The PC Centric Extravaganza 11.04.08 – Election Day
Posted by Chris Evans on 11.04.2008
Election Day is here, read this then vote!
The PC Centric Extravaganza – Election Day
This isn't an election day special or anything, I just now this will be going live on the 4th November which is the election day in the US. If you are reading this and haven't voted yet, well shift your arses and vote, I don't care who you vote for, just vote!
Spore the Vote
Voting for the US election commences sometime today and to celebrate the Spore team have created all the Presidential and vice-Presidential candidates for you to download and play with. Simply head over here to get them.
Call of Duty: World at War Beta
The PC multiplayer demo for Call of Duty: World at War is now available on fileshack and weighs in at 845MB.
Beta keys are readily available from the Call of Duty site. The game lands on 11th November so make sure you get playing it soon or you will miss out.
Empire Total War: Steam Pre-Purchase Offer
Empire: Total War is ready for pre-purchase on Steam right now. For those of you who chose to pre-purchase you will receive a copy of Rome: Total War Gold for absolutely nothing.
It costs $54.99 here in the UK which is a bargain considering you get Rome thrown in too. Well maybe not a bargain, but it isn't a bad offer.
The Steam and retail versions of Empire will also come fully loaded with Steamworks which will provide owners of the game with updates, downloadable content and achievements. Steamworks will also act as the multiplayer backend of the game, more details will emerge on this soon.
For those of you who are now worrying about offline gaming, don't worry, you only need to connect to the internet once via Steam to play single-player.
It is released February 3rd in North America and February 6th in Europe and other territories.
New Riddick Coming
Atari have confirmed that a new Riddick game will be released next spring. The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Athena was originally rumoured to be a remake of the original Riddick game with added content, it has now been confirmed to feature a totally new full-length campaign. The first game received pretty solid reivews if I remember correctly and Jim Rossignol certainly enjoyed it.
Personally, I played a bit of the demo for the original but nothing more, it is something which I always feel that I should delve back in time to play again. It is always good to see franchises which have been running quiet come back, bring on next spring then.
Full press release follows.
ATARI TO PUBLISH ‘THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK: ASSAULT ON DARK ATHENA' WORLDWIDE SPRING 2009
- New Follow-up to Acclaimed First Person Shooter ‘Escape from Butcher Bay' Sends Anti-hero Riddick on a Brutal New Adventure -
LYON, FRANCE – 30 October 2008 – Atari, one of the world's most recognized video game publishers, today announced that first person shooter The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is joining its 2009 publishing and distribution line up. In conjunction with Universal Pictures Digital Platforms Group, Tigon Studios and acclaimed developer Starbreeze Studios, Atari is bringing the franchise to the new generation of consoles for the first time packed with thrilling new adventures. The highly anticipated title is scheduled for launch on the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and Windows® PC in spring 2009.
Previously announced as a remake of hit title The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay with added content, Atari can today reveal that The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena contains a brand new full-length campaign. This exciting announcement promises a title which will include the original game re-imagined for a whole new audience, an entirely new chapter in the Riddick saga and, for the first time, intense online multiplayer combat, making The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena a must-have experience for any fan of intense action gaming.
"It's very exciting to have Assault on Dark Athena as part of Atari's 2009 publishing line-up," said Phil Harrison, President of Infogrames Entertainment, the parent company of Atari. "The first game in the series was a landmark in action gaming and the outstanding team at Starbreeze are creating a feature-packed follow-up which will delight fans and new players alike."
"The Riddick IP offers a rich universe from which to develop no-holds barred games, and we've believed that since the days of the Pitch Black film," said Bill Kispert, Vice President and General Manager, Interactive, Universal Pictures Digital Platforms Group. "Assault on Dark Athena extends the franchise fiction; adds to the mythology with new storylines, characters and locations while remaining true to the original material; and gives fans an experience they haven't seen before. As we introduce this new Riddick chapter, we are also excited to welcome Atari to the Riddick family."
"We're thrilled about this remake and expansion of Escape from Butcher Bay." said Ian Stevens, Head of Game Production, Tigon Studios. "Assault on Dark Athena tells a new story in The Chronicles of Riddick, while at the same time sharing our original vision with a larger audience. We're excited about the coming months and talking more in-depth about new features like the addition of Multiplayer!"
"Working with the Riddick franchise for us is an extraordinary experience," said Johan Kristiansson, CEO, Starbreeze Studios. "We are deeply enthusiastic about the partnership with Atari that will bring this rich game experience to a new generation of consoles. With this release we've pushed the limits of the Starbreeze engine, delivering an extensive game package designed to thrill gamers worldwide. We can't wait for it to hit the shelves."
In The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena the player takes the role of Riddick, as played by Vin Diesel, using stealth and action to overcome the merciless crew of the predatory Merc-ship Dark Athena which awaits its prey in the dark reaches of space. Cheating death through a series of spectacular battles and events, Riddick will fight for his life amid a storm of malevolence and horror. The Chronicles of Riddick series of games takes the player deeper into the universe of Universal Pictures' films The Chronicles of Riddick and cult classic Pitch Black, which first introduced Vin Diesel as enigmatic anti-hero Riddick.
Featuring a brand new exhilarating adventure, a high-definition re-imagining of the classic Escape from Butcher Bay campaign and new multiplayer options, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena will thrill fans when it launches in spring 2009.
Left 4 Dead – First Ad
The first Left 4 Dead TV ad has been made public by Valve and is part of their massive $10 million marketing campaign for the zombie horror co-op game that is due for release on the 18th November. Courtesy of Doug Lombardi you can find it below right now.
