Big Download Blog

DirecTV Blizzcon free offer detailed

John Callaham — 2008-09-05T10:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Culture, Starcaft II, World of Warcraft, Diablo III

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.

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CSI: NY gets its own PC game

John Callaham — 2008-09-05T09:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Adventure

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.

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Akella acquires full rights to Disciples game series

John Callaham — 2008-09-05T08:00:00 00:00

Filed under: RPG, Strategy

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.

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Take Two's newest financial numbers exceed expectations

John Callaham — 2008-09-04T21:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Biz

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.

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More Diablo III screenshots entice us

John Callaham — 2008-09-04T20:30:00 00:00

Filed under: Action, RPG, Screenshots, Diablo III

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.%Gallery-26346%

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Dragon Age Orgins engages in combat

Steven Wong — 2008-09-04T20:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Downloads, RPG, Video, Dragon Age: Origins

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)%Gallery-28013%

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New Starcraft II screenshots come forth

John Callaham — 2008-09-04T19:30:00 00:00

Filed under: RTS, Screenshots, Starcaft II

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."%Gallery-22420%

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Activision announces Call of Duty: World at War beta, release date

David Craddock — 2008-09-04T19:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Betas, FPS, Multiplayer

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)

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Blizzard game sountracks now on iTunes

John Callaham — 2008-09-04T18:30:00 00:00

Filed under: Culture, Downloads, Action, MMO, RPG, RTS, Starcaft II, World of Warcraft, Diablo III

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.

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Entire X-COM series now available on Steam

David Craddock — 2008-09-04T18:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Strategy

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.

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Download: Death Track Resurrection Demo v2

Steven Wong — 2008-09-04T17:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Downloads, Demos, Action, Driving, Multiplayer

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)

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Alt-Tab: On the subject of Demigod

Kyle Horner — 2008-09-04T16:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Features, RPG, RTS, Opinion, Demigod

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. %Gallery-31159%

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Xfire co-founder launches Raptr gaming based social platform

John Callaham — 2008-09-04T15:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Betas, Downloads, Mac

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.

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Review: American McGee's Grimm: Godfather Death

David Craddock — 2008-09-04T14:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Features, Action, Casual, Opinion

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.%Gallery-26787% Godfather Death is the story of an amorous married couple who have just birthed their thirteenth child. Finally realizing that maybe they have one too many little ones, the husband embarks on a quest to find a suitable godfather for his son. He encounters God, but decides He won't do at all: too good and holy. Satan is next on the list, but ol' Lucifer rests at the opposite end of the spectrum, so the father passes on him as well. The father finally encounters Death, who is unbiased against all mortals: everyone dies, and so he holds no allegiances. Fair enough, daddy thinks, and so hires Death as the boy's caretaker. The boy works as a physician for Death. Though unschooled in the medicinal arts, the boy's task is simple: if Death chooses life for the patient, the boy bequeaths a healing herb upon the almost-victim. When the boy goes against Death's orders and saves a king and his daughter, Death takes his godson to his domain, where the boy stands in awe of row upon row of candles. Some are long, which represent a long life; others short. Because of his disobedience, the boy's squad candle is extinguished, and he drops dead. Harsh, but not harsh enough for Grimm's sadistic tastes. Why is God so content to be overlooked for the position of godfather? Grimm asks. Surely the Most Holy would object to not being considered good enough. And Death! Though strict, Grimm feels more psychological punishment is in order before the boy's candle is quickly snuffed out. After five straight weeks of Grimm episodes, you shouldn't be surprised to hear that Grimm carries out those and other misdeeds by darkening his surrounding environments -- meaning, of course, that the gameplay in episode six is nearly identical to the previous five episodes. Personally, however, I found Godfather Death's seven levels to be among the most unique featured in the series yet. God's domain, a place of green pastures and frolicking do-gooders, becomes ravaged by lightning bolts hurled by the big man after Grimm's diseased presence invokes His fury at not being chosen by the father. Animals, humans, and the land alike are struck by God's sizzling vengeance as the sky becomes dark and wrathful, birds burst into flame and fall to the ground, and God's cheeks blush red with rage. Despite some stages being far too short in length -- many are barely worth exploring and take no time at all to completely darken, thus somewhat nullifying the accomplishment for completely darkening a stage -- each level's makeover is worth witnessing. Satan's area oddly contains nuns wandering across scattered hilltops, and Beelzebub himself boasts a disappointingly tame appearance. With the help of Grimm's aura, the nuns morph into harpies and Satan takes on the more satisfying form of a hunch-backed demon, pitchfork firmly in hand and eyes spurting flames. NEXT >>

