Patch 3.3 is just around the corner in the World of Warcraft, and WoW.com is there as usual: we've got lots of information about what's coming in the new patch, including the new Icecrown raid instance, the cross-realm Dungeon Finder system, new loot and gear, lots of class updates and changes, and of course lots of new achievements and quests. Hit the break below to read ten of our most popular posts from the last week -- whether you're a new player or just coming back for the game's fifth anniversary, we've got something for you.

How was Thanksgiving weekend for you? Eat a lot of turkey and then took a long afternoon nap? Watch a lot of football? Put up your holiday decorations? Raid stores for deals on Black Friday? Man, you must be tired. Just sit back and check out what Big Download posted up during the last seven days.
Exclusive features

• Left 4 Dead 2 Game Guide: If you want to be fully briefed on Valve's zombie co-op shooter sequel, then you've come to the right place. We started our Left 4 Dead 2 Game Guide with the first chapters on Identifying New Threats, Knowing Your Arsenal and our first campaign guides Hit 'Em Dead Center, Hosting a Dark Carnival and Catching Swamp Fever. Look for the other entries next week!
• Holiday Gift Guides: Black Friday may be over but the holiday shopping season has begun. Take a look at our PC gamer gift guide for non-game present ideas as well as our picks for some single player title gift suggestions. And if you want to do some download shopping for your gamer we have evaluated the major PC game download services.
• Interviews: We chat with the creators of the just released indie strategy game Solium Infernum and the upcoming action game Zombie Driver.
• Gyromancer review: We give our final verdict to this Square Enix-Popcap puzzle-RPG collaboration.
• The State of Mac Gaming: In this first part of a multi-part series, we look at the current state of gaming on the Macintosh platform.
• Big Ideas: In our latest entry in our look at gaming themes we look at if single player gaming is truly becoming extinct.

Was the past week good for you? It certainly was good for us. As usual Big Download had a bunch of exclusive feautures, news items and downloads for any PC gaming fan. Let's take a look back at the last seven days:
Exclusive Features

• Left 4 Dead 2: Check out our review of the PC version of Valve's shooter. Plus you still have time to win one of five Steam download codes for the full game.
• Interviews: This week we chatted with the creator of the upcoming 8-bit version of Left 4 Dead along with the COO of Reality Gap about the new free-to-play title Battleswarm.
• Mac Monday: This week we focus on two Mac games: Drawn: The Painted Tower and New Star Soccer 2010.
• Boot Disk: This week our retro games feature looks at Interplay's Fallout 2.
• Big Ideas: Our weekly look at game themes examines what, if anything, could be considered taboo in games.
• All You Need To Know: Our weekly 411 on a game titles gives you the info you need on Assassin's Creed 2.
• Freeware Friday: Our popular look at free PC games checks out the browser-based Captain Forever.

We played Modern Warfare 2 for the PC and lived to tell about it! But that wasn't the only thing that happened in the PC gaming world last week. As we do every week, let's look at the last seven days on Joystiq's PC-centric sister site, Big Download.
Exclusive features

• Reviews: We give our final verdicts on Modern Warfare 2, Dragon Age: Origins and League of Legends.
• Star Trek Online preview: We go hands-on with Cryptic's upcoming sci-fi MMO.
• Interviews: We have lots of interviews this week including chatting with the developers of Prometheus, the Archon remake and Dino D-Day.
• Minuteman feature: We find out about an upcoming sci-fi movie that will use a specially created game as part of the plot.
• Jace Hall feature: The former Monolith head talks about his new projects as a Hollywood producer including the new V TV show remake.
• Mac Monday: This week our look at Mac games checks out two titles: Spooky Runes and Boonka.
• Boot Disk: Our retro games feature checks out the original Diablo.
• All You Need To Know: We have the 411 on Blizzard's upcoming RTS sequel StarCraft II.
• Freeware Friday: Our weekly free PC game feature checks out the new Flash-based RPG Dragon Age: Journeys.

It's been a big week in the World of Warcraft -- aside from both the impending patch 3.3 release and the onset of the game's fifth anniversary (yes, it's been almost five years since Blizzard brought their MMO online), Blizzard has finally done something that many thought they would never directly do: start selling in-game items for real money. There was lots of argument about that one this last week, and you'll find that, along with the usual news and insights, over on Joystiq's sister site WoW.com. Check out our most popular posts of the last week in the second half of this post.

