Keeping busy tonight, Blizzard Entertainment has released the small patch (v1.0.1) for their hit RTS, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. This latest update optimizes campaign saves and addresses a sound issue on certain 7.1 system. You can find the full changelog right here or just launch the game's auto-updater to start downloading. Let the weekend fun begin! :D
Spreading the good news today, Deep Silver and Animation Arts have announced that their upcoming Point & Click Adventure title, Lost Horizon, has officially gone gold and will begin shipping to stores on September 17th. Unfamiliar with the game? No worries! Here's a brief description courtesy of the official website:
1936: Soldiers of the Third Reich roam the world seeking occult weapons for their insane plans of conquest.
When Fenton Paddock, a former British soldier and hapless smuggler, is asked to look for his friend Richard, who went missing in Tibet, he has no idea that this search will lead him across three continents to a secret that could turn the whole world upside down.
Enough mystery? Not in the mood for another crime story? "Lost Horizon" brings the classic adventure back to its roots: the 1930s, exotic settings all over the world, and the dangerous quest for one of the greatest secrets of mankind makes adventurers' hearts beat faster. The Makers of the award-winning Secret Files series invite you to experience a technically outstanding, carefully designed game featuring an absolu2011tely thrilling story at the side of Kim and Fenton.
Don't forget to mark your calendars!
Remember when Halo used to be multiplatform? Then after Halo 2, Microsoft decided next-gen was synonymous withconsole exclusive.
Bungie has plans to reward fans who picked up the first Halo for PC. Your old key can be used to unlock an unspecified reward in Halo: Reach, though based on a post in the Bungie forums, we know it's purely cosmetic.
The reward is a small "visual flair", as was described during the last days of Halo 2 for players of that game. Not armor or anything in the Armory. We realize that some people have lost their keys or never played online to validate their key, and unfortunately we can't do anything about that. If that's you, you're not missing out on something like Recon or Flames, it's just a little indication that people have been part of a certain Halo community for a while, and we wanted to give them a nod.
So if you lost your key, rest assured you won't missing out on some kind of in-game WMD or special armor. The Xbox version doesn't apply either, so anyone who picked up Halo for console is s@#$ outta luck. The reason for this is Bungie has no way of verifying the Xbox version.
Don't bother hunting for a retail copy at this point, because they're going to assume you used a keygen. Well, maybe not you personally, but that's how they're eliminating the problem altogether.
Halo: Reach hits shelves this September.
Sections:Microsoft Consoles, Console Games, PC Games
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Transformers: War for Cybertron kicked off with a double XP event on the first weekend of July. And go figure, the second double XP multiplayer event will begin tomorrow, on the last weekend of the month.
Starting tomorrow at 6:00 PM PST, up until Monday at 12:00 AM, players can rack up the XP by playing multiplayer matches on the Xbox 360, PS3, or PC versions. I mean, really, does anyone actually play this on Wii or DS?
If you like playing with game developers, the High Moon guys will be online tonight, waiting for your friend invites. Now this event looks exclusive to the 360, so XBLA Gold subscribers can drop an invite to these gamertags. The Game with Devs event goes for three hours, from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM PST.
Enjoy.
Sections:Microsoft Consoles, Console Games, PC Games, Sony Consoles
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Spicing things up today, Creative Assembly has released a new gameplay trailer for their highly anticipated Strategy title, Shogun 2: Total War. Running just under two minutes long, this video features a cinematic battle "captured in-game". Pretty hot stuff! Check it out:
Thanks to GameTrailers for the above stream. A mirror is also available at the FileShack.
Shogun 2: Total War is scheduled for release in 2011.
Also available for download today is a new teaser trailer for Trion World's upcoming massively multiplayer online RPG, Rift: Planes of Telara. Clocking in at just under a minute long, this video gives a quick flythrough of the Gloamwood zone. Pretty creepy place! Check it out:
Thanks to YouTube for the above stream. Hit-up any of the following websites for a mirror:
GamersHellFileShackWorthPlayingRift: Planes of Telara is scheduled for release in 2011.
Wyck Godfrey was pretty stoked about producing a Gears of War movie, but Underworld director Len Wiseman has since abandoned the project, leaving Epic director-less. What happened?
Like Peter Jackson's Halo movie (the one that never was), the live-action Gears of War script Wiseman was using needed a budget of $100 million -- and that's just an estimate. But hey, Rockstar pulled it off with Grand Theft Auto IV, so why couldn't the Epic crew?
According to Wiseman, the main problem with a GoW movie is the inevitable 'R' rating, which would make it less accessible than say, a PG-13 rating. On top of that, the Gears script lacked the obligatory awkward love story. Bromances just won't cut it in the man's mind... nor Hollywood.
