfare 2, and online sales competitors are bristling.

Nintendo DS uber-RPG Dragon Quest IX won't reach US shores until sometime next year, but it's already leading Wii Sports Resort, Madden NFL 10, and Halo 3: ODST in key international markets. A new report from Top Global Markets combining third quarter sales data from trackers NPD Group (US), GfK Chart-Track Limited (UK), and Enterbrain, Inc. (Japan) reveals Dragon Quest IX with four million units from July, up a full million over the next bestselling game, Wii Sports Resort.

War...war never changes, but in the looming battle-royale between the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, a new study suggests Sony may be poised to pull ahead of Microsoft over the holidays. Data collated by business intelligence trend-tracker OTX GamePlan Insights suggests US sequel-buyers favor the PS3 over the Xbox 360 for at least two major holiday releases.

If you're wondering where my review of Dragon Age Origins went, it's wasn't gnashed by the dog, the computer didn't spontaneously combust, and no, I haven't been obsessively sitting back-to-back viewings of This is It.

Blizzard's World of Warcraft could be headed for a good ol' fashioned plug-pulling in China, thanks to simmering government infighting gone wild. A Chinese regulation body has ordered NetEase, a Chinese internet company that hosts World of Warcraft in China, to disconnect the game after rejecting NetEase's application to operate Activision Blizzard's The Burning Crusade, the popular MMORPG's second expansion.

Relic's Dawn of War II was and remains the most well-executed tactical real-time strategy game going, a breakneck bedlam-draped Warhammer 40k paean that folds Company of Heroes' scrub-sliced battlescapes into squad-scale, obstacle-riddled pitches. Whether challenging the brutally adept artificial intelligence on skirmish maps or testing your mettle online, domineering a map requires thinking on your fingertips (hotkeys needing digits, not heels or toes) plying only what you have to hand in terms of squad leaders and commander units. Back-building tends to benefit distraction tactics (light squads of low-cost fodder), but success lies in managing your field units in the field, instead of loosing, leaving, losing, then routinely reconstituting them.

Poor Nintendo, the Wii can't catch a break. It's been the number one selling console for years, but you wouldn't know it from the dearth of news sites that bother to cover the thing seriously. The system's consistently beat the odds time and again--well, the analyst cobbled together ones, anyway--and gone on to outflank all the pundits, including yours truly.

Now that we've collectively gasped and had a chance to pull the paper sacks from our faces, is last week's Modern Warfare 2 footage worth getting our camouflage in a bunch?

Better late than never, game reanimation gurus GOG.com have just re-released Larian Studios' Divine Divinity, one of the better action-RPGs to favor the early 2000s. Imagine Diablo with brains, or Ultima 8 minus the party and streamlined for speed and you're in the ballpark.

In an unexpected move, Nintendo says it plans to launch a jumbo-sized version of its DS handheld in Japan with twin screens nearly twice the area of those found in the current models. The new system, dubbed the DSi LL, will hit the streets on November 21 and sell for ¥20,000 or about $220 USD. Specific timetables weren't offered on other market launches, but a company spokesman says the device will go on sale overseas (it'll be called the DSi XL) in the first quarter of 2010 according to our correspondent in Japan.

Everyone recognizes Mickey Mouse, but how many can say where he comes from? For all his comfortable familiarity, Disney's iconic disc-eared mascot has a murky mythology. Besides his wide-eyed sorcery-slinging role in Fantasia, he's best known for piloting a steamboat, getting a goat to huff out "Turkey in the Straw," and smacking around a cat, some baby pigs, and a goose. Before that, he flew a self-built plane (badly) in an attempt to woo Minnie Mouse (violently) before crash-landing. His signature saucer-ears appear on greeting cards, signs, hotel placards, backpacks, club hats, cookie cutters, and head bands. He's beloved the world round, a wink and a smile in red shorts, white buttons, and yellow booties who's somehow transcended calculated origin stories and canonical histories.

Time to get your southern-fried zombie-butchering groove on with the Left 4 Dead 2 demo, available now to Xbox 360 gamers who pre-ordered the game, though the Windows version's been delayed a hair to Wednesday. The demo pits up to four players against moldering hordes of undead in the first two levels of the cajun-themed New Orleans "Parish" campaign.