Remember the days when the PlayStation 3 was in third place in console sales? Well, it still is, but that won’t be the case for long if Sony sustains the strength of sales its console had in the month of October. Compared with October 2008, sales of the system were up 70% last month.

That’s not the only good news for Sony. Year over year downloads for its PlayStation Network service were also up. PSN can boast some impressive numbers - to date, users have downloaded 650 million pieces of digital content and Sony has garnered in excess of 31 million registered users.

EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich thinks that the PS3’s recent price drop, along with a torrent of triple A titles being released for the system, are contributing to its popularity, “Many believe a console race is a 100-meter dash, but it’s really a marathon.”

In true Rapture spirit, with wrenched voices, art deco stylized environments — in this particular case, the Tea Garden — here’s a full 0:42 seconds of multiplayer ass-whooping of BioShock 2, featuring one of the playable characters Danny Wilkins as the main contributor of said whoop.

With mechanized crossbows, machine guns, magical vanishing-powered not-so-tall people and a load of shocking electricity, we’re given a short, yet arguably enjoyable - due to its abbreviated nature - insight as to what we might expect once the sequel to the 2007 Game of the Year comes out February 2010, in all its Special Edition splendor.

Got two hours? Then you might want to check out the demo for Torchlight, Perfect World Entertainment’s new action RPG. The game is unabashedly a throwback to old-school RPG fare, with players traversing randomly generated dungeons from a third-person isometric view, a la Diablo. If you like what you see after two hours of play, you’ll have to pony up $20 to continue with the game.

While it won’t be released until next year, details are beginning to surface for Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. The first item concerns the game’s protagonist: this time around, we’ll be filling the shoes of the more sadistic member of the duo, Lynch, as the plot details how the two killers get tangled in shadowy black market dealings in Shanghai, China. Developers are saying that the industrial city settings will promise an excellent venue for close quarters combat.

Moreover, online cooperative play will be featured in the game, something which was noticeably absent from the original. Competitive multiplayer will also be back with a host of new additions and improvements. The only thing I don’t understand is why they’re calling the sequel “Dog Days.” Something like “Kaner & Lyncher” sounds much better to me.

Sure, there are some parts of Dragon Age: Origins where the game’s characters give in to carnal desires and resort to “bumping rumpatay’s,” as the townsfolk say. But the game shows restraint where films like Basic Instinct and V.I. Warshawski had none - there are no depictions of nudity within the game.

BioWare CEO and co-founder Dr. Ray Muzyka says this was solely an artistic choice by the development team. “We don’t constrain what they do. We don’t strive for gratuitous content,” he explains. “But we also ask the teams to choose a direction and then run with it. That was their choice. That’s how they wanted to depict the romantic liaisons in the game, so that’s what we did.” To be sure, Dragon Age is great, but don’t you think the game would benefit from the inclusion of a naked Kathleen Turner?

The Olympics. Saturday Night Live. C-SPAN. Serious Sam. All of these things are best enjoyed in high definition. As such, Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter, will be released for PC on November 24. For you anxious types, you can pre-order the game on Steam, which will retail for ten quid. An Xbox Live Arcade version of the game is in the works as well, but no release date has yet been announced.

There may be a global recession, but that’s not stopping Microsoft from posting a slew of new job openings for Natal development. In the past two weeks, Microsoft has posted about 60 new openings, 14 of which are directly related to Natal. One such Natal listing specifically involves working as a producer of unnamed Epic Games content.

Stardock CEO Brad Wardell has stated that while his company’s Impulse distribution service claims 10% of the PC game digital delivery market, Steam remains on top, with 70% of all digital distribution taking place on Valve’s popular service. Wardell asserts that Steam’s early jump on the digital distribution market - the service was launched in 2003, while Impulse was first released last year - has played an important role in Valve’s domination of the market.

Specifically, Steam operationalized processes for DRM management and international pricing, two areas where Impulse still faces obstacles with individual publishers and countries. While Stardock plans to make progress in streamlining its distribution systems with the looming release of Impulse Phase 5, it’s safe to assume that Steam will continue to retain the lion’s share of the digital delivery market for the forseeable future.

Bad news for owners of the PC version of Resident Evil 5. While Capcom was nice enough to bless PC fans with their very own edition of the thriller, they’ll be getting no such love when it comes to downloadable content, at least not right away. “No plans for PC at this point,” a Capcom rep has said.

Which is too bad because the extra Alternative Edition content will be available to download over PlayStation Network and Xbox Live early next year.

Sony is still hoping to sell 13 million PlayStation 3 systems this fiscal year and company vice president Kaz Hirai remains confident that they’ll hit their goal. With half of the Sony fiscal year already passed, only 4.3 million PS3’s have been sold, meaning that over 8 million consoles will need to be moved in the next six months. While perhaps a lofty goal, the holiday season will surely be a boon for sales of Sony’s flagship system.

In addition to focusing on steady console sales, Sony is also planning a new online distribution system, which would facilitate the purchase of books, movies, and music for network-capable devices like the PS3 and PSP systems.