Strategy

Last August Ironclad Games and Stardock announced plans for not one but three micro-expansions for their hit space strategy game Sins of a Solar Empire. Last night G4TV's X-Play program had a live preview of the first micro-expansion, Entrenchment, which will add new defensive units and weapons to the game.

The preview also announced a release date for Entrenchment with Ironclad co-founder Blair Frazer announcing that it would become available via Stardock's Impulse client on Nov. 18. As previously reported the micro-expansions will be sold for $9.99 each. The second micro-expansion, which will add some new diplomacy features to the game, should be out two to three months after Entrencement.

As mentioned in our new interview with the folks at Tilted Mill today, the developer plans to release its first downloadable content update for Hinterland, their recent fantasy RPG-village building sim. The developer sent over a press release with details on the new content.

Two new characters (the Archer and the Dwarf Warrior ) will be included in the update along with features like creature specific item drops, a new character info screen, auto-equipping, acquiring resources through economic means and more. The free content update will be released via Steam "shortly" but no specific release date was announced.

Tilted Mill surprised many in the game industry with their plans to release a series of downloadable original games on their own without any publisher support. Their plans have already started with the release of their fantasy RPG-village building game Hinterland.

But Tilted Mill isn't done yet for their plans for new downloadable games. This week they announced plans for Mosby's Confederacy, a historical strategy title set during the US Civil War. In their first interview about the game Tilted Mill president Chris Beatrice, senior designer Jeff Fiske and lead designer Matt Zimmitti talk about Mosby's Confederacy and its different take on the historical strategy genre.

This is the complete game for ThQ's Full Spectrum Warrior, a military-themed tactical game from 2005, free to download and play.

"Full Spectrum Warrior began as a training aid for the U.S. Army to reinforce Army doctrine and team effort within the troops. It is the most realistic portrayal of contemporary urban warfare. Players become the Squad Leader, commanding Alpha and Bravo squads. There is potential for danger down every alley, behind every window. It's not about how many kills you have, it's about getting your men home in one piece!"

Download Full Spectrum Warrior [Full Free Game] (1.6 GB)

The alien evolution sim game Spore was released just last month but Electronic Arts might be trying to quickly launch an expansion pack for the game before the end of the year. Fan site Hooked on Spore has discovered that both Gamestop and Amazon's web site has listings for such an expansion pack.

While these listings have sinc been removied, Google still has a cache image of the pages which have a Spore "Cute & Creepy Parts Pack" expansion listed as shipping on Nov. 18 for $19.99. The title suggests that this addition will simply be new parts that you can add to the creature stage in the game and will not have any new gameplay. The removal of the listings may be due to a delay in its release or that EA just doesn't want to play its hand yet.

[Via Shacknews]

Congratulations, soldier: you survived another week. It's Friday afternoon, and instead of going out partying with your friends, you're anxious to get home, sit down at your computer, and play some new games. Sounds fun! Too bad you're broke. Lucky for you, PC gaming has an impressive library of classic games that are available online for cheap. Hang out with us every Friday so we can take you on a guided tour of some of the greatest bargains available throughout the many tubes of the Internet.

Welcome to Virtual Bargain Bin, the cure for your weekend gaming woes. This week's classics: The id Super Pack, and X-COM: The Complete Pack

Last August Paradox Interactive revealed plans to release Hearts of Iron III, the latest game in their World War II strategy game series that at the time they said was the most requested by their fans. This week the publisher issued the first alpha screenshots of Hearts of Iron III and while they aren't exactly graphically rich they do give an idea on what the final version will look like.

The new screenshots show off the world map for the game which has five times the details of the maps of Hearts of Iron II and depict 10,000 land provinces. The final game will allow players to control the fate of any country along multiple scenarios. Hearts of Iron III is currently scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2009.

The upcoming fantasy strategy-RPG game Demigod is currently in beta testing but at the moment entry into that beta test has been closed to the public. For now, we have five new screenshots that you can check out that show off more of the Gas Powered Games-Stardock title.

The game, which is loosely based and inspired on a popular Warcraft III mod, is currently due for release in the first quarter of 2009 but anyone who pre-orders the game will be able to check out the beta test. Beta 1, which is mainly for an engine test, is currently closed but pre-orders will be able to check out Beta 2 which should begin before the end of the year.

If you want to play a military turn based strategy game that's a little different, Battlefront.com's Combat Mission Shock Force may be for you. An offshoot of the WWII based Combat Mission games, Shock Force takes place in the near-future as the US military takes on an organized terrorist force.

Today the first expansion pack for the game, Marines, is now available for purchase and download ( people who want boxed copies will have them mailed out in a couple of weeks). The expansion, which requires the original game be installed, contains new weapons, formations, scenarios and more for the game. The Marines expansion costs $25 and a bundle of both the original game and the expansion is being sold for $45 which is $15 off their separate price.

