PC Game News

Valve today announced that Portal 2: Peer Review, a free DLC pack, will be released on October 4th.

"In "Peer Review", you and a friend will continue the story of loyal bots P-Body and Atlas as you puzzle your way through a mysterious new co-op test track and once again match wits with GLaDOS. The DLC also features a single player and co-op Challenge Mode, and leaderboards to compare Challenge Mode scores with friends and the Portal community.

To hold you over until the release next week, visit https://thinkwithportals.com/ for the final installment of the Portal 2 soundtrack Music to Test By."

A new Humble Bundle has been launched, which features Frozen Synapse, the strategy game by Mode 7. Customers that choose to pay above the average price will also receive the Frozenbyte Bundle.

"Pay what you want. Frozen Synapse normally costs $25, but we're letting you set the price! The Frozen Synapse soundtrack is also included with your purchase (normally $6). Plus, if you pay more than the average price, we'll throw in the entire Humble Frozenbyte Bundle — a $45 value!

All of the games work great on Mac, Windows, and Linux.

We don't use DRM. When you buy these games, they are yours. Feel free to play them without an internet connection, back them up, and install them on all of your Macs and PCs freely. There is no time-limit on your downloads.

You can support charity. Choose exactly how your purchase is divided: between the developers, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Child's Play Charity. Also, if you like this deal, a tip to the Humble Bundle itself would be much appreciated!"

The list of new PC game releases, DVD and Blu-ray releases, and movies opening the week of September 26th, 2011.

PC Games:

• A Game of Thrones: Genesis
• Civilization V: Game of the Year Ed.
• Courageous
• Dawn of Fantasy
• Dragon Nest
• Driver: San Francisco
• JASF Jane's Advanced Strike Fighters
• Nuclear Dawn
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2012

Movies Opening This Week:

• 50/50
• Dream House
• Margaret
• Sarah Palin: You Betcha!
• Take Shelter
• Tucker & Dale vs Elvis
• What's Your Number?

DVD and Blu-ray Releases:

• A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 & 3 [Blu-Ray]
• Adventure Time: My Two Favorite People
• Army Wives: The Complete Fifth Season
• Battling Butler / Go West [Blu-Ray]
• Ben Hur – 50th Anniversary Ultimate Collectors Ed.
• Carlos [Criterion Collection Blu-Ray]
• Cleveland Show: Season 2
• CSI Miami: The Ninth Season
• CSI: NY – The Seventh Season
• CSI: The 11th Season
• Dawson's Creek: The Complete Series
• Dead Cert [Blu-Ray]
• Extract [Blu-Ray]
• Footloose [Blu-Ray]
• Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris [Blu-Ray]
• Gamera: Triper Feature Collector's Ed. [Blu-Ray]
• Good Neighbors [Blu-Ray]
• Heathers [Blu-Ray]
• How I Met Your Mother: Season Six
• How to Make it in America: The Complete First Season [Blu-Ray]
• Hung: The Complete Second Season [Blu-Ray]
• Jake & The Never Land Pirates: Season 1 Vol. 1
• Jeff Dunham: Controlled Chaos [Blu-Ray]
• Jenufa [Blu-Ray]
• Julie
• King of Queens: The Complete Series
• Kojak: Season Two
• L'Amour Fou
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – The Twelfth Year
• Lost Future
• Ma & Pa Kettle Complete Candy Collection
• Married… With Children: The Complete Series
• Mimic [Blu-Ray]
• New Tricks: Season 5
• Puccini: Turnandot [Blu-Ray]
• Sounds and Silence: Travels With Manfred Eicher [Blu-Ray]
• Stool Pigeon [Blu-Ray]
• The Blood Trilogy [Blu-Ray]
• The Cost of Love
• The Hour [Blu-Ray]
• The Ledge
• The Matrix Reloaded / The Matrix Revolutions [Blu-Ray]
• The Middle: The Complete Second Season
• The Phantom Carriage [Criterion Collection Blu-Ray]
• Torso [Blu-Ray]
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon [Blu-Ray]
• Treasure Island
• Treasures 5: The West, 1898-1938
• Trigun: Badlands Rumble [Blu-Ray]
• Without Men [Blu-Ray]

Bethesda Softworks today announced the voice talent for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, including several award winning actors.