So Wiseman is gone, and CliffyB notes they're reworking the script to be "more like District 9" rather than 2012. Despite delays, these changes actually sound positive, and Wiseman should be smacked.
The upcoming Gears of War 3 is expected early April 2011.
Source:Cinema Blend
Sections:Console Games, PC Games
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So the big day for StarCraft IIhas come and gone but like any new game release, there's always going to be a few problems. Blizzard has got their fans covered with a list of known bugs and issues are at the moment.
Some of the bigger problems you want to look out for is are game crashes if you're using NVIDIA drivers on Mac OS 10.6 and graphic cards overheating due to the game going idle. Most of these hitches have workarounds to get rid of them while the rest are more than likely getting ironed out by Blizzard.
Keep an eye on the source links to know about any new problems and solutions that are likely to arise. Users are able to submit bugs on Blizzard's boards so feel free to get some help from them.
Source:StarCraft II | Current list of bugs
Alternate Source:StarCraft II | Known Issues
Section:PC Games
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Hell, it's about time! The worldwide launch of Starcraft II is underway with stores doing midnight openings around the globe as the date becomes 27th in each time zone - it is good to live in New Zealand today! In related news, the general productivity in South Korea is bound to plummet with a sudden, mysterious epidemic keeping people from showing up work and it remains to be seen if Blizzard's networking infrastructure will survive the onslaught as people pile in on the new Battle.Net service.
The official Starcraft II Facebook page has a large pile of photos from midnight launches around the globe, with developers signing copies at select locations. Expect more photos and video to become available as the US launch events begin in a few hours. This is how you do a global game launch - game publishers everywhere, take notice - none of the usual "oh, US will get their version three days in advance" crap here.
Digital download copies have already been available for preload for a while - the European digital do215cwnload version is available here while US version is here. There is just one catch - the downloadable version will go on sale in Europe at 10:00 CEST while US gamers have to wait until 10:00 AM PDT for the North American digital download store to open before it is possible to buy the download version - if you can't wait that long or if you want a Collector's Edition, you must venture outside for a boxed copy.
While the multiplayer mode of Starcraft II has been widely dissected and analyzed to death during the long beta process, the single player campaign has been kept under wraps. As everything with Starcraft II is tied to the new Battle.Net service, there has been no access to advance copies for reviewers - everyone is getting to play the single player game on the same day.
Now if you excuse me, my SC2 installation is complete, so I have some urgent work I must attend to...
Breaking out the eyecandy tonight, Big Huge Games have released a fresh batch of screenshots and artwork from their highly anticipated Fantasy-RPG, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. These latest images show off the game's environments and combat system. Enjoy:
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is scheduled for release in Fall 2011.
According to a report from NPD (a consumer market research group), 48% of all PC video games sold in the United States in 2009 were digital downloads. The 48% accounted for 21.3 million downloaded video games throughout the year, with the other 52% or 23.5 million games being physical copies.
The amount of games sold online has been steadily increasing over the past few years as programs such as Steam are becoming more popular with gamers. Also, with more consumers having access to fast broadband service, the act of simply downloaded a title to the PC becomes much easier than going to a retail store.
The NPD report also looked at different online distributors, categorized them by the types of games they sale and ranked them on a market share. The categories consist of “frontline digital retailers” which are online companies focusing on games sold at retail stores. The other group is “casual digital retailers” which focuses on light gamers with unique online titles. You can check the rankings below.
Top 5 Frontline Digital Retailers - 2009 (based on unit % share)
Steampowered.com Direct2Drive.com Blizzard.com EA.com Worldofwarcraft.comTop 5 Casual Digital Retailers - 2009 (based on unit % share)
Bigfishgames.com Pogo.com Gamehouse.com iWin.com Realarcade.comThis is a trend we are likely to see continue as downloads are quickly becoming the norm; 2010 could be the year where downloads surpass physical copies sold.
Post a comment here and let us know whether you buy your games retail or download them through an online service.
Update: Stardock and Impulse's Brad Wardell says, "Despite what many would have you believe, 3 out of 4 PC game sales occur at retail with the bulk occurring at just a handful of retailers (Walmart, Best Buy, Gamestop, etc.). The remaining 25% is via digital distribution (Steam, Impulse, D2D, etc.)."
Source:Shacknews
Sections:PC Games, Handheld Games
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Beenox's Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions was originally announced only for consoles and Nintendo's handheld, but this has changed, according to the team's Twitter page.
It's expected to be a port of course, as their background is in porting to PC. The good news is their ports have been generally well-received, so we can look forward to at least an adequate version of the game.
