FPS

European publisher Deep Silver's first game in the US market, the GSC Game World FPS S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky was highly anticipated but a shipment error has caused the game's release date to be pushed back in this country. According to a report on Shacknews, a "manufacturing issue" has caused copies of the North American version to be recalled. Blue's News adds that (via an unnamed retail source) the specific issue was that the game boxes did not contain the CD keys.

There's no word on a new release date for the game although online retailers now have a September 15 date. This new development will likely push back any digital download release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky in the US. The European release date remains unchanged; it will ship on September 5.

Have you had your cake yet? If you haven't then you haven't played the innovative and award winning puzzle-action game Portal from Valve. This weekend may be your time to find out what all the fuss is about as Portal is the subject of the regular weekend sale on Valve's Steam service.

Portal is priced for this weekend only for just $9.99, a 50 percent cut for its normal price of $19.99. With that you get a game that, while extremely short, is still challenging and entertaining (and not without more than a little humor). Valve is reportedly working on a sequel to Portal but it may be a while before that's even officially announced.

The newest Brother in Arms: Hell's Highway trailer offers a short but sweet look at combat action as soldiers spray machine gun fire and launch a bazooka.

Download Brothers in Arms HD Machine Gun and Bazooka Trailer (16 MB)

The development team working on Far Cry 2 discuss putting in a sense to total immersion into their game and world.

Download the Far Cry 2 "Immersion" HD Video (77 MB)

Da, Comrade? Vat can we help you with? Oh, you haf your new orders? Glorious! Praise to Mother Russia in all her visdom! We heard you will be gettink new weapons to assist in your fight for one of the Amerikanski corporations. While we do not applaud you working for capitalist dogs, we do not question to visdom of the Motherland. So, in celebration of your new orders and weapons, we will give you this document. It details how to acquire your new armaments. Do not misuse it or distribute it to the enemies of Mother Russia, or we will be forced to inform the KGB of your treasonous actions! You may view parts one, two, three, and four of our guide as well.

Anyone could come up with a lot of reasons for why Valve is such a successful company. Ask any two people what makes Valve so successful and they'll probably point to different things. Some will say their cabal style game design and free content updates. While others will point to the Steam platform, mod support and integration of top mod designers. Some may even call out Gabe Newell himself. Oh and don't forget Doug Lombardi, either. We could go on and on about just what made (and continues to make) Valve so very special. Though I doubt it's any single one of those things as opposed to many of them at the right moments in the right way. Or in other words, a lot of chance, determination and some vision.

What I do think can be gleaned from the success of Valve, is where PC gaming will -- or at least should be -- going over the next few years. Hit the image above to take a look at what I think their model of game design and business decisions has to offer the wider PC gaming market.

Once again we are hearing from a team member from Crytek about how piracy affected sales of their 2007 PC FPS Crysis. Edge Online has a chat with the company's engine business manager Harald Seeley who said that pirates would likely not have bought the game if they were unable to find pirated copies.

Seeley is quoted as saying, "judging by, for example, the number of users who downloaded our patches, there were a lot more active players than there were unit sales. And I think we can safely say if they were still playing the game by the time our latest patch released, and if they were playing on a pirated copy, then they were a sale that didn't happen but probably would have had it not been possible to obtain the game illegally." A couple of months ago, Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli said that piracy was so bad, the company sold only one legit copy of Crysis for every 20 pirated copies out there. Despite these numbers, Crysis was still a profitable game for the developer.

Da, Comrade? Vat can we help you with? Oh, you haf your new orders? Glorious! Praise to Mother Russia in all her visdom! We heard you will be gettink new weapons to assist in your fight for one of the Amerikanski corporations. While we do not applaud you working for capitalist dogs, we do not question to visdom of the Motherland. So, in celebration of your new orders and weapons, we will give you this document. It details how to acquire your new armaments. Do not misuse it or distribute it to the enemies of Mother Russia, or we will be forced to inform the KGB of your treasonous actions! You may view parts one, two, and three of our guide as well.