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PC gaming rigs are consuming more and more electricity

John Callaham — 2008-09-04T13:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Hardware

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."

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Over 500,000 total Sins of a Solar Empire units sold

John Callaham — 2008-09-04T12:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Strategy

The big sleeper hit for PC games in 2008 is without question Sins of a Solar Empire. The space strategy game from developer Ironclad Games and publisher Stardock spent a number of weeks early this year on the top 10 best seller lists. Today Gamasutra reports that the game has sold over 500,000 units; 400,000 of those sales came from retail stores and over 100,000 units were from digital download sales. The game itself cost less than a million dollars to create.Besides just being a great game, Sins is also designed to run on older PCs. Stardock CEO Brad Wardell stated that the game could have had the ships' turrets move but that would have required the game to have a higher hardware system to run properly. He states, "You make those kinds of design decisions, and you greatly increase the number of people who can play your game. You lose out on some piddly super-mega effect, but you get those units. The results come in sales." Last week it was announced that instead of a full expansion pack, mini-digital expansions for Sins of a Solar Empire will be released for $9.99 each, beginning in December.

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Download: Stalker: Clear Sky v1.01 Patch

Steven Wong — 2008-09-04T11:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Downloads, Patches, RPG, STALKER Clear Sky

Updates S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky to v1.01. The patch optimizes the performance of Clear Sky approximately 5%. In addition to that the patch improves the overall stability of the game and fixes potential load/save issues. Further the balancing of the multiplayer mode has been changed. Download the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky v1.01 Retail Patch (57 MB)Download the S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky v1.01 Direct Download Patch (58 MB)*Steam users should not need to download the patchS.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky v1.01 patch notesChanges:* MultiSample Anti Aliasing* Added use of special cover during fights.* Improved dynamic lighting.* Changes to combat balance: some enemies are now stronger.* Changes to economic balance.* Added secondary objectives.* Changed some animations in the multiplayer.* Improved sorting of secondary objectives in the PDA.* Added the ability to communicate with storyline characters, squad leaders and guides without holstering weapons.* Added description of stash contents when purchasing information about the stash.* Added additional information to pop-up tips in the PDA.* Changed traders' item stocks in certain areas.* Changed life simulation balance (event intensity, mutant strength).* Added the opportunity to get your items back after being mugged at the Garbage. Only part of your money is now taken when you enter/leave the Garbage.* Added rewards for joining factions.* Changed the PDA log message filtering system.* Added flares in Limansk and the Red Forest.* Increased reward for capturing enemy bases in the Faction War.* Save/load file names can no longer contain brackets.* Added use of localized strings in game console, chat etc.Fixes:* Game optimization (approximately 5% improvement).* Overall game stability improved considerably.* Fixed errors in saving the game, which caused consistent crashes during long games.* Game loading speed increased by 10-15%.* Fixed error with the emission.* Fixed error which caused characters to run around with activated grenades in their hands.* Fixed random enabling of music which had been disabled in settings.* Fixed stash errors, including incorrect saving and accumulation (disappearance) of items in stashes.* Fixed error with automatic failure of a number of objectives, which prevented them from failing.* Fixed errors in some secondary quests.* Fixed the guide algorithm. Guides can now take you to more locations.* Fixed an error which caused the player to become an enemy of Clear Sky.* Fixed the player's starting position when entering areas.* Fixed errors in the response of detectors to anomalies and artifacts. The detector no longer responds to artifacts it can't detect.* Fixed reward at the Duty base.* Fixed minor issues in the PDA interface and in the multiplayer main menu.* Fixed errors which caused the game to crash when the player joined Duty.* Fixed minor bugs in mutant behavior after death (vanishing corpses, continuing animations).* Fixed appearance of items in crates owned by camps.* Fixed tree penetrability, including the ability to be penetrated by machine gun fire.* Improved visual presentation of some anomalous areas.* Fixed appearance of some Freedom stalkers.* Fixed some text errors.* Fixed errors which made it impossible to upgrade some items.* Fixed the error which made it impossible to use grenades in the player's inventory.* Characters no longer give out secondary objectives during camp attacks and defense.* Some traders now sell upgraded weapons.* Added places to hide from emissions in the Dark Valley.* Fixed an error with detector activation from the inventory.* Fixed FPS drop in the main menu.* Fixed double super-sampling buffering.* Fixed bug with night vision effect which remained after the suit which provided it was removed.* Fixed font display in DX10.* Fixed errors in key assignment in game options.* Fixed team history in the console following log clearance.Multiplayer:* Added the Repair Base map* Changed multiplayer balance.* Fixed health indicator bug caused by using medkits while invulnerable.* Fixed inventory opening bug, which occurred when the player died in DM, TDM and AH modes.* Fixed the bug which caused a pause after client connection.* Buy menu improved.* Fixed BattlEye support.* Fixed patching system.* Fixed incorrect error message.* Fixed error with movement of items in the backpack.* Fixed first bullet dispersion.

