A while back we mentioned that the DirecTV satellite TV service would be offering exclusive HD coverage of this October's Blizzcon event via pay per view. This week DirectTV announced the details on how new subscribers to the service would be able to get the Blizzcon coverage for free.

Simply put, any new DirecTV customers who sign up for the service by September 30 will be able to get the Blizzcon pay per view for free. Existing customers will have to shell out a whopping $39.95 for the same privilage. That pay per view will offer at least eight hours of HD coverage per day of Blizzard's sort of annual event on October 10-11. Anyone who orders the pay-per-view will also get a cool World of Warcraft in-game item; a polar bear mount with a murloc that waves a Blizzcon flag.

Ubisoft has been cranking out these CSI mystery adventure games for some time but this week the publisher announced plans to bring the third TV show in the CSI franchise to PC gamers. Yep, that means you will get to control a virtual Lt. Dan . . . er, a virtual Gary Sinise in a CSI: New York game.

The game itself will have five cases to solve, reportedly created by the TV show's writers. While Ubisoft's press release on the game didn't name a developer, GameSpot reports that Legacy Interactive is handling the creation duties. The company previously created a number of Law and Order adventure-mystery games so this is right up their alley. CSI: NY ships out before the end of the year.

Canadian publisher Strategy First released a number of smaller PC games in the 1990's and in the early part of this decade, both from third parties and their own internal development studios. They created the Disciples turn based strategy RPG series and produced two games in the franchise before they filed for bankrupcy in 2004 and shut down their internal development studios. Strategy First announced in 2005 that Disciples III would be handled by Russian developer Akella.

This week Akella announced that they have now acquired the rights to the Disciples series from Strategy First (Financial terms were not disclosed). Akella continues work on Disciples III with a planned release date in the first quarter of 2009. It is not clear if Strategy First will continue to be the US publisher for the game.

Take Two Interactive released their latest financial numbers, this for for their fiscal quarter that began May 1 and ended on July 31. As expected sales from their hit open world action game Grand Theft Auto IV on the PS3 and Xbox 360 helped the publisher get $433.8 million in revenue for the quarter, over double the $206.4 million amount it got in revenues for the same period a year ago. Take Two recorded a profit of $51.8 million for the quarter, compared to a loss of $58.5 million for the same period a year ago. Those figures exceeded Take Two's previous predictions.

PC owners can expect just one game from Take 2 for the remainder of its 2008 fiscal year (it ends October 31) with the release of Civilization IV: Colonization. The 2009 fiscal year is expected to see the release of the PC port of GTA IV (most likely this November) with titles like BioShock 2, Borderlands, Champions Online and Mafia 2 expected to be released sometime in the 2009 calendar year.

Blizzard must love making us skwirm. The developer officially announced their action-RPG sequel Diablo III last June. Most of the time, that means the game's maybe 12 to 18 months from release at most. For Blizzard, that means . . . well not much really. They tend to announce titles and let their fans wait and wait and wait until sometime in the next decade they finally get around to releasing the title (or in the case of Warcraft Adventures or Starcraft Ghost, cancelling it).

We are not bitter. We were just wondering why Blizzard announces games and keeps releasing new screenshots like the four new images that appeared today for Diablo III on the game's official web site and then allows us to keep waiting for the game's release. And that waiting continues.

This video illustrates how combat will be handled in Dragon Age: Origins. From the looks of things, combat sticks very close to the Baldur's Gate roots but with some very nice streamlining.

Download the Dragon Age: Orgins Darkspawn Combat HD Video (40 MB)

Blizzard is having a busy day today. In addition to announcing the release of the music soundtracks for several of their games on iTunes, the official Starcraft II web site has posted up three more images from the long awaited sci-fi RTS sequel. The new shots deal with two of the three factions in the game, the Protoss and the Zer, going at it as only they can do.

While some have still got the idea that Starcraft II might actually be released before the end of the year, that doesn't appear to be the case. A recent report from an Asian Activision Blizzard retail event stated that Starcraft II "should" be released sometime in 2009. As usual, Blizzard's official statement on the game's release is "when it's done."

Developer Treyarch and publisher Activision have announced that Call of Duty: World at War will enter into beta phase this October. The beta will allow PC and Xbox 360 players to help Treyarch and Activision refine the World at War experience for retail release on November 11 of this year.

Prospective recruits can register for the beta at CallOfDuty.com. Beta access is expected to last until shortly before World at War's release in mid-November. In addition to bug and stability feedback reports, players will undoubtedly make use of the one month head start to perfect tactics that will give them the edge against players lacking beta experience.

