UK based Eidos has been in financial trouble for a while now and today the publisher announced even more bad news as they have cut their revenue estimates for the full fiscal year due to disappointing US sales of Tomb Raider Underworld. Eidos said in a statement that while the game has sold well in Europe, the US sales have not been so lucky, saying, "In a difficult North American economy we have seen retailers restricting inventory levels and triple-A products being price discounted above our expectation."

As a result Tomb Raider Underworld is now estimated to have sold 1.5 million units world wide by the end of 2008, below Eidos' expectations. The company is now saying its full year revenue will be between 160 million-180 million pounds, below their previous estimate of between 180 million and 200 million pounds. Of course, late last year rumors were that Eidos was being considered for acquisition by several different parties.

It's not just Starcraft II that got Blizzard's attention this week. The official Diablo III web site has also posted up a total of five new screenshots from their upcoming fantasy action-RPG sequel. Naturally we have added those shots to our ever growing gallery of visuals from the game.

While there is one rather dull environmental shot in the new batch most of the new shots show off some rather big action. In one shot (the one above in fact) we mean that literally as our player character seems to be fighting a monster about 10 times its size. Blizzard is not likely to release Diablo III in 2009 but at least the new screenshots seem to be coming on a regular basis now.

Nvidia is making a splash this week with the introduction of their newest entries in their graphics chip family, the GeForce GTX 295 and GTX 285. The GTX 295 is Nvidia's new dual graphics chip design and is the company's answer to AMD/ATI's Radeon HD 4870 X2 card. As usual, Nvidia has also released new overall GeForce drivers for all of their currently supported chips. You can download the 181.20 versions at Nvidia's web site.

In addition to supporting the new high-powered GeForce chips, the new drivers also have performace improvements and bug fixes for a number of PC games. For more info you can check out the new release notes for the 181.20 drivers.

We are still very excited about Star Trek Online, especially since Cryptic Studios is behind it. The game, to now be published by Cryptic's new owners at Atari, is still in development for release in 2010 but this week a couple of new screenshots popped up on the game's official web site.

We have added both of them to our gallery but we have to say they are rather odd choices. Well one of the shots is, anyway. You can see the good shot above with a Federation ship exploring an asteroid field that has some bases. The other shot is..well...it's a very empty looking room with a small fire in the back. Not the most exciting shot we would have picked.

If you have been wondering what the so-called "elite" units are going to be in the Special Forces version of Empire: Total War, wonder no more. Valve's Steam service has now revealed the six special units that are included in the $69.99 version of the upcoming historical RTS game from The Creative Assembly and Sega.

Oddly enough, Steam is also offering the elite units as a separate $20 download (although you can just get the Special Forces package which adds the units automatically). What does an extra Andrew Jackson get you in the game? No phasers or jet planes, unfortunately, but you will get four different types of infantry forces along with the Ottoman Organ Gun (does it shoot out ottomans or organs?) and the big one; the HMS Victory.

This is the famous 104 gun sea vessel commanded by Lord Nelson of the Royal Navy. Lord Nelson died while commanding the vessel at the famous Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. She still is a commissioned vessel of the British Navy although she is now dry docked. And that's your history lesson for today.

UK based Feral Interactive has been doing a good job of bringing several older PC games to the native Mac platform in the past year or so. Today the company announced that their latest Mac port will be for Rome: Total War, the historical RTS game from developer The Creative Assembly.

The game was first released via Activision in the fall of 2004 (the developer is now owned by Sega). Feral's Mac port will be of the Gold Edition of the game which will include both the original and the Barbarian Wars expansion pack. Feral will release the game this March for $29.99. Of course, the developers' latest game, Empire: Total War, will be released for the PC this March as well.

Yet another independent MMO title is getting ready to open up their game to the public. Atlanta based Hi-Rez Studios has announced that they are now taking sign-ups on their official web site for the closed beta test for Global Agenda, their Unreal Engine 3 based near-future title.

The closed beta is expected to launch in the second quarter of this year and Hi-Rez is shooting for a late 2009 launch date for the full game. The beta will allow players to develop an "agent" character and join with other agents in high tech PvE missions. The beta will also support PvP combat with a wide variety of weapons, armor and devices

This patch for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky fixes bugs and improves gameplay. Steam customers should try using the autoupdater before considering use of the direct download patch. Continue reading for full patch notes.
Download STALKER: Clear Sky v1.5.08 Patch [Retail] (58 MB)
Download STALKER: Clear Sky v1.5.08 Patch [Digital Download] (58 MB)
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It's been a while since we have gotten any new info on Dark Void, the upcoming alternate universe action game from developer Airtight Games and publisher Capcom. Today, however, Capcom released some new screenshots from the title (14 in all) that we have reproduced and added to our screenshot gallery for the game.

The new shots retain the sort of "future-retro" look we have seen in previous screenshots of Dark Void. The player portrays a man that's pushed into an alternate Earth that's ruled by aliens and teams up with a small resistance of humans to defeat the alien threat. Capcom has yet to announce a release date for Dark Void but we expect it to be released in the back half of 2009. You can read a hands-on preview of Dark Void from last July's E3 right here at Big Download.

The folks at Razer continue to put out high quality PC gaming accessories and at the Consumer Electronics Show today the company announced two new products including a new wireless PC gaming mouse and a new headset. The mouse product is called the Mamba with 5600 dpi support, 14 hours of battery life and even a cord for folks who want to switch to wired mouse gaming. The Mamba will be released this February for $129.99

The Carcharias is Razer's newest gaming oriented PC headset and includes features such as interchangable ear pads and an inline remote. The product will be released later this month for $79.99.

Capcom continues their media burst from CES today with a whopping 25 new screenshots from Flock, their first downloadable game for 2009. The game from developer Proper Games is due out this February and looks to be something that's out of the norm for a Capcom published title.

As we have mentioned before your task is your herd a number of farm animals, Lemmings-style, into a UFO through a series of puzzle-filled levels. While the game is scheduled for release next month there's been no word yet on pricing. We just hope Capcom released the PC version in a more timely manner than they did with the PC release of Age of Booty...which we are still waiting on, by the way.

The rumblings have been happening for a few months but today CCP announced that their next free expansion for their hit space based MMO EVE Online will be released to subscribers on March 10. On that same date, Atari will release the long awaited retail store version of the game that will contain the core title and all of the expansions.

The new expansion is titled Apocrypha and is described in the press release as the "most ambitious EVE expansion in the game's over five year history". New modular ships will be added to this new expansion along with wormholes in space that will take players to new and unexplored areas of the game's universe. There will also be a revamped way for new players for EVE Online to quickly get started to play the game. Mac games will be happy to know that the retail version of EVE Online will also contain a Premium graphics client for their hardware.

Blizzard continues to sneak out new screenshots for Starcraft II. The official web site for the upcoming sci-fi RTS game just added three more new screenshots which we have added to our gallery of visuals for the game.

Not only that but the web site is giving you the chance to pick which version of the Protoss unit Dark Templar will be put into the final game. You can see the two different versions right here. One has more of a costume look while the other exposes more of the alien's form. You can vote for either one or you can vote to have both models in the game (it would be generated randomly when you decide to build one in the game).

This heavily stylized cinematic trailer for Street Fighter IV gets players pyched to jump into the fight. The game is scheduled to release on consoles next month while a PC release will follow sometime after.

Download HD Street Fighter IV Cinematic Trailer (57 MB)
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