arma-ii posts

If you want a chance to get your hands on one of the best military shooters in some time you only have a few more hours. Today is the last day for our ArmA II: Combined Operations giveaway where we will give two boxed retail copies of the Bohemia Interactive game and its Operation Arrowhead expansion to two of our readers. If you want to enter and if you are eligible, head over to our contest page before 11:59 pm Eastern time today.

Oh and next week there's a new PC game that's being released. It's from an up and coming developer named Blizzard who are releasing a sequel to their acclaimed but little known sci-fi RTS title StarCraft. We might just have some giveaways related to this PC game available for you to win (maybe) next week. Stay tuned.

Developer Bohemia Interactive has just released the Operation Arrowhead expansion pack for its military shooter ArmA 2 (by the way did you know that we are running an ArmA II giveaway?) but that's apparently not all they have planned for the game. Today the developer announced ArmA 2 British Armed Forces, a downloadable expansion pack that adds the British faction to the game.

In addition to the British troops themselves the expansion will add a number of new weapons and vehicles to the game along with a new single player campaign that has the UK faction taking on the Takistani insurgents. New co-op multiplayer missions with the British troops will also be available. The expansion will be made available for download on August 26 for $9.99.

Time to make sure your checking account or credit card can take another hit. The Steam download service has yet another list of games that it's marking down in price for just one day only. Get on the ball with these deals, many of which are 75 percent off their normal prices. The deals end at 1 pm Eastern time on Wednesday:

• Osmos (PC/Mac title) - $2.49
• X-Com Complete Pack (Five games) - $3.74
• Commandos Collection (Four games) - $3.75
• Grand Theft Auto IV - $4.99
• Team Fortress 2 - $6.49
• Numen: Contest of Heroes - $7.49
• Street Fighter IV - $9.99
• ArmA II - $19.99

Fans of Bohemia Interactive's 2009 military shooter ARMA II now have reason to celebrate. Today the developer announced that the game's first expansion pack, ARMA II Operation Arrowhead, will be released world wide on June 29. Also the game is now being terms a stand alone expansion which likely means you won't need to purchase the original ARMA II to play the game.

Taking place three years after the campaign in ARMA II, Operation Arrowhead has a new campaign that takes place in three new world locations; a desert, a mountainous region and a dense city with surrounding countryside. Look for over 300 additional units, vehicles and weapons along with support for items like unmanned aerial vehicles.

While Codemasters may be done with adding new content to Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, Bohemia Interactive is still prepping up their plans for their commercial expansion pack to their own open world military shooter ArmA II. This week the developer released the first gameplay trailer of the expansion, Operation Arrowhead, via YouTube.

The trailer shows off a number of the expansion's new vehicles including one that is particularly cool, the "AH-6X remotely controlled reconnaissance helicopter." Other vehicles in the expansion pack include the Abrams tank, the M2A3 Bradley armored fighting vehicle and more. The expansion, which is set three years after the events of ArmA II, will be released sometime in the second quarter of 2010.

Bohemia Interactive is still working on their first commercial expansion pack to their military shooter ArmA II. However the developer is also working on a new patch for the game that will include a new free campaign for the shooter. Patch 1.05 is scheduled for release later in December.

The "Eagle Wing" campaign adds two new levels to the game and continues ArmA II's storyline beyond one of the seven different endings of the main single player campaign. Besides adding a new AH-64 Apache attack helicopter to the game, the patch will also add a new warfare gameplay mode called "When Diplomacy Fails".

Electronic Arts' The Sims 3 is hitting all the right notes, sales wise, in retail stores. However the people sim sequel is also doing the same for download sales. Witness the latest top 10 PC game sales list from IGN's Direct2Drive download site. For the week that ended July 25 The Sims 3 was the number one game that was downloaded and purchased from the service (Valve's Steam service, which released its own top 10 sales list for the past week already, does not yet offer The Sims 3 for purchase)

ArmA II, the military shooter from Bohemia Interactive, continues to sell well on both Steam and Direct2Drive; it's at the number two position on Direct2Drive this week and it's at number 5 on Steam. Also Ubisoft's historical strategy game Dawn of Discovery appears on both top 10 lists.

1. The Sims 3 - Electronic Arts
2. ArmA 2 - Bohemia Interactive
3. Dawn of Discovery - Related Designs/Ubisoft
4. Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II - Relic/THQ
5. The Sims 3 (Mac) - Electronic Arts
6. Civilization IV: The Complete Edition - Firaxis/2K Games
7. Supreme Commander Gold - Gas Powered Games/THQ
8. Aion (Pre-Order) - NCsoft
9. Fallout 3 - Bethesda Softworks
10. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Infinity Ward/Activision

LucasArts's decision to release a revamp of the 1990 adventure game The Secret of Monkey Island seems to have paid off. The download-only game is on top of the current weekly PC game sales list for Valve's Steam service (based on revenues).

Another interesting trend is the pre-order sales for Aion, the upcoming fantasy MMO from NCsoft. The Collector's Edition version of the game is at number 3 this week on Steam. People who pre-order either the regular or collector's versions of Aion are automatically entered into the game's beta test before it's scheduled launch in late September.

Without further ado here is the Steam sales list for the week ending July 18:
1. The Secret of Monkey Island - LucasArts
2. Left 4 Dead - Valve
3. Aion Collector's Edition - NCsoft
4. ArmA 2 - Bohemia Interactive
5. Street Fighter IV - Capcom
6. Counter-Strike: Source - Valve
7. Dawn of Discovery - Ubisoft
8. Brothers In Arms Pack - Gearbox Software/Ubisoft
9. GRID - Codemasters
10. Team Fortress 2 - Valve

The PC game download site Direct2Drive has been cutting prices on a number of recent PC game releases and they have listed those price reductions on a special page of their site. These are not sale prices but permanent price cuts on these games. They include titles like Kings's Bounty and Warhammer Online for $29.99 each, World in Conflict: Gold Edition and Battleforge for $19.99 and Need for Speed Undercover for a mere $9.99.

They also have a special semi-sneaky sale for the recently released military shooter ArmA II. Revealed on their Twitter site, the game is now on sale for $5 off its current $49.99 price until the end of the day Sunday. The catch? You need to put in a special code (FF2C849D42BF0698CE6A2C69C7E45448) to get the discount at checkout.

Operation Flashpoint's original developers Bohemia Interactive seem to be doing well with the release of their own game ArmA II; it's been at or near the top of the digital download sales lists for Steam and Direct2Drive. Now its big rival Codemasters gets to see what they can do with the "official" sequel Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising.

The military shooter, previously known as Operation Flashpoint 2, now has a October 6 release date in the US with an October 8 release in most European countries. The UK gets the game on October 9. This makes the game Codemaster's big fall/holiday release and it wil be interesting to see how their approach to a massive open world military shooter fares next to ArmA II.