Windows 7 is now out and about, but what will it mean for PC gaming? That was our main theme this week at Big Download. Let's look at the features, downloads and news items from PC gaming for the past seven days:

Exclusive features

• The launch of Windows 7: On the occasion of Microsoft's launch of its latest OS, we examined if PC gamers should upgrade to Windows 7, gave some advice to Microsoft on how they can help PC gaming with their new OS, and chatted with a number of game developers on their opinons of Windows 7.
• Lucidity Review: We give our final verdict to LucasArts' recent downloadable puzzle-platformer.
• Mac Monday: This week's Mac gaming column checks out two games: Bullet Candy Perfect and Avenue Flo.
• Boot Disk: Our regular look at retro games checks out the classic Dungeon Keeper.
• Big Ideas: Our look at game themes this week examines why game developers should set more games in modern times.
• All You Need To Know: Just in time for the game's demo release, we examine all we know at the moment about Left 4 Dead 2.
• Freeware Friday: Our popular column this week looks at this mix of retro and rogue game in DoomRL
• Contest: You still have some time to enter our Order of War giveaway contest.

We are just a few days away from the official launch of Windows 7. Will it create the push that gets more console gamers into PC gaming? Only time will tell. While we wait to find out, Big Download takes a look at the previous seven days of news for the already converted:
Exclusive Features

• A Brief History of Windows Gaming: We look back at the various versions of Windows as they related to PC gaming history.
• Black Ops Games Redux Part 1: In the first installment of this multi-part series, we look back at some former games that were unannounced last year that finally were officially announced.
• Hands-On with Torchlight: We got to play the upcoming downloadable fantasy action-RPG from Runic Games before its release on October 27 and wrote up our impressions!
  
• Big Versus: City of Heroes Vs Champions Online: Our Versus feature returns as we compare the new super hero MMO with the first one.
• All You Need To Know: This week our game info feature looks at Bioware's upcoming RPG Dragon Age: Origins.
• Mac Monday: Our weekly Mac column takes a look at two titles this time out: Machinarium and QuantZ.
• Boot Disk: Our weekly retro game feature looks at the classic Shiny Entertainment-developed title, Earthworm Jim.
• Playing For Free: Our weekly look at free-to-play online games checks out the space-based title DarkSpace.
• Freeware Friday: Our always popular free PC games column checks out a game with the unusual title RRRRRPG.

Another busy week for news, downloads, and exclusive features at the PC game-oriented Big Download. As we always do around this time of the week, we look back at the highlights of the last seven days:
Exclusive features

• Reviews: We give our final verdict for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising and also our first impressions of Aion.
• What PC Gamers Need To Know About Windows 7: Some tips and info on Microsoft's Windows 7 and how it will affect PC gaming.
• Left 4 Dead Guide: Crashing and Burning: It's our guide to the recent free mini-campaign for Valve's zombie shooter.
• Mac Monday: Our weekly look at Mac games checks out Miriel's Enchanted Mystery.
• Boot Disk: Our look at retro games checks out LucasArts' classic Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight.
• All You Need To Know: We take a look at all the info currently known about the upcoming RPG Alpha Protocol.
• Big Ideas: Our weekly look at game themes examines how realism really works in games.
• Playing For Free: Our weekly examination at free-to-play online games checks out Nexon's latest Dungeon Fighter Online.
• Freeware Friday: Our regular look at free PC games checks out the platformer RunMan: Race Around the World.

Things are hopping as usual over in Azeroth, and Joystiq sister site WoW.com is jumping in time with the tune. Patch 3.3 is being tested, and from what we know so far, it'll bring a new raid, new 5-mans, and possibly the end of the story of Arthas Menethil (a.k.a. The Lich King himself). Want to learn more? Read on!

News

• World of Warcraft Patch 3.3 PTR patch notes
  Here's what Blizzard has put in the new patch so far.
• Blizzard releases details on Icecrown Citadel
  Official details on what the new raids and instances will be like.
• Cataclysm starting zone lore and other new details revealed
  Hints on what we'll find in the starting zones of the new races. And boy do they sound fun.
• Patch 3.3 PTR: New Tauren skins found
  A new look for the cow people in patch 3.3.
• Patch 3.3 PTR: New weekly quests to do while raiding
  The new patch will bring with it more rewards for raiders who go after certain bosses.

Features

• Patch 3.3 PTR: Pit of Saron first impressions
  Our bloggers headed into the new instance, and survived long enough to come back with these impressions.
• Patch 3.3 PTR: Undocumented paladin changes
  Pally changes on the PTR so far.
• Scattered Shots: Patch 3.3, what's on the horizon for hunters
  Looking ahead to what's in store for ranged DPS.
• Arcane Brilliance: Patch 3.3 PTR changes for mages
  Blink is fixed? Go figure!
• Patch 3.3 PTR: Undocumented druid changes
  Updates for shapeshifters from the latest public test realm.

