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New Crysis Warhead trailer and screenshots go psycho


The latest Crysis Warhead includes tons of massive explosions, but it also gives some extra insight on the story and character. Warhead's story runs parallel to the original Crysis and follows the journey of "Psycho," who is running missions and fighting for survival on the opposite side of the island. Also check out the latest screenshots for more explosive action. Crysis Warhead is currently scheduled to release on September 16.

Download Crysis Warhead HD Trailer (109 MB)

Quantum of Solace voice cast revealed along with new screenshots


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

First Grand Theft Auto IV PC details revealed

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.

Fallout 3 gets final release date; new screenshots get bloody


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.

Gallery: Fallout 3

Silent Hill: Homecoming confirmed for PC in September


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.

Big Ideas: The new games journalism


In what might prove to be the most meta post ever, I'm going to talk about gaming journalism and how it's changed in recent years. Now, the mainstream media -- by which I refer to traditional magazines like Time and Life, and news outlets like the Wall Street Journal the New York Times -- have always worked diligently to maintain a high-quality standard for themselves. As a collective, they follow the rules set down in regulatory tomes such as the Chicago Manual of Style and the AP Stylebook. Of course, every publication has its own house style to which its writers must adhere, but by and large there are many generally accepted guidelines concerning tone, editorial slant, and the like.

As video games grew as a phenomenon, it quickly became evident that the mainstream press wasn't going to give it the coverage its enthusiast audience demanded. Typically adopting an outsider's approach, traditional news outlets left their coverage at "Here's a new trend. It's kind of strange and we don't understand it, but the kids seem to like it." This journalistic void left the field wide open for a new generational voice to inhabit.

Continue reading Big Ideas: The new games journalism

Rage trailer shows off post-apocalyptic combat


This Rage trailer has it all - ruthless mutants, explosions and a desert buggy race featuring heavy firepower. The trailer uses all in-game footage, which sports some incredibly detailed graphics. It looks like one of the artists is a Michael Berryman (The Devil's Rejects, The Hills Have Eyes) fan, since a character bearing a very close likeness to him opens up the trailer.

Download the Rage In-Game HD Teaser Trailer (129 MB)

Hands-on: Battlefield Heroes



Discs are so 2003. Though existent to some degree before Steam premiered in November of 2004, Valve's juggernaut digital distribution platform relieved gamers of the stress entailed in searching frantically for lost disc keys (and discs), multi-disc installations, and finicky sales reps who refused to replace CDs and DVDs if they were scratched or otherwise unusable. It seems a new publisher or developer adds classics or new gems to Steam's growing flock of downloadable titles every week, and despite having more than its fair share of kinks to work out, digital distribution seems to have finally become more convenient than buggy.

Although I intended to honor my commitment vows to digital distribution, the honeymoon has ended. No longer able to satisfy my demanding hardcore gamer's needs, I've begun a steamy love affair with web-based games that offer an even greater convenience: digital distribution eliminated discs, but web games require no installation other than a plug-in or two. Casual fans have been swimming in the web pool for quite some time, both casual and core gamers are being treated to fast, frantic fun with developer DICE and publisher EA's Battlefield Heroes, a stylish shooter with its roots firmly planted in the classic Battlefield franchise.

Continue reading Hands-on: Battlefield Heroes

Bully coming to the PC

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.

Big Iron: Power hungry?



Tim Allen wasn't precisely the same flavor of hardware guy that we are, but his Tool Time mantra, "More Power!" certainly resonates with a lot of computer enthusiasts. Not only do the games we play and the applications we use require more and more computational chutzpah to perform well, but the silicon bits themselves are not shy about sucking down the wattage to do it.

If you're considering an upgrade or a new build, you're going to need to feed that beast. Onward, to the supplies of power!

Continue reading Big Iron: Power hungry?

Red Alert 3 full cast revealed in new trailer; pre-order special details


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.

New Mercenaries 2 screenshots have some co-op action


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.

Gallery: Mercenaries 2

Anno 1404 announced


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.

Gallery: Anno 1404

Hearts Of Iron 3 announced


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 won't credit all of Warhammer Online's developers


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.

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