battleforge posts

Electronic Arts' multiplayer RTS-collectible card game Battleforge changed from a standard retail product to a free-to-play game a few months after it shipped to stores in early 2009. However the development team at EA Phenomic has continued to expand the game with new content. Today the game's official web site announced plans for the new Lost Souls expansion which will be made available for download on January 28.

The expansion will add 60 new units to the game in the basic set. Each new unit will also come with new variants which makes the expansion have a total of 120 new cards to collect. Two new factions, Twilight and Lost Souls, will add new cards as well and the site hints about other surprises that could be included.

Yesterday, we listed our picks for some great multiplayer games to play over the holidays. However, the thing about PC games is that you usually need an individual copy for each computer to play. It gets really expensive to shell out $40-50 per game to give as gifts. It can also be difficult to convince friends and family to buy those games for themselves.

Big Download knows your pain, and we've got you covered. Here are our top picks for multiplayer games that cost $20 or less, but provide plenty of fun for the holiday season. Some of these games might go on sale in the next few weeks for even more savings. Now you can spend less time worrying about what you can afford and more time planning that gaming get together.

Click on the image above to continue reading Big Download's 2009 PC Gamer Single Player Game Holiday Gift Guide.

The fantasy RTS game BattleForge from EA's Phenomic studio has changed a lot since it's release as a retail game earlier this year. It has since turned into a free-to-play downloadable game and a few weeks ago it became the first official PC game to support DirectX11 graphics via a patch.

Today BattleForge players get another bonus; a free map editor to play with. The editor, which players can download via the game's latest automatic patch, will allow anyone to make PvP or PVE maps and share them with others. The player created maps don't allow for rewards to be given to players like extra cards, experience points and the like. They also can't be used in ranked games. Otherwise you can go nuts. There's even a PDF tutorial to get you started.

Even though the official release of Windows 7 is still three weeks away or so, the very first PC game with support for the OS's new DirectX11 3D graphics API is already out there right now. And believe it or not it's BattleForge, the free-to-play fantasy RTS game from Electronic Arts and its developer EA Phenomic.

The patch to enable DirectX11 support was in fact released last week to its users and according to BattleForge's official web site the patch will allow the game to "have a higher frame rate and new ways of creating graphical effects, such as shadows and lighting" on DirectX11 based PCs. Of course, most players of the game won't notice the difference at all. That's because the DirectX11 support requires both Windows 7 to be installed (Windows Vista will also support DirectX11 but that support has yet to be enabled) and a DirectX11-based video card be a part of the gaming rig. At the moment only two video graphics chips support DirectX11 and they both come from AMD. Graphics cards based on the company's ATI Radeon HD 5870 chip went on sale just last week and cards based on the the ATI Radeon HD 5850 goon sale today.

As hinted by AMD last week, the PC graphics and processor maker is starting to talk about its next generation graphics chips under its ATI Radeon brand. In a new blog post on the AMD web site they talk about how their new graphics chips support the DirectX11 API which will launch when Microsoft releases their new OS Windows 7 on October 22.

The blog talks about some of the features that DirectX11 adds to the graphics for PC games such as tessellation (increasing the number of triangles to produce a more lifelike image on screen), multithreaded rendering (allowing DirectX11 to use more of the multi-cores in current and future CPUs) and DirectCompute (allowing for easier access to the GPUs cores for faster performance).

AMD claims it will be the first company to release a "fully compliant and enabled DirectX 11 graphics product" but details on the release have not yet been revealed. However, AMD did offer up an update on what PC games will have support for DirectX11. One was already revealed a few months ago in Dirt 2. In addition the upcoming first person shooter S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Call of Pripyat will support DirectX11. Finally, in a bit of a surprise, the already released free-to-play RTS game Battleforge will also support DirectX11 (presumably via an upcoming patch).

BattleForge, a free-to-play online real-time strategy game, released its Renegade Edition today which reshapes the game and opens up a whole new realm of diverse gameplay. Let's not forget that the update also includes gigantic units to stomp onto the battlefield with. More information about BattleForge Renegade Edition can be found on the official website.

Download HD BattleForge Renegade Edition Trailer (79 MB)
Download the BattleForge Install Client (84 MB)
Check out all BattleForge downloads

Electronic Arts and its EA Phenomic developer have continued to work on their fantasy RTS game Battleforge several months after its retail release. A few months ago they announced that the game was being turned into a free-to-play RTS game (with micro-transaction support). Today the game's new Renegade expansion pack is now available for players.

For those of you not familiar with the game, Battleforge is different from other RTS titles in that it uses a collectible card system for players to gain access to new units and buildings. The new Renegade expansion adds 60 new cards to the game, giving access to lots of new units and buildings. As before, players who chose to download the free-to-play version of the game will have access to just 32 of the game's cards while the retail version has access to all of the game's starter decks.

Download BattleForge Install Client (84 MB)

Last May Electronic Arts made the decision to change the business model of their fantasy RTS game Battleforge from a retail product to a free-to-play game. Any retail copies are now simply used to acquire 3000 Battleforge points and more of the game's collectible cards.

This week the game's official web site announced plans for a major new card expansion called the Renegade Edition. The new expansion will add 60 new cards to the game that will be used to create new units and structures. In addition, "Dual orb cards and special affinities" will be added to the mix that " will deepen and enrich the strategical possibilities of the decks and the combat itself." The expansion is due to be released sometime in August.


Download BattleForge Install Client (84 MB)
Check out all BattleForge downloads

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.

For Big Download's final contest to celebrate our first anniversary this month, we are giving out 25 codes for the retail version of Battleforge. Some of you may know that the fantasy RTS-collectible card game from Electronic Arts has changed into a free-to-play title. However the codes Big Download is giving away can be put into the new free client and give the player 3000 Battleforge points and access to 64 cards.

How do you win? As with most of our giveaway contests it's pretty simple:
* To enter, post a comment on this contest page.
* The comment must be left before 11:59 pm Eastern Time on June 8.
* You may enter only once.
* 25 winners will be selected in a random drawing.
* Each winner will receive a code that can be put into the free Battleforge client to add 3000 Battleforge points and 64 cards (each code is valued at $29.99).
* Click Here for complete Official Rules. You must be a resident of the US or Canada (excluding Quebec) who is 18 years or older to enter this contest.

Our huge thanks to EA for the donation of the prizes.

Download the Battleforge full install client at Big Download