Once again there was a lot to report on and talk about in the world of PC gaming last week. Big Download has all the highlights for the past seven days:
Exclusive features

• Five PC games console players would love to play: There are still some big PC-exclusive games that console players have never played. We take a look at five of them.
• The Top 10 PC Game News Stories for September 2009: We look back and give our picks for the news that was the most important for PC gaming in September.
• Left 4 Dead Crash Course Quick Impressions: We give our first impressions on the new (and free for PC owners) mini-campaign for Valve's zombie shooter.
• Second Skin Review: We review the recent MMO-themed documentary.
• Mac Monday: We check out two more games for the Mac: Zuma's Revenge and Creeper World.
• Boot Disk: Our weekly look at retro games checks out the original Majesty.
• Big Ideas: Our weekly thoughts on game ideas examines if having-game specific features actually takes you out of the game.
• All You Need To Know: Our regular look at upcoming games gives you all the info we know about Modern Warfare 2.
• Playing For Free: Our weekly look at online free-to-play games checks out the browser based MMO Ikariam.
• Freeware Friday: Our always popular look at free PC games checks out the newly free indie title Strange Adventures in Infinite Space.

We had a very busy week for original features on Big Download in the past seven days. Let's take a look at our output for the past week:

Exclusive features

• Reviews: As the fall season hits, we give our final verdicts to a ton of new PC games, including Batman: Arkham Asylum, Majesty 2, Resident Evil 5, Red Faction Guerrilla and Section 8.
• Alienware's new look and features: We go over the four new desktops and the new laptop from Alienware that was announced this week.
• Mac Monday: Our weekly Mac gaming column looks at two games this time, BOH and Cuba Letra
• Boot Disk: Our weekly retro game feature has two entries this week as we look at the Planet Moon Studios action game Giants: Citizen Kabuto and the original Red Faction.
• Big Ideas: Our weekly look at game themes and ideas examines if playing games is actually good for you.
• All You Need To Know: Our regular look at upcoming games gives you an idea of what to expect from Borderlands.
• Playing For Free: Our weekly look at free-to-play online games checks out Nexon's first person shooter Combat Arms.
• Freeware Friday: Our weekly look at free PC games checks out the sandbox-themed game Clonk Endeavour

News

• Brewfest 2009: Coren Direbrew's new level 80 loot revealed
  Same boss for the Brewfest ingame holiday, but there is some new loot.
• Blizzard is tracking 180,000 bugs in WoW
  That includes fixed bugs, but still -- that's a lot of edited code.
• WoW.com's guide to Patch 3.2.2
  A brand new patch in the game, with some special anniversary fun included.
• High-rated PvPers do the robot
  A little bit of sneakiness on the part of PvPers.
• Tips for taking down Coren Direbrew
  Want to bring down the Brewfest boss? We've got you covered.

Features

• The Overachiever: Guide to Brewfest 2009 achievements
  Get all the points you can during the holiday celebration.
• Insider Trader: Patch 3.2.2 madness
  How to make some money in the newest patch.
• Raid Rx: 14 Patch 3.2 trinkets to check out
  Get some of the best raid healing trinkets around.
• Ask a Faction Leader: Garrosh Hellscream
  Everyone's least favorite Horde fanatic answers our readers' questions.
• AGDC09: Blizzard talks about the world behind Warcraft
  Interesting info from Blizzard's presentation at this years Austin Game Developers' Conference.

It was an especially busy week for demos at Big Download, but we also had our usual allotment of features and news as well. As we do every Sunday, let's look back at the past week with fondness and delight (or something like that):
Exclusive Features:

• Nvidia 3D Vision Discover: Want a way to experience 3D gaming without spending a lot of money? Nvidia has a solution that works.
• AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity Review: We give our verdict on this indie action game with a super-long title.
• Mac Monday: Our weekly look at Mac games takes a look at two titles: Crystal Cave Classic by Rake In Grass, and Awem Studio's Romance of Rome.
• Boot Disk: Our regular look at classic games checks out the Shiny Entertainment RTS title Sacrifice.
• Big Ideas: Our regular column that looks at game themes examines how a good game sequel is made.
• All You Need To Know: Our new regular feature on one particular (and recent) game gives you the 411 on Section 8.
• Playing For Free: Our column on online free-to-play games examines the NCsoft mech action title Exteel.
• Freeware Friday: Our explosive column on free PC games looks at BaboViolent2, the free predecessor to the recent downloadable commercial game Madballs in Babo: Invasion.