PC Game News

The list of new PC game releases, Blu-ray releases and movies opening the week of August 27th, 2012.

PC games:

• Damage Inc. Pacific Squadron WWII
• Guild Wars 2
• Mutant Mudds
• Of Orcs and Men
• Starvoid
• They Bleed Pixels
• Whispered Stories: Sandman

 Movies opening this week:

• Breathing (limited)
• Chickens with Plums
• For a Good Time, Call…
• Lawless
• Little Birds
• The Ambassador (limited)
• The Good Doctor (limited)
• The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure
• The Tall Man (limited)
• The Possession

Blu-ray releases:

• Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein
• Adrenaline Rush
• Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Series 6
• Airport
• Apartment 143
• Atonement
• Battleship
• Boardwalk Empire: The Complete Second Season
• Darling Companion
• Death Watch
• Doin’ It Again
• Dreamworks Spooky Stories
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
• Harvey
• Headhunters
• Heineken Kidnapping
• Homeland: The Complete First Season
• Jersey Shore Shark Attack
• Life Happens
• Lonesome (Criterion Collection)
• Looney Tunes the Chuck Jones Collection Mouse
• Lovely Molly
• Monsieur Lazhar
• Moth Diaries
• Once Upon a Time: The Complete First Season
• Out of Africa
• Quadrophenia (Criterion Collection)
• Scarface
• Sixteen Candles
• Sons of Anarchy: Season Four
• Starship Troopers: Invasion
• The Living Dead Girl
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
• The Lucky One
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits
• The Walking Dead: The Complete Second Season
• Think Like a Man
• Two Orphan Vampires: Remastered Ed.
• Virla Factor
• Woman Knight

Paradox Interactive today announced that pre-orders for Starvoid, the upcoming RTS by Zeal Game Studios. In addition, a new trailer was released.

“The fast-paced real-time strategy (RTS) game is available for pre-order today at online merchants everywhere, and any ambitious commander who sends their robots to snatch a copy will be rewarded with a second copy, free of charge, to gift to a friend. What’s more, both copies will be able to immediately start playing today, during Starvoid’s early access period, lasting all week until the game launches on August 30, 2012.

Starvoid allows players to face off in quick RTS skirmishes over precious starship fuel, called Starvoid, by leading customizable armies of well-armed robots and alien drones. “

Focus Home Interactive today announced that The Testament of Sherlock Holmes, the next game in the adventure series by Frogwares, arrives on September 25th in North America and September 20th in Europe. Additionally, four new screenshots were released.

“These 4 new screenshots are a beautiful way to give you a larger preview of this incredible investigation game. With its dark ambiance and its strong story centered around a controversial hero with obscure motives, The Testament of Sherlock Holmes will make you lead a thrilling investigation through the eyes of Sherlock and Watson. The famous detective will live a real descent into hell, in what is doubtlessly the darkest case of his career. Examine crime scenes, find the clues, follow the trails, interrogate suspects and solve an incredible case full of twists! “

Ubisoft today released the first of four behind the scenes videos for Assassin’s Creed III.

“The creators of Assassin’s Creed III shed some light on what it takes to redesign one of gaming’s most iconic franchises from the ground up. Part one in a four-part documentary series, Inside Assassin’s Creed III: Episode One gives you a behind the scenes look at some of ACIII’s key pillars through the eyes of its developers and outside experts.”

The BioWare blog has been updated with the announcement of Operation: Alloy, a Mass Effect 3 event that will be taking place from August 24th 11AM MDT to August 26th 5AM MDT.

“A training center will only take a recruit so far. Our recruits need field experience, so it’s time to integrate them with seasoned squads during our next series of sweeps.

• Individual Goal: Promote 2 characters
• Allied Goal: Promote 50,000 characters
• Special Circumstance: None
• Individual Goal Success: All players awarded a Commendation Pack
• Allied Goal Success: All players awarded a Victory Pack and an increase to medi-gel capacity”

Four additional games have been added to The Humble Bundle for Android 3 including Anomaly: Warzone Earth, EDGE, Osmos and World of Goo.

“We’ve just added four awesome games for your mobile and desktop entertainment: Anomaly: Warzone Earth, EDGE, Osmos, and World of Goo! These games were first seen in the original Humble Bundle for Android, and we’re happy to bring them back for more gamers to enjoy!