Shattered Dimensions blends four alternate Spider-Man universes and versions of the webslinger; it's set to launch September 7, though a PC date is not yet confirmed.
Source:Twitter / Beenox
Section:PC Games
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Sure to please fans, THQ and Relic Entertainment have confirmed that their highly anticipated 3rd Person Shooter, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine, will be coming to the PC in addition to the previously-announced Xbox 360 and PS3 versions in early 2011. The developers sound pretty excited about the news:
Jonathan Dowdeswell, General Manager of Relic Entertainment commented: "The loyal PC audience is incredibly important to us here at Relic so we are delighted to be able to announce the PC version of the game."
Travis Plane, Vice President of Global 2174Brand Management commented: "Delivering great content the fans want to play is the key goal in the core games division at THQ so we are pulling out all of the stops to make this the best possible game for PC and console audiences alike."
Awesome! Was a little worried this one might be a console-only title. :D
Giving us something to play tonight, IO Interactive has released a PC demo for their upcoming 3rd Person Shooter, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. No word on what this demo includes exactly, but if you're still interested in checking it out, just head over to the game's Steam page and hit the "Download Demo" button on the right.
On a related note, Steam is offering a 10% discount on Kane & Lynch 2 pre-orders. So if you dig the demo, you might want to hop on that deal! ;)
A mod pack for Vampire: The Masquerade -- Bloodlines has been released which makes the whole process a lot easier if you just want to click a few times and have your game fully optimized. The pack is simply titled "VTMB2010", and merges the CompMod (recruit NPCs), Clan Quest mod (additional quests), and Camarilla mod, which is more or less an overhaul with endless bugfixes and tweaks.
Some folks may wish to stay true to the creators' work and as such, just the latest version of Camarilla will be all you need -- find 1.3 here. Fans should note version 1.4 is in the works as of a couple weeks ago.
VTMB2010 also contains many tweaks to the mods it houses -- see the source for the release notes and of course the download itself.
Source:Planet Vampire
Section:PC Games
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We're all quite aware about the SyFy's channel's notoriety of showing movies with silly premises (such as this classic) but an exception just might be made. SyFy will be airing the live-action Red Faction: Origins film in March 2011 that may lead into a TV series for the franchise.
Origins takes place between Red Faction: Guerilla and Red Faction: Armageddon with Jake Mason, son of rebel hero Alec Mason, looking for his sister on Mars while serving his time as a ranger in the Red Faction militia. However, a new army appears to take down Red Faction and Jake discovers that his sister is a part of the enemy force.
Andrew Kreisberg (Fring, Vampire Diaries, Boston Legal) is the man behind the screenplay so there's chance Origins might turn out pretty good. It should also be airing around the time Armageddon is released for PC, 360, and PS3; a couple of new screenshots show off some of the deadly aliens players will be dealing with.
Image GallerySections:Console Games, PC Games, Sony Consoles
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Creating a little buzz at this year's San Diego Comic Con, BioWare has confirmed that their highly anticipated MMORPG, Star Wars: The Old Republic, will include space combat missions. How will it work? Here's the scoop:
Space combat is an alternative gameplay experience to the primary game of storytelling, questing, and ground-based combat. In space combat, you fly your personal ship to various “hot spots” on your galaxy map. From there, you will blast your way through asteroid fields, enemy fighters, frigates, destroyers, and a variety of other obstacles that will evoke memories of some of the great St215car Wars™ space battles.
To learn more, pick up the October 2010 edition of PC Gamer which hits newsstands starting August 17th for screenshots and an exclusive interview or check back with us in the weeks to come.
I'm sure this news will please the fanboys. ;)
Spicing things up today, Paradox Interactive and Fatshark have announced that their Western-themed multiplayer shooter, Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West, will be available to play for FREE this weekend on Steam. The event should kick off later today and will run until Sunday, July 25th. Pre-loading is available right now!
Also, Lead & Gold is currently on sale for just $7.49 USD (a 50% savings) as part of Paradox's week-long Steam sale. So if you enjoy your time with the free trial, be sure to grab the full game while it's cheap! :)
BioWare has released a very large patch for Dragon Age: Origins and its expansion just now. The new update is purely a bug fix release, but does cure a number of important issues like crashes and corrupted saves. Unfortunately it also cures the best bug in the universe whereby your female character (SPOILER) could "have sex with Morrigan, impregnating her with dead Alistair's baby."
Players should realize the full benefits won't be seen unless starting a new game.
The patch is available now for PC at the source, and will be soon (presumably this week) for consoles.
See below for the release notes, and head here to see some important information on remaining known issues which they are unable to fix.
