Flatout posts

Today's PC game sales start a new work week and include a chance to get some games on sale as part of GamersGate second week of celebrating its fifth birthday this month.

Among the many, many PC games on sale for the next week on the site are Supreme Commander for just $7.50, MX Vs ATV Reflex for just $7.98, Men of War for $5.98, King's Bounty: The Legend for just $4, the original Jagged Alliance for a mere $1.25, Guardian of Graxia for $5 (plus its expansion packs for 50 percent off each), all the Flatout games for 75 percent off and both Deus Ex games for $4 each.

The DRM-free gaming download site GOG.com has a couple of interesing items today. One is the addition of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six to its library. Yep, the original tactical shooter that helped to launch the now massive Tom Clancy game franchise is available to purchase and download from GoG.com for just $9.99.

For this weekend's big sales promotion, GoG.com has put three of its racing games for sale for 50 percent off their normal price on the site. The games include FlatOut for $2.99 and 1nsane and TOCA Race Driver 3 for just $4.99. The sales last until the end of the day Monday. Also, GoG.com tells us that after May 29, TOCA Race Driver 3 will be removed from the site (due to its license agreement with Codemasters ending) so get the game at that low price while you can.

If you thought that you might not be able to purchase any more copies of FlatOut because of the shut down of Empire Interactive, fear not. Zoo Publishing has got your back. The Ohio based game publisher has announced that it has gotten the rights to publish games that were handled by the now defunct UK publisher.

Not only does Zoo Publishing have the rights to previous Empire Interactive games but they can also release new titles from Empire's library as well. That apparently includes the FlatOut arcade racing series which was by far the most popular game in the Empire game line-up There's no word yet on when or even if we can expect such a move to occur.

GoG.com once again has some discounts on some of their already low priced DRM-free games on their site this weekend. This time their 15 percent discount goes to the racing games they have available for download and purchase.

You will have to put in a special code, posted on the sales page, in order to get your discount. The games in the sale include titles like FlatOut, Colin McRae Rally 2005 and Screamer. The latter game is a new addition to GoG.com's line-up. First released in 1995 by Interplay the game's normal price on GoG.com is $5.99. It includes a free game sountrack.

The DRM-lacking folks at GoG.com have sent over word of three additional games that have been added to their catalogue of titles that have no need of copy protection. As previously promised, Epic Games has released two titles from their Unreal series for GoG.com to sell; Unreal Tournament 2004 and Unreal 2: The Awakening. Both games can be downloaded for $9.99 each with a few extra wallpapers and avatars to boot.

Also added to the list today is FlatOut, the first game in the long running arcade racing series from developer Bugbear. You can download the full version right now from GoG.com for just $5.99.

Next week will see the release in the US of the PC port of Flatout: Ultimate Carnage, the port of the 2007 Xbox 360 arcade racing game from developer Bugbear and publisher Empire Interactive. However if you like to download your games rather than head to the retail stores, Valve's Steam service has a deal for you.

If you pre-order Flatout: Ultimate Carnage via Steam for $19.99 before the end of the day on August 26, you will be able to download the first game in the series, Flatout, immediately for free. You will be able to check out the unique gameplay of the first title (complete with ragdoll driver mini-games) before the graphically enhanced Flatout: Ultimate Carnage is made available.

UK based Empire Interactive hasn't been doing well in the past few years with its sole sales hit being the Flatout racing game series. Today Empire's parent company Silverstar Holdings announced some restructuring in the pubisher including a 30 percent reduction in Empire's staff.

Empire plans to do most of its staff cutting by selling off Razorworks, its internal game developer that it bought in 2000. The company announced that it has several unnamed suitors to buy out Razorworks and hopes to close it down in the next few weeks. Empire emphasized that it does not plan to sell off any of its game rights.

While Criterion Games may finally be bringing their Burnout series of arcade racing games to the PC with the upcoming release of the PC port of Burnout Paradise, developer Bugbear have already released their first two FlatOut racing games to the PC. Now they are preparing to release their latest game in the series, FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage, to the PC (it was first released in 2007 for the Xbox 360) and its publisher Empire Interactive has just released the first screenshots of the PC port.

The FlatOut games combine the high speed and highly destructible features of the Burnout series with great looking graphics and some weird mini-games involving throwing the rag doll driver out the windshield and into various situations including throwing the driver into large targets, into bowling pins and more. The developers are stating that the graphics will be improved for the PC port and that it will be released this June.

UK based Empire Interactive usually lets other US publishers distribute their games in this country (Vivendi Games published Empire's FlatOut series of games in the US, for example). However it appears that the publisher will be controlling their own US operations from now on as Next Generation reports it has hired two executives to join their brand new Austin, Texas based offices.

P.J. Snavely, who previously worked as a senior producer for Sony Computer Entertainment America, will now be the new director of product development at Empire's US offices. The company has also hired former Aspyr marketing director Zach Rener to be Empire's new director of product marketing in this territory. Empire has been going through a number of changes recently; it said goodbye to one of its co-founders and CEO, Ian Higgins just last week after 21 years.