Left 4 Dead – Opening Movie
Please find below the introduction move to Left 4 Dead, it really does look quite splendid.
Steam Cloud This Week
Valve have just revealed that Steam Cloud will be going public later this week with the launch of the Left 4 Dead demo. Steam Cloud is the latest, and maybe one of the best, innovations from Valve, with Steam Cloud any personal settings made in a game using Steam Cloud will be available to the same game on any other PC using the same account. Cloud services will be made available to all publishers and developers using Steam, and the service will be applied to all the Valve games on Steam.
Steam Cloud will make its first appearance with the Left 4 Dead demo which is due for release this Thursday to all those who pre-orderd.
Doug Lombardi had this to say:
For some time now, Steam has allowed gamers to log on from any computer in the world and access their applications. This also makes it easy to upgrade a PC without worrying about losing your games. Steam Cloud is a natural extension of the portability Steam affords gamers and developers, and we intend to expand its feature set as it is used in Left 4 Dead and other games coming to Steam."
The Witcher Sells 1 Million
The Witcher has now sold according to developers CD Projekt Red. The team are proud to show that single-player PC gaming isn't dead, and I totally agree with them. For such a game as The Witcher to have sold 1 million copies world wide (both the original and Enhanced Editions) is a great achievement from this small Polish development team.
The full press release (see below) provides a bunch of interesting quotes from the CEO of CD Projekt RED and the CEO of CD Projekt where they talk up GOG.com and a new multi-plat game underway with Metropolis Software.
The game has also just celebrated its first anniversary, to celebrate the team have released this special video showing off The Witcher and other projects from CD Projekt.
Scientists Uncover Irrefutable Evidence that Single-Player PC Gaming is not Dead as CD Projekt RED's RPG of the Year Breaks Sales Milestone
Warsaw, Poland – October 30 – All the ghouls, vampires and wenches in the world couldn't stop the white-haired Geralt from conquering the world! CD Projekt RED is proud to announce that The Witcher, the epic RPG that puts players in the morally lenient boots of the aforementioned anti-hero, has sold more than a million copies to real, live people since its release twelve months ago. Scientific research has proven that those sales numbers are quite good for a debut game based on a relatively unfamiliar IP from an unknown studio on a "dead" platform.
The news comes just weeks after the release of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, which was developed based on fan feedback to further improve the game that was named PC RPG of the Year by IGN, GameSpy, PC Gamer, Play and many more. The studio spent close to a year improving various facets of the game to deliver the ultimate role-playing game, then released the update for free to existing fans and loaded the retail package with extra value to encourage retail sales. As always, it seems that the customer is always right, as the Enhanced Edition is getting higher review scores than the original across the globe.
"We created The Witcher with the intent of becoming an acclaimed and successful development studio that always made games for its fans; we spent more than $11 million developing The Witcher and the Enhanced Edition, and it sure is nice to make some of that money back!" said Adam Kicinski, CEO of CD Projekt RED. "The success of The Witcher has ensured that we'll be able to make the games we want – and the games that fans want – for the foreseeable future, and the amazing response we had from the gaming community to the Enhanced Edition really reinforced that we're on the right track with our development philosophy. We really couldn't have achieved this sort of success without the support of our amazing fans."
"This is really just the beginning for us," said Michal Kicinski, CEO of CD Projekt, the parent company of CD Projekt RED. "There are a lot more places to explore in the world of The Witcher and there's obviously a huge audience out there that would still love to see the game on consoles… we're PC developers first and foremost, but you never know! We've already unveiled our DRM-free classic-games distribution site at GOG.com, and we intend to build that site aggressively in the coming months. We're also rather close to breaking our silence about the multi-platform project underway at Metropolis Software, in which we recently acquired a majority stake. Needless to say, we're very excited about the future and we think gamers will be, too!"
A video celebrating The Witcher's anniversary, featuring footage of unannounced upcoming titles has been released today at GameTrailers. For more information about The Witcher visit http://www.thewitcher.com
PC Burnout Dated
The PC version of Burnout: Paradise has been slated for a February 2009 release date which is just a few short months away. While the game has been out on the 360 and PS3 for what seems like ages now, we PC gamers have been eagerly awaiting news on the PC release for quite some time.
It is great to finally get a planned release date, and what is even more exciting is that fact that we will be getting Burnout: Paradise: The Ultimate Box, this means that we will get all the update packs that have been released for the consoles in one neat package.
You can find a load of information on the newly announced Party pack and more about The Ultimate Box and the PC version over on the Criterion blog.
New Company of Heroes Expansion Confirmed
A new Company of Heroes expansion pack has just been announced by THQ for a spring 2009 release. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor will feature three new single-player campaigns, new multiplayer modes as well as a plethora of new maps, units and the all new and highly innovative 'direct-fire' feature which will grant even more tactical control during the intense CoH battles.
Press thingy follows:
THQ today announced that Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor, the next chapter in one of the most critically acclaimed RTS series of all time, is currently in development for Windows PC at Relic Entertainment.
Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor features all-new content, including three single-player campaigns, new multiplayer modes, additional maps and units and the introduction of an innovative "direct-fire" feature that allows even more tactical control during the heat of battle. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor is fully compatible with both Company of Heroes and Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, allowing players who own the entire series complete access to the epic battles of World War II. The game is currently scheduled for release in spring 2009.
We'll have more information on Tales of Valor right here at THQ-Games.com in the coming weeks.
