Strategy

A new Disciples III: Renaissance video released, coinciding with the announcement that Akella acquired all rights to the game series from Strategy First. This relaxing video gives a short fly through of an elven tower, but shows off what fans can look forward to as it draws closer to its scheduled 2009 release.

Download the Disciples 3 Elven Tower HD Trailer (52 MB)

This patch updates World in Conflict's map editor (WicEd) to version 1.2, which will bring a number of improvements including a resolution editor and the ability to import ground textures.

Download the World in Conflict Map Editor v1.2 Patch (41 MB)

Canadian publisher Strategy First released a number of smaller PC games in the 1990's and in the early part of this decade, both from third parties and their own internal development studios. They created the Disciples turn based strategy RPG series and produced two games in the franchise before they filed for bankrupcy in 2004 and shut down their internal development studios. Strategy First announced in 2005 that Disciples III would be handled by Russian developer Akella.

This week Akella announced that they have now acquired the rights to the Disciples series from Strategy First (Financial terms were not disclosed). Akella continues work on Disciples III with a planned release date in the first quarter of 2009. It is not clear if Strategy First will continue to be the US publisher for the game.

X-COM: Complete Pack, a collection of the entire Microprose Software, Inc.-developed strategy game series, is now available on Steam, according to Valve's official Steam website.

Featuring X-COM: Apocalypose, X-COM: Enforcer, X-COM: Interceptor, X-COM: Terror From the Deep and X-COM: UFO Defense, the Complete Pack is currently listed at a price of $13.49. Each game's individual price tag sits at $4.99, making the Complete Pack quite a bargain for X-COM enthusiasts.

Beginning with X-COM: UFO Defense, Microprose's series introduced PC gamers to an eerie strategic setting which grew in popularity upon each subsequent series entry. For those who haven't yet experienced extra-terrestrial defense, take the plunge and purchase the entire package.

The big sleeper hit for PC games in 2008 is without question Sins of a Solar Empire. The space strategy game from developer Ironclad Games and publisher Stardock spent a number of weeks early this year on the top 10 best seller lists. Today Gamasutra reports that the game has sold over 500,000 units; 400,000 of those sales came from retail stores and over 100,000 units were from digital download sales. The game itself cost less than a million dollars to create.

Besides just being a great game, Sins is also designed to run on older PCs. Stardock CEO Brad Wardell stated that the game could have had the ships' turrets move but that would have required the game to have a higher hardware system to run properly. He states, "You make those kinds of design decisions, and you greatly increase the number of people who can play your game. You lose out on some piddly super-mega effect, but you get those units. The results come in sales." Last week it was announced that instead of a full expansion pack, mini-digital expansions for Sins of a Solar Empire will be released for $9.99 each, beginning in December.

This gameplay trailer for Perimeter 2 shows how some units can transform to take on new abilities, like flying, to overcome enemy defenses. Set in the far future, this real-time strategy game involves multiple corporations vying for total dominance. Part of the weapons arsenal will include mutlifunction units and the ability to deform the landscape for tactical advantages.

Download the Perimeter 2 "Transform" HD Trailer (101 MB)

We just have a few more days to wait until one of the most hyped and most anticipated PC games in recent memory finally finds its way to stores (or if you are a PC owner via digital download). Will Wright's magnum opus, the alien life evolution sim-strategy game Spore, is schedule to be released by Electronic Arts on September 7.

While we expect that this game will get a variety of reviews, pro and con (indeed it seems to be happening already) there are still five reasons why we think we will love the final product once it is released. This isn't a review of Spore; simply some things that have been revealed and discussed about the game in the past that have us excited enough to want to try this game out now.

Click on the image above to continue reading "Five reasons why we think we will love Spore"

Two of the biggest PC game releases in September both come from Electronic Arts; the Will Wright designed alien life simulation Spore and the Mythic Entertainment developed fantasy MMO Warhammer Online. Gamesindustry.biz has word that a financial analyst, Lazard Capital Markets senior VP Colin Sebastian, has given some predictions on how both games will do in the their launch month.

Sebastian has predicted that Spore will generate 2 million unit sales in the US this month (it's due to launch next week). That is a massive number for a PC game and it will be interesting to see if Spore can make those predictions. Sebastian has also stated that Warhammer Online could generate 650,000 subcriptions in its first month (it launches September 18). This would seem to be a solid number considering that the launch of Funcom's Age of Conan last May has similar sales success in its first month.