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Bethesda Softworks finds dealing with Fallout 3 censorship 'frustrating"

John Callaham — 2008-09-04T10:00:00 00:00

Filed under: RPG, Fallout 3

It's well known that Bethesda Softworks' upcoming post-apocalypse RPG Fallout 3 was in danger of being banned in Australia for its depiction of drugs in the game (an edited version of the game has now been approved by the country's ratings board). But that doesn't mean the developer/publisher has smooth sailing in other countries where the game is being sold.In a chat with Computer and Video Games, Bethsoft PR head Pete Hines, while dodging specific questions about the Australian situation, did state, "The frustrating thing for us is that the standards and rules can be so varied across territories, that we work with five or six ratings agencies and each one has different 'hot buttons'." As an example he stated, "In one place nudity is a big deal but violence is fine, and in another place drugs are a problem but nudity is fine." In the end, Hines stated that such issues don't really affect their development plans, saying. "We just go through and make the game that we want to make."%Gallery-20726%

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New international Max Payne movie trailer revealed

John Callaham — 2008-09-04T09:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Culture, Action, Trailers

Last week Yahoo debuted the final US trailer for Max Payne, the upcoming action movie based on the Remedy developed game series. But you haven't seen anything yet. Yahoo's UK division has the international version of the trailer available to check out as well.This new version has a number of scenes that were not shown in last week's US trailer and still looks plenty cool with lots of supernatural-like elements, great looking fire effects and plenty of shooting, glass shattering and the like. Can Mark Walhberg make us forget that the studio making Max Payne, Twentieth Century Fox, also made the very crappy adaptation of Hitman last year? We will see when the Max Payne film heads for theaters on Oct. 17.

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Eurogamer to host its own expo in October

John Callaham — 2008-09-04T08:00:00 00:00

Filed under: Culture

The Penny Arcade Expo has just finished up and the E For All Expo is coming in early October but across the pond the folks at the Eurogamer web site are hosting their own consumer game show on Oct 28-29 in London. The first annual Eurogamer Expo will be part of London's annual Games Festival.If you happen to be in town for those two days the first annual Eurogamer Expo will have a number of upcoming fall titles like Prince of Persia, Far Cry 2, Mirror's Edge and many more. The best thing is the admission price. No, it's not free but they are asking for a mere GBP 5 donation to UK videogames charity GamesAid. That's a pretty good deal to see a bunch of upcoming fall 2008 titles.

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