It's not exactly a shock but Activision announced today that actor Daniel Craig will not just lend his likeness to the upcoming James Bond shooter Quantum of Solace but will also handle the voice duties for his 007 character as well. Believe it or not, Craig is an admitted gamer in his spare time (he apparently loves to play Halo) so this should be right up his alley.

In addition, other members of the movie cast, including Judi Dench as M, Mathieu Amalric as the main villain Dominic Greene and actress Olga Kurylenko as Camille, will lend their voice and likeness to the game version. Also, since the game also has sequences from Craig's first 007 movie Casino Royale, actors from that movie like Eva Green as Vesper Lynd and Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre will have their voice and likenesses in the title as well.

New screenshots from Quantum of Solace have also been released. While the main game is being developed by Treyarch the PC port will be handled by Beenox. The game should be released around the same time as the movie this fall.

Download the Quantum of Solace game trailer at Big Download now

A few days ago Rockstar Games made PC gamers happy with the official announcement that their open world action game Grand Theft Auto IV would be ported over to our platform this fall. Now Gamespot has the first real details on the port as they got to see a demo of the game at Games Convention.

As expected the PC port will have some enhanced graphical features compared to its console counterparts with resolutions up to 2560x1600 supported along with increased draw distances. It will also have a new replay feature that will let players chop and edit 30 second game replays. New multiplayer modes and features were hinted at but so far no details have been announced.

Games Convention is underway in Germany and the folks at Bethesda Softworks are there letting the European press get their hands on a build of their long awaited RPG Fallout 3. They also just sent over three new screenshots from the game for and let us know that the final release date for the title has been settled. Fallout 3 is due for release on October 28 in the US and on October 31 in Europe

As you can see from the above new screenshot, Fallout 3 takes place in a very dangerous post-apocalyptic setting where danger lurks at every turn. You need weapons to explore the blasted landscape so that you can deal with the many, many mutated threats in the ruins of Washington DC. Fallout 3 is still scheduled for release this fall for the PC and other platforms.

Konami rarely releases PC games but for their upcoming survival horror game Silent Hill: Homecoming they are making a big exception, announcing today that a PC version will be released at the same time as the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. All three versions are scheduled for release at the same time this September (the European versions are due out this November).

Silent Hill: Homecoming is the latest game in the long running survival horror series as your player character heads back to his hometown of Shepherd's Glen to try to find his missing brother. Naturally you will have to encounter some of the oddest and most frightening creatures ever made for a survival horror series. The PC version will be made available via digital download on Valve's Steam service. There's no word if Konami will release the game to retail stores yet.

There's no official word from Rockstar Games or its parent company Take Two Interactive but Eurogamer, reporting from the exhibit floor of the Games Convention today, states that posters with the Bully logo have been spotted along with a German language note at the bottom that translates in English to "Coming soon to the PC."

In case you might not be familiar with the game, Bully is set in a fictional boarding school where the player attends classes, deals with other classmates and also has to deal with school bullies. It's one of the more talked about open world action games in recent years. Released first for the PS2 in the fall of 2006, the game got slammed by non-gamer critics long before the title was even released, claiming that the game would encourage bullies in real life. Noted game critic Jack Thompson tried unsuccessfully to bar the game from being sold in his home state of Florida. in the end, Bully got high review marks from game critics. Earlier this year the Wii and Xbox 360 got their own version of Bully with extra content. There's no word yet on what extra content, if any, the Bully PC port will receive.

The folks at Electronic Arts have been teasing us with announcements of the acting cast for Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 but today the publisher revealed the full cast that will be used for the cut-scenes in the upcoming alternate history RTS game. In addition to the previously announced Gina "Conviction" Carano and Gemma Atkinson the cast will include Sulu himself, George Takei, along with J.K. Simmons, Tim Curry, Kelly Hu, Jonathan Pryce, Peter Stormare, Ivana Milicevic, Andrew Divoff, MMA fighter Randy "The Natural" Couture and Autumn Reeser.

Perhaps the most interesting casting choice is former Playboy Playmate and current Jim Carrey girlfriend Jenny McCarthy who will take over the role of long time C&C cast member Tanya. The press release also announced detailed on the Red Alert 3 Premiere Edition which is basically the same thing that the European Collector's Edition had previously revealed. However people who pre-order the game now in either version will also get some special content including the full version of C&C: Red Alert 2. behind-the-scenes videos (including a C&C retrospective) PC wallpapers and an exclusive multiplayer/skirmish map for Red Alert 3 when it ships this fall.

Download the new Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 Talent HD trailer at Big Download now.

The first really big game of the fall/holiday season has to be Mercenaries 2, the long awaited open world action game from developer Pandemic and their new owners Electronic Arts. One of the new features in the sequel is the support for co-op play with two players in the single player storyline.

