Two-Worlds-2 posts

A spin-off of the Two Worlds RPG franchise previously designed as part of the marketing for Two Worlds II will be getting its own stand alone game release. Publisher Topware announced today that Two Worlds II Castle Defense will be released on its own for the PC and Mac on May 17.

The game, which takes place in between Two Worlds I and II, has you taking control of the game universe's bad guys Emperor Gandohar and his henchman Sordahon. You have to fight off waves of enemies with a variety of attacks and in several different settings. You can down both PC and Mac demos of the game here at Big Download.

Download the Two Worlds II Castle Defense PC Demo at Big Download
Download the Two Worlds II Castle Defense Mac Demo at Big Download

While the PC port of the fantasy RPG Two Worlds II has been on sale for the past several weeks via digital download sites, the retail Royal Version of the game has been greatly delayed. Today the game's US co-publisher TopWare announced that limited quanities of the Royal Edition are now available at GameStop.

The $79.99 edition, which has both PC and Mac builds of the game, includes a number of extras including an art book, a Dragon Queen statuette, a deck of playing cards, a mouse pad, a map of the game's land as a poster, five codes for exclusive in-game items, and a bonus DVD with music tracks, trailers for the game and a special trial version of the upcoming game Battle Vs Chess.

GDC 2011 is officially over and while we personally didn't attend we certainly got a lot of news from afar. Look for even more GDC related news and info bits over the weekend.

• If you are wondering when GDC 2012 will happen, wonder no more. It will be held in San Fransisco on March 5-9.
• Steam has a minor automatic update for Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.
• The retail version of Two Worlds II in the UK has been delayed, again, to March 11.
• BioWare is hosting a live chat-demo of Dragon Age 2 on Saturday starting at 4 pm Eastern time.

Southpeak Games managed to sneak in its latest financial results late last week for the quarter that ended on December 31, 2010. For the time period the game publisher brought in revenues of $7.5 million compared to $10.1 million for the same period a year ago. The company recorded a let loss of $2.1 million for the quarter compared to a loss of $2.6 million for the same period a year ago.

In the press release, Southpeak stated that it has a "substantial investment" in the success of the fantasy RPG Two Worlds II which it co-published here in the US with TopWare. The release of that game, however, does not figure into the financial results it published last week. At the moment the only upcoming game that Southpeak has announced officially is the PC exclusive RTS title Stronghold 3 which is due out this spring.

Two Worlds II was released via download to US PC owners earlier this month but there's been a bit of a blow up about the reviews for the fantasy RPG sequel. According to the Beefjack web site, it received word from an unnamed UK-based journalist that its 5 (out of 10) review of the game was called out by the game's publisher TopWare as "insulting" and that unless the review was raised up to 7 it would be blacklisted from future TopWare products.

TopWare has responded to the allegations with an unnamed PR rep saying that its beef with the review was not with the score itself but that the journalist said that 5 out of 10 was an "average" score for a game. The rep stated, "The rest of the world on a grading system would consider a 5 a failure and that is our only concern. That the site's review of the game is their opinion, but that their scoring system is, in our opinion, flawed." It flat out denied that the reviewer had been asked to change its score and also denied any blacklisting threats.

Destructoid has picked up the story and the story's comments feature several by TopWare's US marketing head James Seaman. He states, "The actual person from the site in question has actually written me in an email that this is over and that we will all move in a positive direction." He adds, "My team needs to take a step back as the UK has been pretty harsh on our game, but such is life. I will make sure that nothing like this ever happens again, but some of my guys have put their heart and soul into this game and just need to take a step back."

In other comments, Seaman confirmed that a new game in the Two Worlds series is in the works and will be released in 2012. He also states that the retail PC version of the game will ship to stores to the US sometime next month.

Despite some bug issues that have plagued the game's release, the open world driving game Test Drive Unlimited 2 is still on top of this week's top 10 best selling PC games list on the Steam download service. This year's sleeper hit Magicka comes in this week in the number two spot while the fantasy strategy-RPG game Dungeons shows up at number three on the list.

The full top 10 list is as follows:

1. Test Drive Unlimited 2 - Eden Studios/Atari
2. Magicka - Arrowhead Game Studios/Paradox Interactive
3. Dungeons - RealmForge/Kalypso
4. Two Worlds II - Reality Pump/Southpeak Games
5. Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II Retribution - Relic/THQ
6. Call of Duty Black Ops - Treyarch/Activision
7. DC Universe Online - Sony Online
8. Dead Space 2 - Visceral Games/EA
9. Battlefield Bad Company 2 - DICE/EA
10. Dragon Age 2 - BioWare/EA

This patch updates Two Worlds II from v1.0 to 1.2 and includes a number of gameplay fixes and balance changes. The patch is available for both the PC and Mac releases. Continue reading after the jump for a full list of changes.

"After the downfall of Aziraal, God of Fire, the Dark Lord Gandohar has nearly achieved his objective to disrupt the balance between the elements. Dark magic surges into the land to fill the void. Recognizing the potential for complete control over the dark powers, Gandohar starts to use the power of Aziraal trap within Kyra, the descendant of the Orphans. Despite her ancestry, Kyra cannot endure the strain. With Antaloor already in his clutches, Gandohar concocts a new plan from his stronghold in Oswaroth. There are still those who struggle against the tyrant, hoping to shift the balance of forces in their favor. The fight for Antaloor continues..."

Download Two Worlds II v1.2 Patch (86 MB)
Download Two Worlds II v1.2 Mac OS Patch (33 MB)
Check out all Two Worlds II Downloads

This week's new PC game releases include a sequel to an open world-based driving game, a Dungeon Hero-inspired game and a fantasy RPG that was made available first last week via download sites.

Test Drive Unlimited 2 - Developer Eden Studios and publisher Atari give us this second game in the open world driving game series this week. Set on two islands, the game has over 3,000 kilometers of road to explore as you drive in competition with others both offline and online. A lot of the cars in the game are exotic sports vehicles but the game wasn't able to get the licencing rights to any Lamborghini cars.

February 1 is the shortest month of the year but so far the end of the month seems so far, far away. Why is that?

• Steam has new updates available for Magicka (its fifth patch so far) along with Blood Bowl Legendary Edition and a minor patch for Left 4 Dead 2.
• The digital download PC version of Two Worlds II is now available on Direct2Drive ahead of its retail release.
• Direct2Drive has two games on sale today for just $2 each: Luxor 3 and Righteous Kill 2.
• You still have some time to get the Wild West game Gun on sale at Impulse for just $10.
• City of Heroes has launched its latest free expansion, Issue 19: Strike Pack.

We've been reporting that Poland-based City Interactive has at least three, possibly four, first person shooter projects in the works for the next couple of years. One of them is a WWII themed shooter and another is a sequel to its 2010 release Sniper: Ghost Warrior, both of which will use CryEngine 3 as its basis. Now a discovery that was actually first posted way back in August has revealed the title and genre for City Interactive's third upcoming shooter.

A news post on the official web site for developer The Farm 51 reveals they have signed with City Interactive to make a sci-fi themed shooter called Alien Fear for the PC and other platforms. This is most likely the game that City Interactive said will use Unreal Engine 3 as its basis back in December. The Farm 51 is best known for the two games in the Necrovision shooter series. The developer also helped out with the recent fantasy RPG Two Worlds II which will be released in the US for the PC on February 8.