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News of Valve releasing an update for its popular Team Fortress 2 is hitting the Web, and if you're interested in what gameplay tweaks have been made you can view them below or at the link.

• Added new option for medigun beam to the Multiplayer-Advanced dialog. If on, the medigun beam will stay attached to the current target without the need to hold down the fire button
• Added new option for the sniper rifle to the Multiplayer-Advanced dialog. If disabled, the sniper rifle won't re-zoom after firing a zoomed shot
• Added "nextlevel" server cvar. If set to a valid map name, server will change to that map during the next changelevel
• Fixed PerfUI being used as a type of wall-hack on servers without sv_cheats set to 1
• Reduced Granary spawn advantage for capping the middle point
• Fixed players turning into "Scout" model after lagouts (and a variety of related issues, such as disappearing doors)
• Fixed obscure crash related to resolution changing
• Gave machinima creators access to "tf_testvcd" and "tf_testrr"commands for playing scenes on characters
• SDK Launcher now has a drop list of engine versions in addition to a drop list of games/mods. This eliminates the need to specify engine version as a launch option

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In more interesting Valve news (Valve being one of the few developing houses who actually seems to care about what its fans think of its games), the company has invited Orange Box owners to suggest "changes and tweaks" in this forum post.

If you've played through Orange Box (which received GameBump's Game of the Year 2007 award) and had some ideas for improvements, now is the perfect time to let Valve know.

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Despite what some award-show winners have to say, this wasn't a very excellent year for games. Think of the biggest, most-anticipated games of 2007 and think about how they turned out.

Halo 3 was probably the most anticipated game, and while its multiplayer component is pretty expansive, the single-player campaign (you know, the reason most of us buy a video game) was mediocre and occasionally downright boring. Assassin's Creed was another hugely-anticipated game, and it had the graphics and control scheme we all wanted, but in the midst of making all that it seems that Ubisoft forgot to throw in an actual game. What about Crysis? One of the most-hyped PC releases by the Microsoft camp? It sold less than 90,000 copies in its launch window.

Only a few of the anticipated games of the year really met anybody's expectations. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is, well, it's Call of Duty 4. You guys seemed to really eat up BioShock, too. Super Mario Galaxy is amazing as well. Our Game of the Year award is supposed to be about innovation, though, and aside from being very well-made products, what this year has really innovated things?

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Why It Won: Call of Duty was already an established series by the time Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare came around. After Treyarch's Call of Duty 3, many had thought the series had caught the "sequel syndrome" that plagues almost any big studio franchise that gets a new installment each year, each game becoming just another iteration of the previous with one or two features interesting enough to be mentioned on the back of the game's box. Boy were we ever wrong.

Call of Duty 4 isn't a greatly ambitious game. It didn't have the mega-millions advertising budget of Halo 3, it didn't have the Ayn Rand-ian objectivist overtones of BioShock, and it didn't really require that you go out and buy a new $4,000 computer to run it like Crysis. The scale of the game itself is somewhat large but it's no Earth-vs-Aliens. What the game lacks in scope, however, it makes up for in pure quality. Call of Duty 4 is a fun game, a well-made game, and a rewarding game. From the first mission you're sucked into the world of modern Special Forces and you're never let go.

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For those of us who don't obsessively follow the gaming industry and have a list of all upcoming titles stapled to the insides of our thighs (by "us" we mean "our parents), a game's box art can make or break the game. It's what draws the consumer to pick up the box and turn it around to see what it's about.

Sometimes publishers will either forget that, or not care enough to put any effort into the design. Perhaps they throw a generic-looking robot under a logo and drown it in Photoshop flare filters.

Games Radar has compiled a list of 15 of the worst box art designs of 2007, which includes everything from that John Deere game to The Orange Box. Grab your eye bleach and take a gander.

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The 5th annual Spike Video Game Awards show doesn't air till tonight at 9pm EST, but the winners have "somehow" made its way into my inbox this morning. The show is being held in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Events Resort and Casino. I honestly thought Halo 3 would hit the Game of the Year, but I never expected Skate to be in the best Sports game category.

But anywho, check out the full list below!

GAME OF THE YEAR
BioShock

STUDIO OF THE YEAR
Harmonix

BEST SHOOTER
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision/ Infinity Ward)

BEST RPG
Mass Effect (Microsoft Game Studios/ BioWare)

BEST MILITARY GAME
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision/ Infinity Ward)

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Reports are surfacing that a new demo for The Orange Box is releasing on the Xbox Live service.

The demo features Half-Life 2, Episode Two and should be available sometime today. For the ignorant among the masses, The Orange Box contains the following:

• Half-Life 2, Episode One
• Half-Life 2, Episode Two
• Portal
• Team Fortress 2

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