New screenshots for the game released this week show off some of that co-op action in the game as you and a buddy can go hog wild shooting and blowing up everything that moves in a fictional near-future version of Venezuela. The game is only a few days away from release; it's currently schedule to ship to stores on August 31.

It's one of the longest running historical strategy-building game series and now yet another new title is in the works. Ubisoft announced today that Anno 1404 is under development for release in March 2009. Several months ago Ubisoft announced that it was buying the Anno brand as well as a stake in its long time developer Related Designs.

The new Anno game in the series will break away from the Western world and check out the Orient for the first time. The title will have new customizable elements, along with bigger islands and worlds and a full sandbox gameplay mode. The Anno game series is highly popular in Europe but not as popular in the US. The series has had a variety of publishers in the States over the years and have ditched the "Anno" title in favor of the "A.D." name after the year of the game. There's no word yet if Ubisoft will do the same for Anno 1404.

Paradox Interactive used the opening of the Games Convention to announce yet another new strategy title. This time its for Hearts of Iron 3, the third game in their WWII themed strategy game series. According to the press release, the game will have a huge map with more than 10,000 provinces to check out.

Not much info on the game has been revealed (including no screenshots) but that maybe because Hearts of Iron 3 has a release date in the third quarter of 2008. The press release does say that fans of Paradox's games have been waiting for a third Hearts of Iron title for some time so this quick announcement might please them.

Mythic Entertainment's development of the long awaited MMO Warhammer Online has been going on for almost three years now and as one might expect some people who worked on the team have left Mythic before the planned release of the game on September 18. Now Shacknews is reporting that an anonymous former member of Mythic is complaining that their name won't be featured in the final credits

It's currently unknown if this person left on good or bad terms with Mythic but regardless the person is now stating that they are considering legal action against Mythic for these actions. The person is quoted as saying, "I was told they made SURE to not include anyone in the list who was not at the office the day of the credit list creation.This is wrong on many levels and should not go unnoticed." Mythic founder and general manager Mark Jacobs confirmed that, "...only current employees that have continued until the end will be credited in the final game." He did not comment on the former employee's reaction to being left out of the game.

Last week Blizzard announced that it would hold a lottery to sell the remaining 3,000 tickets for this October's Blizzcon 2008. Today the official Blizzcon web site revealed the details on how the lottery will take place. People much have had a Blizzard account before 9 pm PT on Tuesday, August 12 (when Blizzard announced that the first batch of tickets have sold out). You must also be an adult, have not already purchased tickets for Blizzcon 2008 and live in a long list of countries.

There will be an op-in period beginning later today and ending August 24 where people can enter an eligible Blizzard account to get a chance to purchase the $100 Blizzcon tickets. More detailed info on how all this will work can be found on the Blizzcon site (and yes, it's a tad confusing).

Get ready for the first in a long, long line of Sims 3 games from Electronic Arts. The publisher just announced that you can expect the next generation of people sim game to ship to stores on February 20, 2009. The new game will allow the Sims to explore their surrounding neighborhood instead of being stuck inside their home as well as lots of customization features for each Sims.

Along with a release date, EA just announced a Collector's Edition of the game which will include "additional collectible The Sims merchandise and a bonus in-game Italian-Style Sports Car unavailable elsewhere." People who pre-order the Collector's Edition will get access to yet another in-game vintage car and a poster that showed off the Sims 3 neighborhood.

It's a game that could become a sleeper hit in the US and this week new screenshots from the upcoming fantasy action-RPG Sacred 2: Fallen Angel were released showing off some of the creatures players will encounter in the title from developer Ascaron Entertainment and publisher CDV.

We've reported recently that the development team is making an extra push to make Sacred 2 run well and look good on the new Intel Centrino 2 notebook processors. In the meantime the game is being shown off in Germany this week at the Gamers Convention and you can check out the GC trailer for the game right here at Big Download.

With World in Conflict: Soviet Assault most likely not coming out this year it looks like the big RTS title of fall 2008 will be Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3. This week developer/publisher Electronic Arts released new screenshots from the game which once again is set in a campy alternative timeline.

EA is currently running a multiplayer beta test for Red Alert 3 for those folks who bought the expansion pack Command and Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath. Unfortunately those beta testers are under an NDA at the moment so they can't legally talk about what they are experiencing while they play the beta. We should get some more hands-on time with the game before its planned fall 2008 release date.

One of the bad things about the super-serious movie The Dark Knight is the fact that Robin and other members of the Batman family are not around. That's not the case for Lego Batman, the upcoming action game from developer Traveller's Tales and publisher Warner Bros. Interactive. This week the publisher released new screenshots from the game showing off their version of Batgirl.

This is the most well known version of Batgirl, a.k.a. Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon. This version hasn't been shot by the Joker yet (detailed in the incredible Batman graphic novel The Killing Joke) and then continue to fight crime as the wheelchair bound computer guru Oracle. You can check out the much less serious Batgirl when Lego Batman comes out in September.