While online reviews of Spore are technically under embargo at the moment, magazines are apparently under a different set of rules which means the first scores for the long awaited Will Wright-Electronic Arts alien life simulator are now out on the web anyway. PC Gamer's UK magazine has given the title a 91 (out of 100). The review does take the game to task for a lack of an auto-save feature and not being able to back out of wars in the game's last stages. However it did call the game "beautiful," "hilarious" and "annoyingly adorable."

However, two German PC game mags, PC Games and Gamestar, have given Spore 73 and 79 (out of 100) scores (repectively) according to Videogame247.com. The PC Games review stated it lacked depth until the final stage and felt that it was an unease mix of simulation and strategy. Quite frankly we expected this kind of mixed response to Spore; it's a title that really has no other game to compare it to and we think there will be quite a lot of varied reviews when the embargo is fully lifted.

We are just a few days away from Spore's release at this point but that hasn't stopped Electronic Arts from issuing some last minute new screenshots from the alien life simulation game before its scheduled ship date of September 7.

These new shots concentrate on the Civilization section of the game where players design buildings and vehicles for their now highly intelligent creatures that they have helped to push the evolution of in the game. There's also a couple of shots showing the Space portion of Spore where your alien species decided to explore the galaxy full of user created civilizations. You can expect a ton of press (both game-oriented and mainstream) to follow the launch of Spore next week.

Multiwinia Mondays introduces the latest game mode for the Multiwinia, the follow-up to the indie developed Darwinia. It looks like the multiwinians will be competing in a great space race. Sides will have to take control of solar panels to power up their rockets, then load up 100 astronauts before taking off into space. In the meantime, opponents will be building up armies and blasting away to ensure that they're the first to blast off.

Download Multiwinia Rocket Riot HD Video (38 MB)

Anyone can make monsters with the free version of Spore Creature Creator but Electronic Arts seems to think that if a monster is made by a celebrity it's something special. That's why the publisher behind next week's sure-to-be-a-best-seller Spore has recruited a bunch of semi-famous people to have them make their own creatures with the editor. You can check them out on a special web site and even vote for your favorites.

You have really rich people (Richard Branson and Mark Cuban) along with pop culture icons (Adam West and Stan Lee), sitcom actors with three names (Melissa Joan Hart and Neil Patrick Harris), musicians (Andrew WK and Katy Perry) and even people who are famous for . . . well we are not really sure (ANT and Hal Sparks). Even Spore creator Will Wright threw in one of his own creations into the party mix. But the truth is that even if you are not famous you can most likely make your own Spore creation that's better than most of this lot.

Download the free version of Spore Creator Creator at Big Download right now.

We are less than a week before the launch of the long awaited Spore and more odd billboards are popping up in major cities. We reported on News.com spotting one in San Francisco and now the blog Message Board Champion has spotted some more billboards in Boston.

The one pictured above is our favorite so far; a creature with eyes that have the Spore galaxy symbol asking for some DNA. However the other picture on the Message Board Champion blog is kind of cool too; an alien asking for City Hall. If you have any pictures of any more of these outdoor billboards please let us know about it. We will post up pictures and links in future news posts.

The whole tower strategy-action game sub-genre hasn't really been super popular lately, but Washington based game developer Hidden Path Entertainment wants to change that with their just announced game Defense Grid: The Awakening. The game will be demoed this weekend at Seattle's Penny Arcade Expo.

According to a press release from Hidden Path, Defense Grid will have a single player storyline where tons of enemies are trying to swarm your base and its up to use to put up tower defenses in order to keep the horde at bay. In addition to the single player campaign there will also be special challenge modes. 20 levels will be in the final game with 10 different towers, each with three upgrades. The game, which uses the Gamebryo engine, is slated for a November release date.

We have always known that there would be an expansion pack for Ironclad Games' Sins of a Solar Empire. But in a bit of a surprise, the developer and its publisher Stardock announced that there would in fact be multiple commercial expansion packs for the best selling space strategy game coming our way.

The first expansion, titled Entrenchment, is due out in December and will cost $9.95 as a digital download via Stardock's Impulse service. The expansion will add some new weapons to the game include defense platforms and turret upgrades for each race along with mine fields and an Subspace inhibitor that will slow ships. Ironclad is working on two more expansions for the game. One will expand the game's diplomacy features while the other will add new technologies and ships.