• Christopher Plummer, a two-time Emmy Award winner, two-time Tony Award winner and Academy Award nominee, takes on the role of Arngeir, a powerful Greybeard elder. An order of philosopher monks who are masters of the Way of the Voice, the Greybeards live in silent isolation atop Skyrim’s largest mountain.
• Academy Award nominee, Max Von Sydow, stars as Esbern, a chronicler and agent of the Blades who has survived in hiding. Long obsessed with the foretold return of the dragon Alduin, the World Eater, Esbern will teach you how to confront this epic evil.
• Tony Award winner and three-time Academy Award nominee, Joan Allen, will be making her videogame debut as Delphine, one of the last remaining members of the Blades – an ancient warrior society once sworn to protect the Emperor. Like you, Delphine is trying to unravel the mystery of the dragons’ return.
• In addition, iconic actress and singer, Lynda Carter (“Wonder Woman”), voices Gormlaith Golden-Hilt, one of the Nord heroes who overthrew the dragons in ancient times.
• Michael Hogan (“Battlestar Galactica”), who plays Imperial General Tullius, in charge of crushing the Stormcloak rebellion.
• Vladimir Kulich (“The 13th Warrior,” “Smoking Aces”) portrays Hogan’s nemesis Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm and charismatic leader of the Stormcloaks, who aims to make Skyrim independent of the Empire.
• Claudia Christian (“Babylon 5”) joins the cast as Legate Rikke, General Tullius’s chief lieutenant, a loyal Imperial officer as well as a Nord who firmly believes Skyrim must remain part of the Empire.
• Diane Louise Salinger (“Carnivale”), Renee Victor (“Weeds”), and Saturday Night Live-alum George Coe (“Transformers: Dark of the Moon”) round out the star-studded cast of more than 70 different voice actors delivering over 60,000 lines of dialogue.

For more information on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim visit https://elderscrolls.com/skyrim.

2K Games today released a new trailer for The Darkness II, giving viewers a look at the origins of the "Darkness" entity in the game.

"This gritty video introduces a new character in The Darkness II – Johnny Powell. He explains The Darkness’ beginnings, how the Darkness has helped to establish Jackie’s role as the Don of the Estacado family, his connection to past girlfriend Jenny and showcasing the unique Quad-Wielding, combat mechanic that allows gamers to simultaneously dual-wield two guns, and two Demon Arms during battle."

InterWave Studios today announced the release of Nuclear Dawn on Steam, the FPS/RTS combo game built on the Source engine. The game will be making its way to additional digital distribution platforms and retail outlets at a later date.

"With hard-hitting class-based combat, tactical choices that actually bear an impact on your team's victory, and a full-fledged high level RTS Commander mode to assist and guide FPS players, Nuclear Dawn's gameplay has been widely praised in previews and reviews.

More information on gameplay and game features can be found on the official website www.nucleardawnthegame.com, along with several gameplay tutorials available in the Media section."

A new teaser trailer for Battlefield 3 has been released, which features Jay-Z's song 99 Problems. The full-length trailer will air on television in several countries beginning today. The game is scheduled to be released on October 25th.

"Battlefield 3 allows you to feel the full impact of battle like never before. Powered by Frostbite 2, the next generation of DICE's cutting-edge gaming engine, Battlefield 3 delivers spectacular visuals, earth-shattering destruction and real as hell combat gameplay providing a dramatic immersive First Person Shooter experience."

Blizzard Entertainment today announced that Diablo III will not be released this year and has set a new release target of early 2012.

"With every game we make, the temptation is always very strong to launch as soon as possible. However, we didn't put so many years of work into Diablo III to release a game that was almost ready," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "The beta test is going very well, and we look forward to making the most of the extra time we're taking to deliver an experience that lives up to our vision for the game and the expectations of our players. Next year is going to be an incredibly busy one for Blizzard, and we hope an incredibly fun one for Blizzard gamers."

"Blizzard will use the additional time to extend the Diablo III closed beta test, which began September 20, potentially adding more testers than initially projected. Players who have an active Battle.net® account with any Blizzard game attached to it should visit Battle.net account management to opt in for a chance to participate in the beta test. Additional testing phases, as well as further details regarding the launch plans for the game, will be announced on the company’s Diablo III community website: www.Diablo3.com."

GOG.com today announced a new promotion with specials, price drops, etc. The large promotion on the GOG.com site is directly tied to the number of games the store has sold. The user who downloads the 6 millionth game will get a free copy of every game in the catalog. At that point every registered user on the site will receive a free copy of Broken Sword: Shadow of The Templars Director’s Cut. Additionally, some Atari-Hasbro games are on sale and the price of The Witcher 2 has permanently dropped by $10.

