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Big Download's News Bits & Bytes - November 19

Posted Nov 19th 2010 10:15PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Downloads

It's the weekend and also six days until a bunch of us eat until it hurts. MMMM...turkey.

It's finally out: the 1.1 beta patch for Elemental has been released via Impulse.
This week's Mutation gameplay mode for Left 4 Dead 2 is a repeat of Gib Fest.
There are lots of bug patch updates today on Steam including Lead and Gold, Left 4 Dead 2, Twin Sector, Killing Floor, the open beta of Men of War Assault Squad. Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike Source, Day of Defeat Source, and Half-Life 2 Deathmatch,
A new indie-themed game download portal, Show Me The Games, is now available.
The official Breach web site now lists all of the weapons that will be featured in the upcoming game.
Heroes of Newerth has introduced a new hero character, Moraxus.
It's another mysterious bar code teasing us about BioWare's next game.
Most of us, for better or for worse, would not be playing PC games without Microsoft's Windows OS. This week is its 25th anniversary.

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Call of Duty Black Ops PC gets second multiplayer patch and first single player patch [Update]

Posted Nov 19th 2010 9:45PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Downloads, Patches, FPS, Multiplayer, Call of Duty: Black Ops

Call of Duty Black Ops for the PC platform just got its second bug patch thanks to the Steam auto-updater. The hit first person shooter from developer Treyarch and publisher Activision continue to try to improve the PC port which suffered from a number of performance issues when it was released last week.

This second patch has some more CPU performance improvements to the game. It also gets the game's server browser improved so it doesn't do a full refresh as often as before. There's also a few crash bugs fixed for some minor issues. Again this will likely be only the second in a series of future bug patches for the game.

Update: Steam has just release the first single player oriented patch for Call of Duty Black Ops. It also has some CPU improvements as well as some matchmaking improvements to the Zombie mode.

Gallery: Call of Duty: Black Ops Screenshots

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Project Blackout announced

Posted Nov 19th 2010 9:30PM by John Callaham
Filed under: FPS, Multiplayer

Are you ready for yet another free-to-play first person shooter? You had better be because we have a new one that's been announced today. Project Blackout is the name and it comes from publisher SG Interactive (formerly known as Ntreev USA). The fictional back story isn't all that original; big corporations want to take over the government of the country known as Korogese. A rebel group called the Corps doesn't want that to happen.

There isn't really anything in this game that we have not seen tons of time in other games of this genre. Realistic looking weapons, different game modes, urban maps; you get the drill. The game is supposed to go into open beta on December 15.

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Amazon.com offers 50 percent price cuts on lots of major PC game titles

Posted Nov 19th 2010 7:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Downloads, Demos

Amazon.com has been offering casual game downloads for some time but now the massive web retailer wants to muscle in on Steam's territory. The web site is now offering a selection of casual, indie and hardcore PC games at 50 percent off their normal prices for download and purchase.

Among the over 60 games that are on sale today at the site are Crysis for $15, The Witcher for $5, Dead Space for $10, World of Goo for $5, Star Trek Online for $15 and Blade Kitten for a mere $3. Apparently there will be a different selection of PC games on Amazon.com that will be priced at 50 percent off every day.

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Din's Curse: Demon War expansion pack announced

Posted Nov 19th 2010 6:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Downloads, Expansions, RPG

Din's Curse, released earlier in 2010 was the third old school fantasy RPG game released by indie game developer Soldak Entertainment. This week the developer announced plans to release an expansion pack to the game, Demon War, with a scheduled release date of before the end of 2010 (although the real release date is "when it's done according to the web site).

The expansion pack will add over 50 player class combinations to the original's 141 combinations) as the player gets to fight 40 different variants of demons. The game will have new quests and environments to explore and basically survive a massive demon war (hence the title). There's no word on the game's price point yet.

