It's been a long time in coming but as we reported on Tuesday, Microsoft has finally decided to give PC gamers (and in an indirect way developers) a break in regards to their Games for Windows Live service. The company announced that it was doing away with the $50 a year fee to use the previously labeled "Gold" features of the service.

Big Download chatted briefly on the phone today with Games for Windows senior global director Kevin Unangst who talked more with us about this new move. He also chatted with us about other topics such as the just announced DirectX11 graphics API, the upcoming Games for Windows Marketplace and whether Microsoft will ever release any more PC games on their own.

It's clear that there's no stopping Lara Croft. After making a successful comeback by in Tom Raider Legend and getting back to its roots in Tomb Raider Anniversary, the series continues to capitalize on its best features (and we're not just talking about the feminine ones) in Tomb Raider Underworld. We got first looks at Lara's latest subterranean adventure at this year's E3, filled with lost cities to explore, plenty of puzzles, and signature acrobatics.

In 1974, quite a few years before computer role-playing games allowed players to traverse dangerous dungeons with a keyboard, Dungeons & Dragons was born. Co-created by venerable game designer Gary Gygax and released through the Gygax-owned Tactical Studies Rules, Inc., D&D equipped users with pen, paper, and several multi-sided dice. Users were forced to bring their own imagination to the literal table as DMs, or Dungeon Masters, led them through treasure-filled tombs and dragon-infested valleys, transforming mothers' basements and comic book shops into the most fantastic of locales.

Fantasy geeks were able to get more than their fair share of D&D. TSR released several character manuals, sourcebooks, and constantly devised new settings -- and honed familiar ones -- to keep players enthralled with the game. Comic book readers, however, yearned for a different type of fantasy, one that would allow them to leap tall buildings in a single bound and potentially move faster than a locomotive.

Welcome to a new regular feature here on Big Download. Since indie competitions are such a large part of the independent community, ignoring them would be very foolish. There's lots of undiscovered talent out there as well as established masters, and indie competitions are the best way to bring them out of the woodwork. They are held everywhere from TIGSource to poppenkast, and always bring together lots of great talent.

Indiedaze takes the best entries from a recently finished indie competition and showcases what we think are the best of the best. Sometimes they coincide with what the original competition's top three were, sometimes they are completely different. In any case, they are always the games we liked most, and worth all the attention you can give them. A recently finished competition is the TIGSource Procedural Generation Competition, having finished up around a month ago. Since such a long time has passed, the games have had a chance to be played and decisions have had a chance to be weighed. So here is our top three and honorable mentions that were just so good that they couldn't be passed up.

Players familiar with the first Operation Flashpoint should know it as an open-ended military shooter. The sequel, Dragon Rising, continues to deliver a grand scope of combat to make players feel like actual soldiers fighting in a real environment. Dragon Rising takes place on the oil rich island of Skira, which sits north of Japan off the coast of Russia. Where there are resources, there's conflict, and both Russia and China vie for control over the land. America maintains a small consulate and a handful of marines on the island to protect its commercial interests, but the spark of conflict threatens to ignite a war when soldiers from the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) start landing on the island to stake a claim.

Going vertical is one of the more prominent themes of this year's E3, but before players fly around the Dark Void using a jet pack, they might be scaling the buildings of Damnation. Damnation takes place in an alternate history United States, where the industrial revolution took a radically different turn. The result is a 1900's America that looks both new and familiar at the same time. The characters of Damnation come straight out of an old-west movie and run around dusty mesa environments armed with steam punk weapons. The sci-fi western also features aircraft and proximity sensing mines.

Apart from the great setting, another aspect that sets Damnation apart from other shooters is the emphasis on vertical map design. Areas can be up to three miles wide while spanning thousands of feet in height. The main character will have a large degree of acrobatic skill to help him scale cliff walls and jump from building to building in this open-world environment. However, there won't be any emphasis on pixel perfect jumping the way Tomb Raider games do. Damnation will feature a physics system that will figure out when a jump is "close enough" to keep players from falling down deep pits. Players will also need to get by without the use of a map or compass, since both have limited use when playing vertically. Instead, the main character will have something called "Spirit Vision," which allows him to see all the people around him as heat signatures. That way, players can get a sense of where to go next, how many enemies they'll encounter and figure out the best way to deal with them.

A trusty NPC will follow players around as they cross Damnation and work to take down a crime boss before he has a chance to take over the nation. However, players can't outfit their partners with specific weapons or issue orders. NPC's will do their own thing instead, which could end up being a hindrance or annoyance, depending on how well the AI turns out to be. To overcome potential problems, the game will support drop-in cooperative multiplayer. So friends can immediately join the game and assume the identity of the NPC and play normally from wherever the host player happens to be.