"The user who downloads the 6 millionth unique new game will receive the entire GOG.com catalog, free of charge! When the counter on the main page of the website hits 6 million downloads, every registered GOG.com user will be able to download Broken Sword: Shadow of The Templars Director’s Cut for free, thanks to Sir Charles Cecil and Revolution Software. The offer will be valid only for 48 hours starting from hitting the milestone, so follow @gogcom or facebook.com/gogcom to keep up to date on when the free game will be available.

Other big news included the announcement of the anniversary promo featuring all of the Atari-Hasbro Dungeons & Dragons classics like Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment, and Neverwinter Nights for up to 60% off. With this offer, GOG team is trying out a new promo system which starts with a 20% discount for one game and grows 5% with every game from the offer added to the order up until 60% discount on all D&D games. If a user already owns some games from the promo, those games will count towards their discount. The promo runs from now on until Monday, September 26 at 11:59 p.m. EDT (Tuesday at 4:59 a.m. GMT).

Last but definitely not least, it has been announced that the price for The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is dropping permanently by $10 USD, and the price for all customers paying in Euro, British Pounds or Australian Dollars will drop respectively by €10.00, £5.00 and $10 AUD as well. Aside of the price drop, next Thursday (September 29) GOG.com will run a “Version 2.0” promo on The Witcher 2, which will make the awesome RPG available for only $29.99 USD!

If you missed the live stream of the whole CD Projekt Fall 2011 Conference you can watch the recorded video at https://www.ustream.tv/channel/cd-projekt"

Valve today announced two "Arsenal" game modes for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

"Targeted for release via Playstation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, and Steam (for PC and Mac) in early 2012, CS: GO will expand upon the team-based action gameplay that it pioneered when it was launched 12 years ago.
 
Arsenal Mode is based on the popular Counter-Strike: Source mod Gun Game. "Arsenal: Arms Race" and "Arsenal: Demolition" add eight new maps and expand on the classic Counter-Strike gameplay.
 
Valve is working directly with creators of Gun Game to create  Arsenal Mode. "We are excited that Valve reached out and is working with us to ensure Arsenal Mode is the best version of  Gun Game.", Michael Barr project lead of Gun Game.
 
For more information, please visit https://store.steampowered.com/app/1800/"

Tripwire Interactive today announced the opening of registration for a "Scorched Earth" tournament for Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad.

"This is the first competitive tournament for Tripwire Interactive's new release – Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad. To celebrate, Tripwire Interactive is putting up $8,000 for the winning team and $4,000 for the second place team!

"Scorched Earth" is a knockout tournament for Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad, played in the Countdown gametype. The tournament will run through rounds of matches, held between clans in a US division and a European division, with the winners of each division playing a Grand Final (USA vs EU) on servers on both sides of the Atlantic. All tournament servers will be provided exclusively by Gaming Deluxe for Europe and NFO Servers for the US.

For the full details and to sign your clan up, head for the Scorched Earth sign-up page at:  https://www.forgottenhonor.com/scorchedearth/clan-presignups.html"

Codemasters today announced that F1 2011 has been shipped to North American retailers. Additionally, the game is scheduled to be released in European and PAL territories on Friday.

"F1 2011 will challenge players to ‘be the driver, live the life, go compete’, with wide-ranging technical and gameplay advancements on and off track and vastly extended competitive and co-operative multiplayer components. Players will be able to race against 16 players online plus 8 AI cars to simulate a full 24 car grid, team up with a friend to play through a full season in a new co-op Championship mode or enjoy multiplayer racing from the sofa in split-screen mode.

F1 2011 will feature all of the official teams, drivers and circuits from the 2011 FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP™. The 2011 season sees the debut of the 2011 FORMULA 1 AIRTEL GRAND PRIX OF INDIA at Delhi’s Buddh International Circuit and the return of the iconic Nürburgring to the calendar.

To mark the game’s launch, Codemasters® has released a new video which shows the world’s fastest sport in glorious slow-motion. Capturing how Codemasters Birmingham has authentically reproduced the unique physics and visual detail from the most advanced racing cars on the planet, the video features key racing moments including dynamically changing weather, the new DRS (Drag Reduction System) in action and the 2011 Safety Car. Watch the FORMULA ONE™ cast of stars, including Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, race wheel-to-wheel and battle the elements in the new trailer now showing."

The list of new PC game releases, DVD and Blu-Ray releases, and movies opening the week of September 19th, 2011.