[Via Blue's News]

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Combat Arms trailers show off yet more armory (and map) additions

Posted Nov 19th 2010 5:30PM by James Murff
Filed under: FPS, MMO, Trailers, Video

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More trailers from the free-to-play FPS Combat Arms! This time they are for a new map and three new weapons. The new map is Ghost Town, an abandoned-looking Eastern European town, and both the flythrough and weapon videos give a good idea of the action that will take place on the map.. The three new weapons are a reworked P90 and two versions of the same assault rifle (XK-8). All of the weapons are silenced, which gives off that distinct fwip noise gamers love to hear so much. In terms of excitement, however, these trailers are fairly standard and not that thrilling or engaging.

Download HD Combat Arms 'Ghost Town' Trailer
Download Combat Arms 'XK-8 Tactical' Trailer
Download HD Combat Arms 'XK-8' Trailer
Download HD Combat Arms 'Viper P90TR' Trailer
Download Combat Arms client
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Gallery: Combat Arms

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Weekend PC game sales include an early Thanksgiving

Posted Nov 19th 2010 5:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Downloads

Friday has arrived and with it comes some new PC game download sales. Keep in mind that some of these price cuts are for today only while one sale will actually last through next Thanksgiving weekend.

Impulse is the one that is holding its Thanksgiving PC game sale a bit early with a bunch of game titles that will have price cuts that will last through November 29. The exceptions are Command and Conquer Red Alert 3, Red Alert 3 Uprising and C&C 4 which will be 50 percent off through November 23.
Direct2Drive has Grand Theft Auto IV The Complete Edition (game + two expansions) on sale today only for just $9.95.
Games For Windows Marketplace has BioShock 2 on sale this weekend for $9.99. It also has Saints Row 2 on sale today only for $5.99.
Steam has Sniper Ghost Warrior and its DLC mini-expansion on sale for 50 percent off each this weekend.
GamerGate has a number of games on sale that have some kind of dragon theme this weekend.
GoG.com has a bunch of Ubsoft games on sale for 30 percent off each this weekend or all 17 games in a bundle for 50 percent off..

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Darkspore developer diary loots alien corpses

Posted Nov 19th 2010 4:30PM by James Murff
Filed under: Action, RPG, Video

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One of the most important parts of any action RPG is the looting system. Loot can determine if such a game can survive or die on the market, and games with particularly weak loot systems (like Space Siege) can suffer thanks to the lack of interesting mechanics. Darkspore looks to have a good loot system, however, so we aren't too worried. It looks like it combines traditional loot mechanics with some additions and changes, such as end-of-level evaluation determining what loot you get. This video, more than any other video we've seen involving Darkspore, makes us quite excited for the action RPG title. After all, we are total loot fiends.

Download HD Darkspore Producer Diary #2
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Company of Heroes Online has free "Loyalty Packs" for owners of previous games

Posted Nov 19th 2010 4:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Downloads, RTS

Company of Heroes Online is technically still in its "Open Beta" phase but this week the persistent online WWII RTS game from developer Relic and publisher THQ is now offering some free in-game "Loyalty Packs" for people who have purchased the previous games in the series.

The packs include "Hero Units, Army Items, experience points, and supply points" for use in Company of Heroes Online. It you own the original Company of Heroes, the Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valor expansion packs and/or the Company of Heroes Gold Edition you can plug in your retail CD Key in the "Redeem Code" box in Company of Heroes Online's in-game store to gain access to the Loyalty Packs.

Gallery: Company of Heroes Online Screenshots

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Section 8 Prejudice trailers smash swarming enemies around

Posted Nov 19th 2010 3:30PM by James Murff
Filed under: FPS, Multiplayer, Trailers, Video

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It's time for more trailers for Section 8 Prejudice, and these continue to impress us as much as the previous ones. The first, above, details the intricacies of the Swarm gameplay mode, which pits you and a small team of friends against larger and larger waves of bots. It has a developer commentary, as most gameplay videos do, and gives a good walkthrough of both the new mode as well as all the additions to the Section 8 formula that Prejudice is bringing to the table.

