Running With Scissors is publishing Postal 3 via Steam by Christmas, but there’s an unrated boxed version too that can be purchased from the studio’s online store. On Friday Running With Scissors CEO Vince Desi announced that the third installment to the controversial Postal series is finally “coming home for Christmas.” The game was initially released on November 23 in Russia, but will be released worldwide via Steam presumably around December 25 (no actual date was given). A $40 boxed “unrated” version is also now up for pre-order here.

“Our dearest friend, Editor and original RWS member Bill ‘The Game Doctor’ Kunkel passed away this past September,” Desi said in a press release. “We’d like to honor Bill and the Postal Dude’s best friend Champ (who also passed away earlier this year) by proudly self publishing Postal 3 in their memory.”

Postal originally arrived on the PC back in 1997 as a top-down isometric shooter full of over-the-top violence and irreverent humor, whereas the second installment appeared on the PC in 2003 as a first-person shooter using Epic’s Unreal Engine. This third chapter, which went into development just after Postal 2 hit store shelves, will pull the camera back into a 3rd-person perspective using Valve’s Source engine.

“As a developer, the most important element of an engine is stability,” Desi said about switching engines in 2008. “The Valve Source engine provides stability, for single player and multiplayer, also they provide excellent support.  As Postal 3 is its own unique game, we are doing a lot of custom coding, so it’s better for us to know what we have to work with from the start.  And Steam is a major plus.”

The Postal 3 story takes place just after the “accidental” nuclear destruction of Paradise, Arizona (aka Apocalypse Weekend) in Postal 2. “We rejoin the Postal Dude and his psychotic pitbull Champ as they emigrate to the ironically named town of Catharsis. Unfortunately, due to the Global Economic Meltdown, psychotic left-wing “Green” extremism and hypocritical right-wing Government corruption, life in Catharsis isn’t much better.”

The game reportedly has two paths to take: the “good path” which involves the Postal Dude joining the local police force, and the “bad path” which includes joining in on the schemes of Mayor Chromo and Uncle Dave. The Postal Dude initially ends up in Catharsis because he ran out of gas and the broken economy has jacked up the price-per-gallon cost to $17.

That in itself is a good reason to go postal.

Postal 3 is only slated for Windows PC via Steam and the Running With Scissors online store for now. A PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 version is slated for some time in 2012, but an actual ship date is yet to be determined. The studio also plans to release a Linux and Mac OS X version at some point.

At an unusually dreadful videogame awards show last night, EA finally opened the lid on the long teased Command and Conquer: Generals 2. Here’s the news: it’s being developed by a new studio branded “Bioware Victory”, and built using the same tech that powers Battlefield 3. The screens are quite pretty, and posted below. Read more…

Assassin’s Creed Revelations has been out for a good few hours … time to announce some DLC! On December 13, you’ll be able to buy some new multiplayer characters to replace the stock ones you will have gotten tired of.

The $3.99/320 Microsoft Point “Ancestors Character Pack” will bring four new characters into your murder spree: the Privateer, the Corsair, the Brigand, and the Gladiator, all with “unique taunts, weapons, and stylized assassination moves.” Ubisoft mentioned a second downloadable content pack “available for pre-order today,” but didn’t offer any information about that pack.

Professional seller of Jaffa Cakes and other foodstuffs, Sainsburys, announce that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was the best-selling item in their stores on release week. It made more money for the retailer than bread, milk, and somehow even Marmite to take the top spot. Marmite took revenge earlier today by leaping out of a lorry and spreading itself all over a British motorway, hurting no-one seriously but causing hours of delays for commuters.

The Telegraph reported the figures, revealed by Sainsbury’s commercial director, and added that Call of Duty was toppled in the week after release by huge sales of Teacher’s whisky. The two aren’t thought to be related. It’s a surprising fact given that Game recently issued profit warnings ahead of faltering sales. Could supermarkets be cutting into the profits of dedicated retailers?

Barely two months after the increment of level cap to 32, and many server maintenance, Dragon Nest (SEA) players will have their level cap increased to level 40 next Tuesday (13 December 2011). The announcement was made earlier today by Addison Kong, Vice President of Shanda Games International, and Executive Producer of Dragon Nest (SEA). Time to start raiding all those dungeons and stacking your guild board missions!

SOURCE via Dragon Nest (Facebook)

A big 2GB Battlefield 3 patch is set to arrive tomorrow morning, fixing bugs and making some important balance changes. The fixes range from nice additions like an alternative HUD colour scheme if you’re colourblind, to important fixes for a few extreme errors that I didn’t know existed. Apparently if you run and vault over an obstacle into water, you can instantly die. Time to spend the rest of the day trying to replicate that one on stage one of Operation Metro before tomorrow’s update makes it extinct.

The balance updates make some important changes, and they seem sensible. Tactical lights will be nerfed (yaay!) Mortars will take longer to reload and mortar shells will take longer to hit (yaay!) The IRNV scope will now only be effective at short rangs (nooo!). The patch will also tweak all weapons so that they to do less damage on full automatic, DICE say that “burst fire is now preferable at mid to long range.” DICE also throw a bone to US forces on Caspian border. They’ve “moved a tank spawn in US base on Caspian Border so it would not be destroyed by a falling tree.”

You can browse the full patch notes below, as taken from Battlelog, where DICE also confirm that the update will land tomorrow morning at 8AM GMT. Read more…

Are you on it? Have you shot many men? Does it still feel like Counter-Strike? The starting gun has gone off, head-shotting a terrorist twenty metres away and signalling the launch of the Global Offensive closed beta. COUNTER-TERRORISTS WIN.

There’s a video of the closed beta above, from Evil Avatar. It looks like Counter-Strike, it sounds like Counter-Strike, but does it taste like Counter-Strike? We won’t know until we’ve jumped in and licked the sand on Dust. Valve have said that they’ll gradually send out new beta invites until the closed beta is essentially an open beta, so don’t worry if you’re not in this round of testing.

Four old-school Battlefield maps recreated in BF3′s absurdly stunning Frostbite 2.0 engine. Where do I sign? Right below the line that reads “PS3 owners get it a week early on Dec 6,” you say? Well now, that can’t be right. Surely you jest, Battlefield Blog. No? Not even a little? OK, fine then, I’ll accept your terms only if those who pre-ordered BF3 get the DLC free of charge, no strings attached. Huh, they do? Oh. Then I want a pony.