Damnation will have to do a lot to stand out from other shooters. Its unique setting and style and massive maps go a long way, but things will essentially come down to control and AI behavior - both still need to be proven. We'll soon see how things turn out in the new old west since the game is currently scheduled for a winter 2008 release.

A cargo pilot named Will crash lands in the Bermuda Triangle and finds himself caught in an alternate world along where aliens called The Watchers are in control. Using weapons cobbled together using stolen Watcher technology he joins with other humans lost inside this world to take on the alien menace. Using a jet pack, Will can jump long distances, hover in mid-air and eventually fly in true Rocketeer-like fashion. Most of all, the player's sense of direction will be thrown for a complete loop. As Will uses his jet pack to scale up cliff sides, vertical becomes horizontal and outcropping can be used for cover.

The first part of Dark Void plays out they way anyone would expect an action shooter would. There isn't much to help the game stand out without the benefit of an upgraded jet pack. Until then, the player moves through like most other shooters, picking up new and inventive weapons along with ammo while picking off waves of incoming soldiers along the way. There isn't much to help the straight, ground-based, shooting sequences stand out from other shooters this early in development. The graphics look nice and there's an interesting story, but the extra flash like destructible environments and exploding barrels aren't in yet. However, the developers promise that all those factors will be in place when the game releases.

Watcher soldiers are mainly comprised of robots that will occasionally come up to Will and grab him by the throat, triggering a minigame where players needs quickly move the controller's thumbstick left and right to escape. Little stitch and button-mashing sequences like these will be peppered throughout the game. One adrenaline-pumping sequence has the player chasing down flying saucers to land atop them. Players then need to rip off a panel by tapping the B buttons while avoiding the ships cannon. Then the hatch open for Will to dispose of the pilot. Will then has the ship for himself to use against other Watchers. No word yet on how these button mashing sequences will play out on the PC, since those controls haven't been developed yet. Flight is fairly straightforward and the controls are very responsive for easy maneuvering.

Disappointingly, due to the complexity of the vertical gameplay, Dark Void won't come with any multiplayer features. However, it will be the first part in a series of episodic games. While this story centers on Will and explain how people like Nikola Tesla ended up in the Void, future episodes may change focus to other survivors. Dark Void itself will be considered as the first three episodes, so we might see multiplayer action in future games. In any case, we can expect a lot of high-flying, fast-paced shooting action coming our way. The game is expected to release next year.

Big Download's sister site Massively.com has all the news you'll need about MMOs. Here's the best, brightest, and most interesting stuff from E3 week, all in one convenient place for your MMO minute.

	KOTOR MMO confirmed by Electronic Arts We've had plenty of speculation -- lots and lots of it -- but now we've got confirmation from Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is indeed getting a massively multiplayer online iteration. Portfolio.com has the story.
	Wrath of the Lich King Beta is now open Today is pretty much a landmark day for MMOs. Earlier today an interview with EA executive John confirmed the existence of the KOTOR MMO. That's enough for any two days. Why not add the unveiling of the Closed Beta test for the west's most popular MMO into the mix? That's right, the download instructions for Wrath of the Lich King's Beta client are now up on the official World of Warcraft website. Our sister site WoW Insider is carrying the news, noting that this is just the beginning of the ramp up to full Beta testing.
	Mythos beta is shutting down tonight The woes continue at Flagship Studios. It was just announced that the Mythos beta will shutdown tonight. The official time slotted for its cease of operations is at July 18th, 2008 at 11:59 CST. Community manager Tiggs left the message on the forums which are also due to close at the same time.
	Blizzard victorious in WoW Glider case Virtually Blind is reporting that the WoW Glider case has been resolved in Blizzard's favor. The maker of the epic fantasy MMO has long contended that the MDY developers are infringing on the company's copyright. MDY makes the WoW Glider bot software, possibly the most popular of a series of options that allow an unattended computer to 'play" World of Warcraft.
	E308: DC Universe Online roundup Sony Entertainment Online revealed a metric ton of new information on their upcoming superhero MMO DC Universe Online at E3 this week, and Massively was on hand to pick the spicy brainmeats of Creative Director Chris Cao, SOE-Austin VP of development John Blakely, and famed DC artist and Executive Creative Director for the project, Jim Lee.

Our very last E3 2008 appointment was, ironically, not at the Los Angeles Convention Center but at a nearby hotel. Deep underneath the hotel's meeting room was host to BioWare's long awaited next fantasy RPG Dragon Age Origins. The game was first announced and shown in a very early form over four years ago at E3 2004 (when it was called simply Dragon Age) so we were expecting to be wowed by this new version.

