John Callaham -

Left 4 Dead 2 Review

All You Need to Know: Assassin's Creed 2

Download: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat benchmark

Download: Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Demo

Download: James Cameron's Avatar: The Game Demo

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 Review

League of Legends Review

React Games talks About Archon Revival

Download: King's Bounty: Armored Princess Demo

All You Need to Know: StarCraft II

Dragon Age: Origins Review

First Looks: Star Trek Online

Download: Sacraboar Demo

Shattered Horizons Review

Torchlight Review

Download: Unreal Development Kit
Happy fifth birthday, World of Warcraft
Yep, after years of development and months of free beta testing it was five years ago today on November 23, 2004 that Blizzard finally launched the game for paying customers. Even though MMOs had been around for a number of years before World of Warcraft, the launch of Blizzard's game was the beginning of a new era as literally millions of players decided to fork over a monthly fee to play, fight and socialize in the fantasy world of Azeroth. In fact it's safe to say the genre's history could be split into two parts: BWOW (Before World of Warcraft) and AWOW (After World of Warcraft).
Naturally our sister site WoW.com is celebrating the fifth anniversary as well and even has some cool giveaways they will be giving their readers over the next few days. Make sure you head over their way to partake in some birthday goodness. And stay away from the creepy party clown.
Streamline Studios shuts down operations; co-founder says company lives on
In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, the company's co-founder Hector Fernandez admits that Streamline, which had over 50 employees at the beginning of the year, was looking to weather the economic storm. However several long term contracts with game publishers "started falling by the wayside" in 2009 and one of their biggest clients shut down this year. All of that combined with the weakness in the US dollar made business too hard for the company to stay afloat.
However Fernandez seems like he believes Streamline will come back, saying that, " . . . all of its workings will continue to live on. We're basically taking a step back, reassessing the situation, and then essentially beginning our re-invention." Even Streamline's company web site, even though it's basically a placeholder design, is actually filled with holiday cheer as you can see above. As usual with these situation we hope Streamline's former employees land on their feet.
Continue reading Streamline Studios shuts down operations; co-founder says company lives on
Guild Wars co-creator making a Zombie MMO, but not for the PC?
That's right. The newly announced Undead Labs, a Seattle-based games studio founded by ArenaNet co-founder Jeff Strain, has announced its plans to make a zombie-based massively multiplayer game . . . for consoles. And just for consoles. In their "Rude Q&A" on the company's web site (their version of an FAQ page), Strain states, "There are scores of MMOs on the PC. There are very few on the console, and exactly zero developed specifically for the console." He adds, "Nobody wants to see a PC MMO ported to console, with a hybridized design attempting to appeal equally to all players."
While we agree that the console space has not been well served by the MMO genre the prospect of having consoles get a freakin' zombie MMO before the PC, and made by people who actually know what they are doing in this space, still hurts us. A lot.
Continue reading Guild Wars co-creator making a Zombie MMO, but not for the PC?
Rumor: Did we miss out on getting a Civilization MMO?
The site points to LinkedIn online profiles from two members of the now apparently defunct (and previously not officially announced) 2K Austin development studio. The dev team was on the small side (just ten members according to one of the team members) and was shut down in October after working on a prototype MMO "of an existing franchise" for a little over a year.
While that franchise is never actually named, one of the former 2K Austin team members states in his LinkedIn profile that the the team "developed the overall design of the city layouts throughout the various ages of history". That certainly sounds like a Civ-type game to us. Big Download has emailed 2K Games to see if they care to comment on this story.
[Via Blue's News]
Continue reading Rumor: Did we miss out on getting a Civilization MMO?
Surprise (not): Left 4 Dead 2 on top of weekly Steam sale list
Infinity Ward's controversial military shooter Modern Warfare 2 secured the number two spot on Steam's sales list while the regular and special edition versions of BioWare's fantasy RPG Dragon Age: Origins made the third and fourth positions on the list, respectively:
1. Left 4 Dead 2 - Valve
2. Modern Warfare 2 - Infinity Ward/Activision
3. Dragon Age Origins - BioWare/EA
4. Dragon Age Origins Digital Deluxe Edition - BioWare/EA
5. Borderlands - Gearbox Software/2K Games
6. Torchlight - Runic Games
7. Frontlines: Fuel of War - Kaos Studios/THQ
8. Crysis Maximum Edition - Crytek/EA
9. Overlord Complete Pack - Triumph Studios/Codemasters
10. Counter-Strike Source - Valve
Continue reading Surprise (not): Left 4 Dead 2 on top of weekly Steam sale list
Sorry PC gamers: No word on Resident Evil 5 DLC for us
Sounds pretty awesome, right? However, the DLC and Gold Edition announcements were for the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles. So what does that mean for the PC version that was just released last September? G4TV put that question to Capcom and got back the sobering response, "No plans for PC at this point." That doesn't entirely shut the door on the subject but at the moment it looks like PC owners of Resident Evil 5 might have to do without all those cool console extras.
Continue reading Sorry PC gamers: No word on Resident Evil 5 DLC for us
Last day for Left 4 Dead 2 Steam code giveaway contest
Well, if you enter and win one of the five Steam download codes we are giving away for Left 4 Dead 2 you will have the sweet, sweet pleasure of being able to play Valve's zombie co-op shooter sequel. That includes being able to have that jockey jump on your character and have him guide you to near-certain doom. If you are eligible to win, you still have time to enter. Head over to the official contest web page by 11:59 pm Eastern time tonight to get your entry in. Good luck.
Continue reading Last day for Left 4 Dead 2 Steam code giveaway contest
This Week In PC Games: November 23-29

Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter: Croteam steps up with this graphical revamp of their 2001 released first person shooter. Now you can see giant bulls and headless men with bombs charging at you with lots more polygons via Croteam's Serious Engine 3. This game is a Steam download exclusive.
The Best of Big Download: November 16-22

Exclusive Features
- Left 4 Dead 2: Check out our review of the PC version of Valve's shooter. Plus you still have time to win one of five Steam download codes for the full game.
- Interviews: This week we chatted with the creator of the upcoming 8-bit version of Left 4 Dead along with the COO of Reality Gap about the new free-to-play title Battleswarm.
- Mac Monday: This week we focus on two Mac games: Drawn: The Painted Tower and New Star Soccer 2010.
- Boot Disk: This week our retro games feature looks at Interplay's Fallout 2.
- Big Ideas: Our weekly look at game themes examines what, if anything, could be considered taboo in games.
- All You Need To Know: Our weekly 411 on a game titles gives you the info you need on Assassin's Creed 2.
- Freeware Friday: Our popular look at free PC games checks out the browser-based Captain Forever.
Mass Effect 2 surprise coming next week?
The upcoming sci-fi RPG's official Facebook page has a post from BioWare's Chris Priestly who mentions that he's been so preoccupied with "meetings and 'secret stuff'" that he hasn't had much time with Mass Effect 2. But then he adds, "Still with the coming surprise for next week on the ME2 website, I'm sure fans will forgive me for no update." Hmmmmm. Could it be an announcement of the game's first downloadable content package? A demo, perhaps? Or maybe that the game comes with free money? We shouldn't have long to find out.
[Via VG247.com]
Steam banning "grey market" Modern Warfare 2 CD keys
These sources are usually online web sites based in Asia that obtain CD keys for a discount through likely dubious means and then sell them for a profit to anyone. However, Activision and Steam do not consider them to be legitimate locations to buy the game. A post on Steam's message board by a Steam/Valve rep states, "In the future, you should only buy unopened retail boxed copies from legitimate retailers or purchase via legitimate digital download services." So if you see a site that offers up a CD key for the game for a "deal", be warned that Steam might reject it.
[Via Voodoo Extreme]
Continue reading Steam banning "grey market" Modern Warfare 2 CD keys
The Saboteur goes gold even as Pandemic's studio space shuts down
Late on Friday, the dev studio's community manager posted on their message boards that " . . . . The Saboteur has officially gone "GOLD" on all 3 planned platforms (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 & PC)." The game is still scheduled for a December 8 release date here in the US (Europeans get the game a few days earlier on December 4). As the community manager admits, "This has been a very difficult week for Pandemic Studios, but does not change the fact that a team of amazing people worked very hard to make The Saboteur a great game that fans will be able to enjoy this holiday season." We are hoping the last game from their studio is good as well even if EA seems intent on not giving it a big marketing push.
[Via Joystiq]
Continue reading The Saboteur goes gold even as Pandemic's studio space shuts down
First major Left 4 Dead 2 PC patch fixes some issues
You can check out the full release notes on the Steam web site but a couple of the notable bug fixes include fixing some problems in the game's matchmaking system along with patching a performance issue "when rendering lots of decals, notably when fighting tanks with shotguns." You can expect to see lots more updates for the game in the coming months.
Continue reading First major Left 4 Dead 2 PC patch fixes some issues
Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy Beta 1 to begin Monday
As we reported during PAX 2009, this will be the final micro-expansion for Sins of a Solar Empire with the final version to be released sometime this spring. Plans for a third micro-expansion have been canceled but it looks like Ironclad and Stardock have major future plans for the game franchise.
Continue reading Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy Beta 1 to begin Monday
Valve offers up some cool holiday greeting cards
The three sets of cards cover Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2 and the new Left 4 Dead 2 (which you can see above). The cards have that weird humor theme that always seems to creep up in Valve projects (we especially like the Spitter card in the Left 4 Dead 2 set). Of course there's also lots of t-shirts and other items in the online store that would be perfect for any Valve fan for the holidays (we want the Midnight Riders tour shirt please).
Continue reading Valve offers up some cool holiday greeting cards