If you have already purchased the bundle, you can just access your Humble Bundle download page and play them for free. New customers must beat the current average to get them.

All these DRM-free games run on Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux, come with soundtracks, and can optionally be redeemed on Steam and the Ubuntu Software Center!”

Valve today announced the launch of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which is available on Steam.

“Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) expands upon the team-based action gameplay that it pioneered when it was launched 12 years ago.

CS: GO features new maps, characters, and weapons and delivers updated versions of the classic CS content (de_dust, etc.). In addition, CS: GO will introduce new gameplay modes, matchmaking, leader boards, and more.”

The list of new PC game releases, Blu-ray releases and movies opening the week of August 20th, 2012.

PC games:

• Brink of Consciousness: Dorian Gray Syndrome – Collector’s Ed.
• Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
• Dark Souls: Prepare to Die
• Disciples III Gold
• Dungeons – Gold
• Galaxy on Fire 2
• Jagged Alliance: Crossfire
• Nightmares from the Deep: The Cursed Heart – Collector’s Ed.
• The Trouble With Robots
• Thirty Flights of Loving
• Tiny Troopers
• Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
• War of the Roses
• Wooden Sen’Sey

Movies opening this week:

• Brother (limited)
• General Education (limited)
• Hit and Run
• Little White Lies (limited)
• Premium Rush
• Samsara (limited)
• Sleepwalk with Me (limited)
• The Apparation
• The Revenant (limited)

Blu-ray releases:

• A Separation
• Barton Fink
• Bernie
• Black Metal Veins
• Boogeyman
• Bunty Aur Babli
• Captain Carey U.S.A.
• Disneynature: Chimpanzee
• Escape
• Fortress
• Freelancers
• Good Will Hunting
• Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers
• Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
• Hell
• Hit & Miss
• Home Run Showdown
• House, M.D.: Season Eight
• I Am Bruce Lee
• Lady and the Tramp 2: Scamps Adventure
• Los Lobos: Kiko Live
• Mallrats
• My Son John Santa Fe Trail
• Night of the Living Dead Re-animation
• One In The Chamber
• Paypack Season
• Pocahontas Two-Movie Special Ed.
• Post Mortem
• Private Hell 36
• Return to Murder
• Sedona
• Stephen King’s Thinner
• The Aristocrats
• The Dictator – Banned and Unrated Version
• The Rescuers: 35th Anniversary Ed.
• The Tigger Movie: Bounce-A-Rrrific Special Ed.
• Wallander Series 3
• Wargames
• Weekend (Criterion Collection)
• Zoolander

PopCap Games today announced that a sequel to Plants vs. Zombies is in development and is expected to launch by spring 2013.

“The sequel to Plants vs. Zombies is expected to launch by late spring 2013, and will include a bevy of new features, settings, and situations, designed to delight the franchise’s tens of millions of fans around the world. No other details of the highly anticipated new installment in the franchise are available at this time, beyond the following comments from some of the game’s denizens.”

There were several rumors circulating earlier in the day that OnLive might be shutting down. Venturebeat has confirmed that the service will continue to operate but the assets have been sold to a newly formed, unnamed company that has “substantial” funding.

A spokesperson for Steve Perlman, president and CEO of OnLive, issued the following to Venturebeat:

“We can now confirm that the assets of OnLive, Inc. have been acquired into a newly formed company and is backed by substantial funding, and which will continue to operate the OnLive Game and Desktop services, as well as support all of OnLive’s apps and devices, as well as game, productivity and enterprise partnerships,” the company said in a statement. “The new company is hiring a large percentage of OnLive, Inc.’s staff across all departments and plans to continue to hire substantially more people, including additional OnLive employees. All previously announced products and services, including those in the works, will continue and there is no expected interruption of any OnLive services. We apologize that we were unable to comment on this transaction until  it completed and were limited to reporting on news related to OnLive’s businesses. Now that the transaction is complete, we are able to make this statement.”

More at Venturebeat.

Valve today announced details on the second annual Saxxy Awards, a video contest in which participants will create game movies with the new Source Filmmaker.

“As revealed last night on GTTV with Geoff Keighley, this year’s Saxxy entrants will be powered by the Source Filmmaker (SFM), the recently released storytelling tool Valve created inside the Source Engine to create all its animated short films, including those in the “Meet the Team” series of Team Fortress 2 shorts.
 