The other two videos, after the cut, elaborate on two things briefly shown in the Swarm trailer: fatalities and overdrive. Fatalities are neat animations that play when you kill an enemy in melee, and overdrive is the incredibly fast sprit that can take out other enemies if you hit them head on. While fatalities are more of a show thing, overdrives are an important part of Section 8 and were that way in the original game as well.

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Bungie looking for beta testers for unannounced game

Posted Nov 19th 2010 3:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Betas, FPS

Bungie is one of the few independent game developers that can truly write its own ticket in the business. Now the Redmond, Washington-based company is looking to its fan community to sign up and beta test its next game, the first in a planned series of titles to be published by Activision.

While details of the game have been kept under wraps there is recent evidence that the title will be coming to the PC platform. In a post on the Bungie web site the company its huge fan base "to officially put your name on the list of those willing to lend a helping hand." Signing up to be a Bungie tester will include, among other things, "Alpha and Beta Testing for our next game." Bungie states that "hundreds of thousands of gamers will likely be needed before all is said and done" so it sound like there's a good chance you could be chosen to play test Bungie's next game project.

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Steam launches game recommendation tool feature

Posted Nov 19th 2010 2:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Downloads, Tools

With over 1,200 PC and Mac games now available to download on Steam with more added every day, it can get hard for its users to find games that they might like. Today Steam's creators at Valve have launched a new tool called "Recommended For You" that is designed to give its users suggestions for games and downloadable content based on the user's likes and purchases The tool also uses recommendations from your Steam friends.

The games themselves will show up on the Steam "Recommended for You" web page. The game choices also appear in a user's Steam Community News blotter page. Each game on the service will also have a Recommended iist of other related game titles.

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3DMark 11 to be released November 30

Posted Nov 19th 2010 1:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Downloads, Tools

3DMark 11, the latest incarnation of Futuremark's PC game-themed hardware benchmarking program, finally has a firm release date. The program will be released in three different versions on November 30.

This new version of the program, made specifically to test PC hardware performance with DirectX 11 graphics features, will be made available as a free version with all of the demo tests but with ads enabled. A $19.95 version will also be available that will turn off ads and will also enable more features. Finally a $995 version of 3DMark 11 will be sold and will add still more features like demo looping. an image quality tool and more.

Gallery: 3DMark 11 Screenshots

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Natural Selection 2 closed beta begins

Posted Nov 19th 2010 12:00PM by John Callaham
Filed under: Betas, FPS, RPG

Natural Selection 2, as promised on Thursday, has started its closed beta test period. The upcoming sci-fi first person shooter-RTS game from developer Unknown Worlds Entertainment has some new content compared to the previous alpha test including the teleporting Fade alien creature that you can see decimate some Space Marines in the above video.

Access to the beta test will be limited to the first 10,000 people who pre-order the $34.95 game from Natural Selection 2's web site. Purchasing the game also includes access to its mod tools. The beta test will be updated on a regular basis via Steam.

Download the Natural Selection 2 Fade Reveal Trailer at Big Download

Gallery: Natural Selection 2

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Magicka to get closed beta test ... but there's a twist for entry

Posted Nov 19th 2010 11:00AM by John Callaham
Filed under: Betas, RPG

Magicka is set for release in early 2011 but before then the development team at Arrowhead Games and publisher Paradox Interactive are holding a closed beta test for the upcoming fantasy action-RPG. But in the humorous spirit of the game getting into the beta will require something more than just filling out a form.

Entry into the beta test means that you have to take a picture of yourself wearing some kind of robe. Then you go over to the official Magicka Facebook page, "Like" it and then upload the picture to its wall. Folks who get picked to the closed beta will be notified in the next two to three weeks.

Download the Magicka "Get Your Robe Ready" trailer at Big Download

Gallery: Magicka Screenshots