From New York to London, the end of the world takes on many looks and shapes. In Legendary, major cities get torn apart by mythological creatures released from Pandora's Box. In this latest video, the game's developers go into detail about what it takes to bring about the end of the world and why it makes for great tourist attractions.

Download the Legendary Behind-the-Scenes HD Video - Episode 4 (510 MB)
Download the Legendary Behind-the-Scenes HD Video - Episode 3 (51 MB)
Download the Legendary Behind-the-Scenes HD Video - Episode 2 (59 MB)
Download the Legendary Behind-the-Scenes HD Video - Episode 1 (141 MB)

Tank Universal captures the nostalgic feel of classic games like Battezone mixed with an art style similar to the movie TRON. Even the plot follows a TRON-like plot line. A person diagnosed with a terminal illness enters into a virtual reality, where he ends up in neon world primarily made up from simple polygons. There, he joins a rebellion group fighting against a murderous and oppressive dictatorship. In order to upset the seat of power, players must jump into a tank and start blasting away the opposition.

Ubisoft's upcoming open world shooter Far Cry 2 has a lot of people expecting it will be great. So, apparently, does Ubisoft who are now in early development of the next game in the series at their Montreal studios. Videogaming247 has a quote from team member Patrick Redding who confirmed the plans during last week's Games Convention.

Interestingly, the dev team will apparently keep Far Cry 2's Africa setting for the follow-up game with Redding saying, "There are still things we want to do with the African setting, and I think it's safe to say we'll continue to explore it." While he says other locations might be considered for other titles in the series, he adds, "I think to save time, for us, one of the reasons we chose to use the African setting is because we felt that in order to retain the Far Cry brand value, of an exotic, dangerous environment, a place that maybe people haven't had a chance to see themselves, or have seen extensively in film, television and other games, we wanted to choose Africa."

Da, Comrade? Vat can we help you with? Oh, you haf your new orders? Glorious! Praise to Mother Russia in all her visdom! We heard you will be gettink new weapons to assist in your fight for one of the Amerikanski corporations. While we do not applaud you working for capitalist dogs, we do not question to visdom of the Motherland. So, in celebration of your new orders and weapons, we will give you this document. It details how to acquire your new armaments. Do not misuse it or distribute it to the enemies of Mother Russia, or we will be forced to inform the KGB of your treasonous actions! You may view parts one and two of our guide as well.

We are not quite sure how this bit of news wasn't covered more by the tons of journalists at Games Convention last week but G4TV has it on their video interview with the producer of Call of Duty: World at War. The upcoming WWII shooter has enlisted Gary Oldman to portray one of the characters in the game.

It sounds like Oldman will be voicing a Russian sergeant in the game's second campaign as the Soviets invade Berlin in the end of the War. Kiefer Sutherland has already been announced as another Hollywood actor joining the voice cast; he will be an American sergeant in the game's Pacific campaign. The title, from developer Treyarch and publisher Activision is due for release this fall.

The ongoing saga of Duke Nukem Forever has spilled over into the upcoming release of the Xbox Live Arcade port of the classic 1996 released shooter Duke Nukem 3D. In a new chat with Team Xbox, 3D Realms' president George Broussard is still asked about the long awaited next game in the series and Broussard sounds almost like it's ready to be shipped in a few months.

Broussard claims, "There are several hours of fairly polished game to play. We're actively testing parts of the game and getting feedback from play testers and things are coming together. It's fun, it's in focus, we know what bits are fun and which are not, and it's just a matter of time now." So we can expect our preview code next week, George? Huh? Oh well; it was worth a shot.

The latest Mercenaries 2 video shows shows about a minute and a half of someone playing through. Of course, plenty of bullets and explosions follow the player around, showing off the fully destructible environment. If you need a daily dose of explosives, this Mercenaries 2 video delivers.

Download the Mercenaries 2 HD Gameplay Video (98 MB)

Gallery: Mercenaries 2