Dragon Age Origins represents a bit of a return to BioWare's PC gaming roots. After releasing the first Neverwinter Nights title BioWare went in a console direction creating the Xbox RPG games Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire and more recently the Xbox 360 game Mass Effect (all three games were eventually ported to the PC). Bioware also got a new owner in Electronic Arts. So its good that for at least this title (and perhaps the rumored Star Wars MMO that BioWare Austin is making) the developer will return to making PC games as their first platform of choice.

(Editor's note: this article is based on seeing a live demo of the Xbox 360 port of the game)

Electronic Arts is aiming to do something different for their upcoming titles Dead Space. While it has released a few "M" rated games in the recent past like Army of Two, The Godfather and others, this is the first real horror game EA has released since, well, the terrific and underrated first person shooter Clive Barker's Undying. Dead Space is also EA's first excursion into the survival horror genre which means it's going up against two of Konami's big franchises, Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

At EA 2008,we got to see a demo of the game being played which showed off some of Dead Space's more unique elements. The game's setting is certainly different than Konami's titles. It takes place in the far future where humanity has broken the light speed barrier and traveled to the stars. Your player character is an engineer who is sent to find out why one starship hasn't reported back in a while. He reaches his destination only to find that in space, people can indeed hear you scream if you happen to be in a space suit with a radio.

With E3 going on, it's possible that the Big Download staff has spent more time watching videos of upcoming games than playing current ones. But the weekend is finally here, and we're looking forward to getting some time that's hands-on instead of just eyes-on with our favorite hobby.

Lead blogger David Craddock will be taking a break from almost single-handedly holding the site together while John Callaham has been at E3 to play Final DOOM (a classic!) on his PC and Civilization Revolution on his Xbox 360. James Murff will be taking a break from his usual indie fare to play Team Fortress 2 and Company of Heroes with his buddies. When they're not around, he'll be laying the SMACdown with Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Eli Shayotovich is going to be lopping off limbs in Age of Conan.

Lastly, I'm in the middle of moving halfway across the continent, and I had to ship my desktop via UPS ground, so only my notebook is gonna be accessible over the next few days. Therefore low spec games are the flavor of the weekend -- Sam & Max Episode 4 and Fallout. I'm also going to be playing a bit of Rule of Rose on the PS2 (well, technically PS3). But that's us. How about you? What aRe yoU Playing?

If the original Command and Conquer timeline is a fairly standard sci-fi affair and C&C Generals is a more realistic near future storyline, then Electronic Arts' Red Alert franchise is all about comic book goofiness and fun. The alternate history where the Communist Soviet Union is still large and in charge and wild weapons are plentiful will get a revamp this fall with the release of C&C: Red Alert 3.

At E3 2008 we got a chance to go hands-on with a PC build of the game (it's also being released for the Xbox 360) where we got to play as the brand new Red Alert Japanese faction called the Empire of the Rising Sun. The visuals, while in 3D, remain in the style of the first two 2D Red Alert titles. They are colorful yet detailed and are actually quite fun to just look at.

The Creative Assembly's list of historical RTS games in its Total War franchise is extensive with the European middle ages, Rome, and feudal Japan. Now the developer has moved into the 18th century with its latest effort Empire: Total War as the series finally moves to the New World and those pesky American colonists.

At E3 2008, we got to see a quick live game demo on Empire: Total War at Sega's meeting room that focused on the major new feature in this edition of the franchise: high sails naval warfare. If the game concentrated just on this it would still be a game we would look forward to. The fact that it will have both naval and land battles (more on land missions later) has us really excited.

So you think you know what Relic Entertainment is going to do with the full sequel to their acclaimed sci-fi RTS title Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War (based as always on the Games Workshop war game). Better graphics; more units, more visble units in massive battles, right? Isn't that the way sequels usually do things?

Well, yes. That is the standard for sequels to any game: "More of what you liked before, but better." In the case of Dawn of War II, however, Relic and publisher THQ are actually doing things to the game that on the surface look like they are toning things down. We got a chance to observe an live demo of the highly anticipated title at E3 2008 this week.

Every time at E3, there's a game that you have never heard of before you arrive that you get to see and totally surprises you. For us, that game at E3 2008 was Wanted, a title that actually serves as a sequel to the impressive Universal Studios action game based (loosely) on the Top Cow comic book from writer Mark Millar and artist J.G. Jones.

At a last minute appointment during E3 we got to see a quick live demo of the Wanted game at Warner Bros. Interactive's meeting room (the company is distributing the title) on an Alienware PC using an Xbox 360 Windows controller. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, here's a MAJOR SPOILER WARNING as we intend to talk about the ending in the next paragraph