Introversion Software released their multiplayer strategy game Multiwinia just a few days ago but the developer has already issued their first patch for the game. The 1.0.6. patch is only available via the game's auto-updater (or automatically downloaded if you bought the Steam version).

The patch is a fairly small one so there's shouldn't be much of an issue using the auto-updater. Here's the change list:

• Updated translations for French/Italian/German/Spanish (EFIGS)
  
• Fixed : Exploit that would allow players to spawn Squads/Engineers at will
  
• Fixed : Single-Player games advertised themselves on the Metaserver, allowing other players to join
  
• Fixed : game servers on the Local Area Network would show up twice in the server listing, and one of those two entries would be unjoinable
  
• Fixed : a problem which caused the camera to detatch from a Gun Turret you were controlling during Multiplayer games

It was just a matter of time before people creating units and structures in Spore would begin to make them look like their favorite games. A Korean creator has apparently done just that with the recent alien evolution sim game. And since it comes from Korea it's no surprise the creations were made to look like units and structures from Blizzard's Starcraft which is massively popular in that country.

Of course, Spore's limitations don't allow players to make more than one vehicle in the air, sea and ground classes at one time and there are only a few structures that can be made as well. Still we can expect to see similar mini-mods to be made based on previous games, movies and TV series (hey, where's that Star Wars Hoth Spore mod?)

[Via Kotaku]

Spore has taken it on the chin lately but today Electronic Arts decided to send out a press release with some good news about the alien evolution sim game. The press release announced that their alien evolution sim has now sold over 1 million copies since its launch September 7. That figure apparently covers the PC, Mac and DS versions of the game; there's no word on specific sales numbers for each of the platforms.

In addition, EA states that over 25 million creatures have been created for the game using its editing tools. Oddly enough the company has also bragged about Spore's collective Metacritic rating (which averages the review scores of a number of media outlets). Spore's PC version has gotten an 85 rating from Metacritic and while that's certainly a solid number it also has to be considered a disappointment considering all of the hype and pre-release praise it received from the press beforehand. By comparison, previously released PC games in 2008 like Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilizations II: Twilight of the Arnor, Armageddon Empires, Mass Effect and Bionic Commando Rearmed all have higher Metacritic scores than Spore and we still have three more months to go.

Spore's release has not been as smooth as Electronic Arts has hoped it would be, we expect. The alien evolution sim game has not received massive praise as first expected and the use of its DRM set-up has generated protests from consumers. Now Courthouse News reports that a class action lawsuit has been filed against the publisher about the game and this time its about its use of the SecurROM program that is installed with the game.

The lawsuit, filed on Monday in the US District Court of Northern California, alleges that EA did not disclose to consumers that SecurROM would be installed on their computer, stating, "Once installed it becomes a permanent part of the consumer's software portfolio. Even if the consumer uninstalls Spore, and entirely deletes it from their computer, SecuROM remains a fixture in their computer unless and until the consumer completely wipes their hard drive through reformatting or replacement of the drive." EA has yet to respond to the lawsuit.

[Via Blue's News]

It's an expansion that up until last month we didn't know existed but now Lighthouse Interactive has announced that Sword of the Stars: A Murder of Crows has actually gone gold. The second expansion to the space strategy game developed by Kerberos Productions adds the game's sixth playable race (the Morrigi) along with new ships, weapons and more for the previous races to the game.

The title will be released in retail stores in the UK on October 10 but Gamersgate will let anyone purchase and download the expansion pack. It does require you own and install the previously released expansion pack Born in Blood or the Sword of the Stars Collector's Edition. Oh, and we have six new screenshots from A Murder of Crows to show off as well.

It's the issue for Spore that just won't go away. The game's use of a DRM set-up to "protect" the recent Electronic Arts alien evolution sim game has caused many gamers to slam EA for the practice. The publisher has already made attempts to quiet these protesters with changes to the DRM features. Now it appears that at least one forum moderator at the official Spore message boards went over the top with threats of banning Spore gamers.

In one message post where a person complains that EA is deleting or locking down threads to discuss the DRM issue a moderator seems to come in with an edit stating, "Please do not continue to post theses (sic) thread (sic) or you (sic) account may be at risk of banning which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore." This naturally didn't sit well with man yand another moderator in another message board thread came in and said, "We are not sure who made those comments in that thread and it's being investigated. You will not lose your game." A producer for Spore also stated, "We are happy to support healthy exchanges on the forums. And people will only get banned for breaking the rules. Discussing DRM is not breaking the rules - and as long as it is a civil conversation, it's cool with us."