Download Call of Duty: World at War 2-Player Co-op HD Trailer (152 Mb)

Games from Blizzard Entertainment not only have great gameplay and terrific CGI cut-scenes they also have some of the best music soundtracks in the industry. Earlier this week we reported that a free song from the Diablo III CGI trailer has been made available for free on iTunes and today Blizzard announced that soundtracks from a number of their older games have now been made available via Apple's music download service.

Some of these tracks have only been available until now in collector's editions of Blizzard games or on sale at part Blizzcon events. Six soundtracks are currently available for Starcraft, Diablo II, Warcraft III and three World of Warcraft soundtrack albums. Blizzard's podcast can also be downloaded via iTunes.

X-COM: Complete Pack, a collection of the entire Microprose Software, Inc.-developed strategy game series, is now available on Steam, according to Valve's official Steam website.

Featuring X-COM: Apocalypose, X-COM: Enforcer, X-COM: Interceptor, X-COM: Terror From the Deep and X-COM: UFO Defense, the Complete Pack is currently listed at a price of $13.49. Each game's individual price tag sits at $4.99, making the Complete Pack quite a bargain for X-COM enthusiasts.

Beginning with X-COM: UFO Defense, Microprose's series introduced PC gamers to an eerie strategic setting which grew in popularity upon each subsequent series entry. For those who haven't yet experienced extra-terrestrial defense, take the plunge and purchase the entire package.

In Death Track: Resurrection players take on the role of a rookie driver that enters the tournament for the first time. They soon learn that the battle on the track is sometimes not fair and to achieve the top results they need to believe the end justifies the means. After each race all pilots leave the field, some in body bags some with prize money. Bigger engines and bigger guns can be all that stands between a good driver and tombstone.

Download the Death Track: Resurrection Demo (890 MB)

There were many PC titles this last weekend at PAX08, but out of everything that I got my grubby hands on, Demigod was easily the biggest surprise. The fine folks from Gas Powered Games and Stardock were there in full force and as much as I love Sins of a Solar Empire, it seems like Demigod is my new favorite real-time strategy underdog.

Just as Sins is a strange blend of RTS and Civ-style games, Demigod is a blend of RTS and various PC RPGs. Given my penchant for games that blend RPGs into a genre I already enjoy, I'd always been interested in what Demigod had to offer. After playing it at PAX08, I'm ready to lay down my pre-order directly to Stardock's Impulse service. Follow the image above for plenty of discussion on GPS's newest creation, Demigod.

Getting people together to chat about games is nothing new but the co-founder of the Xfire game messaging client believes he has a new solution that will cross both PC and console platforms. Raptr is the new company from Dennis "Thresh" Fong, the former pro gamer who co-founded Xfire which was later sold to Viacom for a whopping $102 million.

According to a press release we were sent, a gamer who signes up for Raptr will let his friends know he is playing a game on the PC, Mac and Xbox 360 along with Flash based and Facebook games. There's also some PS3 and Wii games that support Raptr as well. Facebook, Twitter and other applications will alert friends to what you are playing as well. It can also automatically download patches for some games. Raptr has released a PC beta client and even Mac user can download an alpha client.

In a review of a previous American McGee's Grimm episode, I wrapped up my analysis by stating that each of the games has been fun, but those who don't feel like shelling out bucks for each entry's admittedly cheap fare should wait for their favorite fairy tales to come around. I'd like to amend that statement. True, Grimm episodes have focused on and will continue to feature popular fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, but for many, the appeal of little-known tales (whether personally or universally) could be the saving grace of this platformer whose mechanics don't change much between episodes.

Take this week's installment: Godfather Death, a chilling tale with which I was unfamiliar despite being a fan of the Brothers Grimm. Grisly though they usually are, the brothers' tales are not quite macabre enough for Grimm, the titular protagonist of Spicy Horse's episodic series. In episode six, Grimm not only darkens the tale of Godfather Death, but manages to traverse many of the series' most clever and beautiful playgrounds yet.

As the world tries to move to a more conservative energy policy, including electronic devices, there's one rather large exception to this trend: PC gaming rigs. News.com has an interesting look at this trend which has seen power requirements for the high end gaming PC skyrocket up in the last few years.

It's not hard to see why; gaming rigs now have multi-core processors and many graphics processors, whether it's AMD's Crossfire solution or Nvidia's SLI set ups. As a result power supplies for these rigs have got up to as much as 1,200 watts which is three times what the high end was just three years ago. Some gamers may require new electric wall sockets or even new breakers be installed in their homes just so their gaming PC can run. PC makers don't see this trend stopping anytime soon. Kelt Reeves, the founder of PC maker Falcon Northwest, stated, "Eventually these chips get so hot that their own heat becomes a barrier to performance."