General FixesACHIEVEMENTSOn the PC, sometimes an achievement image and message would not display properly. This has been fixed.DOWNLOADABLE CONTENTFixed some authorization issues with downloadable contentBlood talents from the Grey Warden Base premium downloadable content now work properly in other modules.Installing new downloadable content no longer leaves the Other Campaigns selection grayed-out.GAMEPLAYMultiple transitions in and out of Fade areas were multiplying the number of visual effects running, which slowed down gameplay. This no longer occurs.Fixed pick-pocketing. Characters were successfully stealing, but not receiving any items.USER INTERFACEFloating numbers no longer appear over the player's head.Damage statistics are now being updated properly on the Inventory screen when weapons are unequipped.Names with accents and special characters now show up correctly in the "Story So Far" load hints.Switching between Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening no longer resets options to default settings.Selling too many items to the same merchant no longer corrupts the save files.Screenshots were being uploaded automatically on the PC by default on new installations. This no longer happens.IMPORTING CHARACTERSImporting a character to a new module from a save game that did not have the hero in the party caused the game to crash. This is fixed.Imported characters to Dragon Age: Awakening now start the game with equipment and clothing on.PERFORMANCEA number of memory leaks have been fixed, which will reduce the frequency of crashes.Audio drivers have been updated to fix a number of audio-related crashes.SOCIAL SITEFixed a number of issues with portraits not being uploaded correctly to the BioWare social site.Dragon Age: Origins FixesGAMEPLAYFixed an issue with the wrong characters appearing in Morrigan's ritual.Players who rescued their party members in the Fade of the Broken Circle plot are no longer forced to fight the sloth demon alone.It is no longer possible for the player to get blocked during gameplay by pursuing both candidates' quests in the Orzammar plot line.Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening FixesGAMEPLAYFixed a variety of bugs related to party members' approval and personal quests not triggering.Lillith will now only thank the player once at Vigil's Keep after being rescued.During the Assault on Amaranthine, a bug would occasionally make some enemies invincible, which impeded game progress. This no longer happens.Players may now receive notes of appreciation from former love interests.Masterpiece and paragon silverite runes are now weapon runes instead of armor runes.The masterpiece slow rune is now available for purchase from merchant stores.IMPORTING CHARACTERSImported rogue characters now properly detect traps.The message, "Legacy tattoo asset do not use!" no longer appears on the face of some imported characters.Source:BioWare Social Network
Sections:Microsoft Consoles, Console Games, PC Games, Sony Consoles
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Sims 3 is pretty damn awesome and shows just how far the entire franchise has come -- regardless, Sims 2 still has all the fun expansions.
Night Life was always a personal favorite, but it looks like Sims 3 is finally getting its own version, titled 'Late Night.' The new expansion is scheduled to launch this fall, and it adds an "active downtown scene" for your socializing pleasure. New occupations will also be made avaialble, like director, musician (in a band), bartender, and more.
Late Night also adds vampires back into the mix. Let's hope they're not the sparkly emo-tastic kind.
Image GallerySection:PC Games
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Spreading the good news today, BioWare has announced that they're working on a new DLC pack for their hit Sci-fi RPG, Mass Effect 2. Dubbed "Lair of the Shadow Broker", this latest DLC has Commander Shepard and Liara T'Soni teaming up to confront the mysterious Shadow Broker. No word on a release date or pricing, but we'll be sure to keep you posted!
In the mean time, enjoy these new screenshots:
Wrapping things up tonight, Bluehole Studios has cooked up a fresh batch of screenshots from their upcoming massively multiplayer online RPG, TERA. These latest screenies show off the game's colorful environments and combat system. Enjoy:
TERA's release date is still TBA
BioWare's treating this year's San Diego Comic-Con crowd to a sneak peek of Dragon Age II. Since telling non-personal acquaintances about the preview will prompt BioWare to send an angry dwarf to my house, we'll stick with the other preview.
At the end of the relatively tolerable waiting line, three gaming stations were open for some hands-on. Turns out BioWare had been working on another DA:O add-on this entire time and didn't tell anyone, proving once again that BioWare's PR department is fully comprised of ninjas.
We're told the DLC, titled 'Golem of Amgarrak,' will raise the current difficulty level significantly. In fact, all three stations had the game set on 'Easy,' and players (including myself) didn't last beyond the first fight. Then again, we were restricted to a premade mage, already speced for demoing.
Nothing was said about the story, but the protagonist is now followed by new characters, including a dwarf, a dinosaur-ish creature named "Bronto," and a golem that isn't Shale.
The DLC with an awkward name is planned for launch this summer, though the rep didn't pinpoint an exact date.
Sections:Microsoft Consoles, Console Games, PC Games, Sony Consoles
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