RPG

This trailer gives first looks at Storm of Zehir, the next expansion to hit Neverwinter Nights 2. Storm of Zehir will expand the RPG on numerous levels, including large scale battles, full party customization, and non-linear gameplay wrapped into about 15 hours worth of new content.

Download the Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir HD Trialer (101 MB)

Perfect World International is a sci-fi and fantasy MMO based in Chinese mythology. Make room on your hard drive for this one, because the four part download totals over 2 GB of data. Go to www.perfectworld.com to sign up for an account to play.

Download Perfect World International Client (1 of 4) (600 MB)
Download Perfect World International Client (2 of 4) (600 MB)
Download Perfect World International Client (3 of 4) (600 MB)
Download Perfect World International Client (4 of 4) (578 MB)

The sandbox genre hasn't always been populated by games with delusions of complex storytelling. Back before Grand Theft Auto 3, most sandbox games were almost arcade-like, with more of a focus on doing what you want and being rewarded regardless of what you did. The original Grand Theft Autos had a score that doubled as cash, allowing you to complete a mission entirely by killing pedestrians and hijacking cars, if you really wanted to. This week's Freeware Friday game is similar to this mentality. However, it offers much more in the realm of replayability, thanks to its procedurally generated environments and missions. I am talking about a game I previously featured in a news post, the incredible Survival Crisis Z.

It looks like Penny Arcade Expo is starting to get its own special products made just for the show, much like the San Diego Comic-Con offers exclusive merchandise. The latest such announcement comes from Hothead Games, the developers of the episodic adventure-RPG Penny Arcade Adventures. The developer will sell a special edition of the first episode of the game for the PC at the show.

While the regular edition of the game is only available via download, this special edition will be sold at the Hothead booth during PAX for $40. This limited edition will feature a collectible package that contains the game on disk, a game manual, a key chain, a t-shirt and a 20 sided die. PAX attendees will be able to play demos of the second Penny Arcade Adventures episode at the Hothead booth and there will even be info on Hothead's next major game Deathspank.

This patch fixes Space Siege's problem with recognizing certain DVD drives. Patch must be copied into game directory and run with the disc in drive.

Download the Space Siege DVD Recognition Fix (16 MB)

The last Rise of the Argonauts video took us aboard the Argo and showed us its inner workings. Now the developers give us some insight on the workings of something completely different. The character of Medusa is well-known in Greek mythology and has been featured in many games. This video showcases how Liquid Entertainment will make their monster stand out.

Download the Rise of the Argonauts "Medusa" Video (216 MB)
Download the Rise of the Argonauts "The Argo" Video (118 MB)

In the latest salvo made in the graphics wars, AMD today announced that they are cooperating with a number of game developers to make their PC games work well on DirectX10.1. AMD claims that only their ATI Radeon graphics cards offer full "top to bottom" DirectX10 graphics support.

The specific games mentioned as receiving full DirectX10.1 support from AMD are Battleforge, the fantasy RTS game from Phenomic and Electronic Arts, Stormrise, the sci-fi RTS game from The Creative Assembly and Sega and the little known RPG title Cloud 9 from NHN Games. AMD has also released a small "Ping-Pong" interactive demo to show off their use of the DirectX10.1 demo. The demo requires Microsoft Vista Service Pack 1. and ATI Radeon HD 3600 series or an ATI Radeon HD 3800 series graphics card with at least 512MB of video memory, the ATI Catalyst 8.3drivers or higher, a dual- or quad-core CPU and 2GB of RAM. Folks without those requirements can download a video showing the demo in action.

Sega's upcoming game line-up includes Alpha Protocol, the upcoming near-future spy action-RPG from developer Obsidian Entertainment. The game, which is a bit of a departure for Obsidian (they developed Neverwinter Nights 2 and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2) will deal with a rookie agent battling bad guys from across the globe.

For Games Convention, Sega released some new screenshots showing off some action-packed scenes from Alpha Protocol as well as its use of the Unreal Engine 3 tech. Look for the game to come out of the cold and into retail stores for the PC and other platforms in early 2009.

Atari stayed busy at this week's Games Convention as they showed off their upcoming titles. One of their big fall releases is Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir. Atari released some new screenshots from the game that is once again being developed by Obsidian Entertainment

In case you are not familiar with the title. Storm of Zehir is set to feature items like a non-linear enviroment to explore, party creation, an economic system that you can influence while playing and more. The big question? Will Atari release a third full game in the series at some point? Only time will tell.

Atari's fall 2008 release schedule includes a number of PC games including The Witcher: Enhanced Edition. The new version of CD Projekt's acclaimed fantasy RPG will have new single player content, enhanced graphics, more extensive and better English voice and script work and the game's editing tools.

Atari sent over some new sceeenshots this week of the Enhanced Edition of The Witcher. If you haven't bought the original game it will be released to stores this September, but if you have the original game CD Project will release a patch with all of the new content and improvements that the Enhanced Edition has.

This Dragon Age Origins video shows gameplay from an early mission and sets up much of the plot. Most of the emphasis is on the dialogue system that lets players be the hero or villain they want to be. Players will be able to treat one character nicely, then talk ill of them behind their backs. Or they can be complete jerks and still be thought of as a great guy, as long as they know how to cover their tracks.

Download the Dragon Age: Origins HD Gameplay Video (217 MB)

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

Following in the theme of last week's Battle for Wesnoth, this week I have another game which can be considered an absolute must-play. It's the spiritual successor to the classic Hack and Rogue, and it's one of the deepest, most engaging RPGs of all time. Best of all, it can be played anywhere as long as the computer you are on has a telnet connection. The game in question in Nethack, and if you haven't played it, you are depriving yourself of one of the best experiences in gamings.

Codemasters has a pretty good game line-up in the next several months and one of them is Rise of the Argonauts, the upcoming action-RPG from developer Liquid Entertainment. For Games Convention, Codemasters sent out a large batch of new screenshots for the Greek myth themed game.

Scheduled for release this fall, Rise of the Argonauts gives Liquid's own version of the mythical journey of Jason and the Argonauts as they travel to distant lands and fight creatures like the Cyclops, the Medusa and others. This will apparently be a mature-rated game; the title's web site has an age gate. So if there isn't a lot of blood shed we will be very dissapointed.

It's comforting to know that amid trailers for fantasy-themed games like Wrath of the Lich King or Warhammer Online, that there's still room for Jumpgate Evolution, a sci-fi MMO focused on space exploration, trade and ship combat. So, if you're not interested in swords and sorcery, maybe hopping through a jumpgate may be more your style.

Download the Jumpgate Evolution HD Trailer (82 MB)

One of the biggest problems for real-time strategy (RTS) games has been the detached and disinterested attitude many players exhibit when faced with playing them. More often than not, a lot of people who consistently play RTS games are doing so out of their love for the strategy element. That's all well and good, but there's a caveat: The problem continues. Why? It does so because the cache of players who're highly dedicated to RTS games don't count for much of the PC gaming contingent.

I've considered Relic Entertainment a top-drawer developer ever since I casually sat down to play Homeworld 2, only to discover a game that would absorb several tens of hours of my life. So when initial previews revealed that Dawn of War 2 (DoW2) wouldn't focus on player-built structures, I was intrigued. I continued to read up on the game and subsequently found even more provocative information. Players will only control five or so squads in any one battle? These squads are to stay with you over the course of the game? This was a glaringly unprecedented change, and I loved it.

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