akella posts

The Disciples turn based strategy series now has a new publisher. Today Kalypso Media announced that they would be taking on the North American, Western Europe and Asia Paciific publishing duties for Disciples III: Renaissance. The game itself is being developed by Russia-based Akella. The first two games in the series were developed and published by Strategy First but the third game has been in development for the past several years.

The game itself, due for release for the PC later this summer, will have three playable races (The Empire, the Legions of the Damned and the Elven Alliance), a customizable hero system and more.

[Via email press release]

In what may be the last full PC game released in 2009, Battlefront.com has now announced that the World War II naval war simulation PT Boats: Knights of the Sea is now available to download and purchase via the Battlefront.com site. The game from developer Akella is still one of the few games that supports DirectX10 graphics.

While the downloadable version of the game is available now, the box copy version will be mailed out to orders in 14 to 21 days. The mail order box version contains the game, a manual and a ship guide that is unique to the mail order edition. A demo for the game is still scheduled for release in the next few days.

Who says new games can't come out on Christmas Day? Battlefront.com says, "We will do it," with its planned release of the English version of PT Boats: Knights of the Sea. The publisher does indeed plan to release the WWII naval simulation game via mail order or download on Christmas Day.

The title, which is still one of the few that supports DirectX10 graphics, was previously released in Europe by its creators Akella. Battlefront.com is currently holding a pre-order special that will allow folks to purchase the download-mail order box combo copy $45 instead of the usual $55 price tag. The official demo for the game will be released a few days after the game ships.

Even though we have had the first DirectX11-based game released there are still some titles that are coming out that will support DirectX10. One of them is the WWII action-sim game PT Boats: Knghts of the Sea. Today Battlefront.com announced they will be publishing the Akella-developed game in the US.

Focusing on the small torpedo boats, the naval sim game will allow players to command individual crew members up to groups of ships. In addition to DirectX10, the game also supports the use of multi-core processors. The game will be released by the end of the year either by digital download or via mail order. A demo for the game is scheduled for release around the time the full game is available.

If you ever wanted to do something awful to film director Uwe Boll, you may get your chance. According to Eurogamer, Boll actually paid for the privilage to have his likeness put into Postal 3, the upcoming next game in Running With Scissors' action game series.

Boll, of course, directed the Postal movie that was released in 2008 and according to Running With Scissors head Vince Desi, "Uwe will be presented as himself and of course you can have fun with him, it's Postal!" Postal 3, which is being co-developed by Akella and uses the Source engine, does not yet have a release date.

A WWII naval action-strategy game and a co-op shooter that based on a UT 2004 mod are among the highlights of the new games coming to both stores and via download this week. In addition, you can expect to see re-released game collections such as Civilization IV Complete and Left 4 Dead Game of the Year in stores this week.

Battlestations: Pacific: This sequel to Eidos's 2007 Battlestations: Midway lets players take control of the naval fleets of the US and Japan in this combination of strategy and action genre. You can download a demo of the game right now at Big Download.

Russian-based game developer/publisher Akella loves pirate PC games. It's made its share of them over the years, including Sea Dogs, the first Pirates of the Caribbean game (both published by Bethesda Softworks) and Age of Pirates: Caribbean Tales. Now comes word that publisher Playlogic will release Akella's latest pirate RPG, Age of Pirates 2, on May 12.

The game (officially called Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships) is an open ended RPG where players can pick from one of four nationalities and one of three character classes (Merchant, Corsair and Adventurer ). They can embark on the high seas in a series of quests. Missions such as plundering cities, ship-to-ship combat and more. You can get more info on the game at the official Age of Pirates 2 web site.

Anyone who knows anything about the Postal series can anticipate some of the creative and crazy things this GDC 2009 presentation video shows. This video reveals some pre-beta gameplay footage of Postal 3. If the game will be anything like its predecessors, it will be an open-world game where players can spontaneously go into a murderous rampage, except this time they'll be do drive-bys from Segway scooters.

Download HD Postal 3 GDC 09 Gameplay Video (89 MB)

It's Christmas Eve which means if you haven't gotten your Christmas cards in the mail yet..well, you're a tad late to the party. Thankfully there's the Internet which can allow companies to release online Christmas cards for everyone to see.

Our sister site Joystiq has collected a number of game industry Christmas cards they have received in the mail and online. However, their gallery doesn't include everything so we at Big Download decided to collect a few other online Christmas cards in our own gallery. The images come from publisher Akella (promoting their game A Stroke of Fate), American McGee's game developer Spicy Horse, Age of Conan developer Funcom, publisher NCsoft (with cute versions of various game characters) and publisher Paradox Interactive who have not one but three different online cards promoting their upcoming strategy-sim game Majesty 2.

This is the official trailer for Disciples 3: Renaissance, a fantasy turn based strategy game scheduled to release sometime in 2009.

Download HD Disciples 3: Renaissance Trailer (537 MB)