PC Games:

• Bunch of Heroes
• F1 2011
• Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes
• Nuclear Dawn
• RailWorks 3: Train Simulator 2012
• Worms Ultimate Mayhem

Movies opening this week:

• Abduction
• Dolphin Tale
• Killer Elite
• Machine Gun Preacher
• Moneyball
• Pearl Jam Twenty
• Puncture
• Thunder Soul (limited)

DVD and Blu-Ray releases:

• 3D Safari Africa [Blu-Ray]
• Area 51
• Best of Europe: The British Isles [Blu-Ray]
• Body of Proof: The Complete First Season
• Breakfast at Tiffany's 50th Anniversary Ed. [Blu-Ray]
• Bride Flight [Blu-Ray]
• Bridesmaids [Blu-Ray]
• Captain America
• Casino Royale (1967) [Blu-Ray]
• Castle: The Complete Third Season
• Celtic Thunder: Storm
• Chrome Skull: Laid to Rest 2 [Blu-Ray]
• Dalziel & Pascoe: Season Four
• Dead Heat [Blu-Ray]
• Dumbo [Blu-Ray]
• Dumbo [Blu-Ray]
• Gettysburg [Blu-Ray]
• Happy Endings: The Complete First Season
• Hawaii Five-0: The First Season
• Inspector General
• Judge John Deed: Season 4
• Landmarks of Early Soviet Film
• Law & Order: Los Angeles – The Complete Series
• Le Beau Serge [Criterion Collection Blu-Ray]
• Les Cousins [Blu-Ray]
• Mad: Season 1 Part 1
• Mickey Spillanes Mike Hammer: The Complete Series
• Mike & Molly: The Complete First Season [Blu-Ray]
• Modern Family: The Complete Second Season [Blu-Ray]
• My Bloody Valentine [Blu-Ray]
• National Geographic Ultimate High-Definition Collection Vol 2 [Blu-Ray]
• Raising Hope: The Complete First Season
• Red Green Show: The Geezer Years
• River Monsters Season 3
• Scary Movie 2 [Blu-Ray]
• Scary Movie 3 [Blu-Ray]
• Secrets In The Walls
• Set Up
• Set Up [Blu-Ray]
• Sophia Loren: Award Collection [Blu-Ray]
• Spooky Buddies [Blu-Ray]
• Terry Pratchett: Going Postal [Blu-Ray]
• The Kennedys [Blu-Ray]
• The Lamp
• The Mentalist: The Complete Third Season
• The Others [Blu-Ray]
• The River Murders
• The Strange Case of Angelica [Blu-Ray]
• UFC: Ultimate Matt Huges [Blu-Ray]
• Vamp [Blu-Ray]
• Vincent Van Gogh: Art and Music Expressions Series [Blu-Ray]
• Visions of Europe [Blu-Ray]

DICE today announced that a Battlefield 3 multiplayer beta will be launched on September 29th. The catch? You have to pre-order the game on Origin.

"Players from around the world will have a chance to experience the game that industry critics have hailed as the ‘Best Online Multiplayer Game’ before itships on October 28, 2011. The beta is set in Paris on the Operation Metro map, where players work their way from lush parks on the outskirts of the city to a dark, bombed-out metro station, to the vibrant streets around the Paris stock exchange. Two elite tactical units square off in the series’popular Rush Mode. One side takes the offensive by attacking M-COM stations while the opposing squad defends and protects. For more information about the beta, players should visit www.battlefield.com/beta"

Kalypso Media today announced Patrician IV Gold Edition, which is scheduled to be released on September 30th the UK. No US release date has been given yet. The collection includes the original game along with the Rise of a Dynasty expansion.

"Patrician IV Gold Edition brings a host of improvements and features first introduced by the critically acclaimed expansion Rise of a Dynasty. Operate your business in cooperative multiplayer mode, discover new land-based trade routes while grappling with territorial rulers and protecting your wagon convoys from errant highwaymen.

Patrician IV Gold Edition  Features:

• Combines the full edition of Patrician IV and the official expansion Rise of a Dynasty into one great game
• Realistically modeled trade system with trade routes between 40 cities on the coast and the mainland
• Become a leading merchant in heartland cities and establish an extensive road network to expand your trade routes
• All towns are displayed in impressive and detailed 3D
• Intelligent rivals, dynamic weather and seasons influence gameplay
• Manage your trading empire with three of your friends via LAN or Internet in a cooperative multiplayer mode
• Become a big time landowner and buy parts of the regional territories to expand your influence and power
• Be elected mayor of your home town or even Alderman of the Hanseatic League and gain new rights and responsibilities.
• Construct your own merchant fleet from historical ship models and research new ship types
• Arm your fleet with convoy ships and fight in impressive naval battles against pirates and rivals

For more information on Patrician IV please visit www.patrician4.com."