Entrants will compete for top honors in five categories, including Best Comedy and Best Drama. Every winner will take home a Saxxy, and the overall winner will also win a trip to Valve and have a chance to see their work aired on GTTV’s VGA Preshow this December.
 
“I am absolutely inspired and stunned by the early work I’ve seen from fans experimenting with SFM,” said Geoff Keighley, executive in charge of publisher relations for Spike TV. “All of us at Spike are excited to work with Valve to give someone in the community the chance to world premiere their original SFM short on TV in over 99 million homes.”
 
“The Number of 3D animated short films produced in the few months since we released the SFM has blown away our expectations,” said Bay Raitt, designer at Valve. “With so many filmmakers sharing our world, tools and techniques, we think this year’s Saxxy’s will produce an incredible collection of animated shorts all made by- and for the community.”
 
All the rules and information on this year’s Saxxy’s may be found on https://www.teamfortress.com/saxxyawards2012/“

CD Projekt RED today called on would be Witcher 2 modders to sign up for the new REDkit beta testing program.

“CD Projekt RED, developers of The Witcher 2, started off this year’s gamescom with a bang, dominating the European Games Awards and then following up with a well-received presentation of the REDkit, the mod engine for their award-winning RPG.

“We have our own vision for RPGs: they should present an exciting story and give players lots of choices that really matter. The REDkit is designed to create adventures that way – mature, non-linear and engrossing stories set in vivid worlds filled with believable characters,” said head of the studio, Adam Badowski.

In the business section of gamescom, journalists were able to see the Witcher 2 toolset – REDkit. The editor allows modders to create adventures in the world of Geralt of Rivia. REDkit gives players the power to create detailed environments and complex, nonlinear quests as they tell their own Witcher story. Starting from today, modders from all over the world can apply for an early access to the REDkit by going to thewitcher.com/redkit before 30/09/2012.”

Piranha Games and Infinitite Game Publishing today revealed the Hunchback mech, the latest in the series of intro videos that cover each mech type in MechWarrior Online.

“The Hunchback 4G is a close-range brawler, with thick armour and excellent weaponry. Capable of dealing as much damage as it can take, the Hucnhback is hard to put down, and hard to defend against. Extremely capable in any urban environment, look for this ‘Mech at the vnaguard of attacks; the AC/20 alone is cause for pause, but adding two medium lasers and a small laser just add to the close-in killing power.”

Valve today announced a free addition to the Portal 2 in-game puzzle maker that allows users to create co-op test chambers.

“Since its release on the PC and Mac in May, 2012, community map makers have used the Steam Workshop and Portal 2’s in-game editor – called the Perpetual Testing Initiative – to create and share more than 170,000 single-player test chambers. With this update, the community will for the first time be able to design puzzles that require two players working cooperatively to solve.

This update also introduces a “Quick Play” feature, which allows players to quickly access the top-rated maps in various categories.

To help players find a co-op partner, Valve is giving every current owner of Portal 2 a Steam coupon for 75% off a copy of Portal 2, which can be given away to other Steam users.

Portal 2 holds a Metacritic score of 95% and has been awarded numerous Game of Year awards. It features expansive single and cooperative multiplayer game modes.

For more information on Portal 2 and its downloadable content, please visit https://www.thinkwithportals.com.”

Perfect World Entertainment today announced a contest for Blacklight: Retribution, the free-to-play FPS, in which $1,000 will be given  away for the next 30 days.

“The 30 Days of Fight promotion awards $1,000 each day for 30 days to lucky Blacklight: Retribution players. Shooter enthusiasts can enter the sweepstakes by signing up on the official Blacklight: Retribution site and completing in-game matches. Completing a match awards a player one Fight Ticket, and winning matches grants an additional Fight Ticket. Eligible $1,000 winners are chosen from the pool of players who have earned at least one Fight Ticket or whom have mailed in an entry form. Earning more Fight Tickets increases a player’s odds of winning. There is no limit to the amount of tickets players can earn per day, and a player can win multiple days. Entry and play is completely free.

“Following Blacklight: Retribution’s successful Steam launch, we are excited to offer a new level of reward for our players,” said Clifton Chu, Product Manager, Perfect World Entertainment. “With the rise of eSports and professional gamers, we hope to give our players a taste of what it’s like to earn real money just by playing a game they already enjoy.”

For more details on the 30 Days of Fight promotion, or how to download Blacklight: Retribution and play for free, please visit: www.playblacklight.com“