black-friday posts

Remember when going to Black Friday sales meant getting up really early and standing in light in the dead of night waiting for the store to open? That's so 2008. Now all the hip (or desperate) stores open on midnight or even late on Thanksgiving Day to begin its Black Friday sales.

You can add GameStop to that list as the game-related retailer announced that over 800 of its US stores will be open at 12:01 am on Black Friday (all the others will open at 5 a.m. on that date). You can check to see which nearby GameStop location will be open at that day and time on the retailer's web site.

We know that Black Friday is the most important shopping day of the year. Excellent discount prices on all sorts of merchandise intended as Christmas gifts is the tradition of the day. We also know that it can be a little intimidating for new or inexperienced PC users to decide between the different digital distribution (and community) platforms. We certainly were when we first heard about all the different services available. However, we've evaluated these services, from those that can barely be called such a thing to the juggernauts that dominate the industry, and all of our research has been compiled it all into this comprehensive, handy-dandy guide. You may not know what game to get your friend for Christmas, but you'll definitely know where to buy it!

Those looking for a quick guide to the services covered and what we thought of important features, check out our downloadable chart!

Today is officially Black Friday but it's also the third day in the big Steam holiday sales event. Valve has now switched up the games that have price cuts during their Thanksgiving-related sale. For 23 more hours you can purchase and download their just released zombie shooter sequel Left 4 Dead 2 for just $37.49, a 25 percent discount from its normal price.

Here are the other games with price cuts that will dissapear tomorrow morning. The LucasArts and THQ $49.99 game bundle deals are still in effect until Monday:

Cities XL - $24.99
Dead Space - $14.99
Mini Ninjas - $14.99
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - $2.49
Madballs in Babo:Invasion - $2
Majesty 2 - $9.99

Technically tomorrow begins the busiest shopping day of the year but as some of you know many retailers and a lot of online sites and download services have already begun cutting prices on their products. Just to give you a quick overview of all the Black Friday-related sales we have mentioned in the past few weeks here's a recap:

GameStop Black Friday sales include Left 4 Dead 2 at $29.99
Best Buy to have $4.99 PC games for Black Friday sale
Direct2Drive and Impulse serve up some Thanksgiving PC game sales
Steam breaks out lots of holiday PC game download sales
EA cuts prices 30 percent from all downloadable PC games until Monday
GamersGate has new weekend sales
GoGamer has its own massive Black Friday sale

Of course we will keep you update on any new sales that pop up during the weekend. In fact we have one already; Steam managed to sneak in a sale of the first season of Telltale's Sam and Max series. You can get the season for 33 percent off its normal price until Tuesday. Our sister site Joystiq also has a extensive look at all of the console game-based Black Friday 2009 deals. Another sister site, the MMO-themed Massively, has their own Black Friday 2009 deals. Finally for all of the Black Friday 2009 sales for every store and web site, period, make sure to head to bfads.net, the best such site on the net.

The free-to-play first person shooter Combat Arms from publishers Nexon is celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday with a bunch of new content for players to "feast" (hehe) over. A new character, pictured above, called Hawk has been added to the game's line-up. He's described as a "mysterious newcomer coming from an elite group of Specialists". Well, of course he is.

A new map (shown above) called Road Kill has also been added to the game. It's described as a winding road filled with abandoned trucks that make it perfect for some sniper kills. There's also a new napalm strike designator that's been added to the game and for Thanksgiving players can hit enemies with a turkey leg melee weapon or wear a turkey balaclava as head gear. On Black Friday, Combat Arms will have its own in-game item sale with some Black Market items discounted down 25 percent. The full game client can be downloaded here.

Download HD Combat Arms 'Roadkill' Trailer (21 MB)
Download the Combat Arms game client (752 MB)
Check out all Combat Arms downloads

It's just over a week until Black Friday 2009 hits and tons of retailers are cutting prices to the bone for the biggest sales day of the year. If you happen to find yourself at a GameStop store on that day you will be able to get a few PC game bargains. The biggest one has to be for the just released Left 4 Dead 2. Valve's zombie shooter sequel will be on sale during Black Friday for just $29.99. That's a massive $20 price cut on a game that was just released this week.

The entire GameStop Black Friday PC game sales list, as provided by bfads.net, is as follows. Keep in mind that GameStop's stores open at 6 am on that day and the sales are for just two days only.

Guild Wars Trilogy - $24.99
Left 4 Dead 2 PC - $29.99
World of Warcraft - $4.99
World of Warcraft Battle Chest - $19.99
The Sims 3 World Adventures - $29.99

We've reported on the many PC game deals that were revealed last week for the big Black Friday shopping weekend. The good news is that some of those deals have been extended until today. The bad news is that the so-called "Cyber Monday" event for online shopping deals has few PC games on the list.

Amazon.com has a number of Cyber Monday deals for console titles but only one for the PC gamer; Spore is being sold for $19.95 today only. Gamersgate has a Cyber Monday downloadable game deal today as well; it has a package deal of the two Runaway adventure games for $29.99. If there are any other Cyber Monday exclusive PC game deals out there that we have missed, let us know and we will add their listings to this post. Otherwise it looks pretty barren out there.

Update: Gamestop's Cyber Monday sales are up and surprise, surprise, surprise: They have some decent PC game deals out there. They are offering a free copy of the $19.99 Spore Creepy and Cute Parts Pack when you buy the original Spore game. Here's a list of the other deals:

• Red Alert 3: $39.99 (regular), $54.99 (premium)
• Warhammer Online : $39.99
• Unreal Tournament 3 : $14.99
• Tomb Raider Underworld: $29.99

They are also offering a boatload of downloadable titles at 25 to 50 percent off. Among the highlights: World in Conflict for $22.49, Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War Soulstorm for $29.99 and Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts for $14.99.

In this case, the headline says it all. Dan Tabar's phenomenal arcade-strategy-shooter-physics game Cortex Command, which was talked about in the 15 Indie Games for the Holidays feature, has been knocked down in price from $18 to $9 from November 28th through the 30th in celebration of Thanksgiving (and Black Friday). Buying the game in beta phase right now will net you all the features as well as all future features and the full campaign once it is released.

If you don't know what Cortex Command is, well, it's hard to explain in entirety. It's about remote-controlling body to shoot at each other and dig tunnels through the landscape in a real-time environment, but it's also about explosions, finding treasure, and skillful platforming and shooting, among other things. The demo is freely available through the Data Realms website, and is best played with a gamepad like the Xbox 360 controller.

Some of you are already at local malls and shopping centers but others of you are still at home surfing the net looking for Black Friday deals. Amazon.com is of course the biggest such online retailer and PC games are certainly a part of their Black Friday 2008 plans.

Today they are running Friday only sales on Fallout 3 for just $29.95 and Left 4 Dead for just $19.95 so make sure to check them out while you can today (those prices end at 2:59 am ET on Saturday morning). Other sales specials that end on 2:59 am ET on Sunday morning are below.

• BioShock - $9.95
  
• Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm - $14.95
  
• Far Cry 2 - $29.95
  
• Guild Wars - $9.95
  
• Guild Wars: Eye Of The North - Expansion Pack - $9.95
  
• Pure - $19.95
  
• Spore Creepy and Cute Parts Pack - $9.95
  
• Warhammer Online 60 Day Prepaid Game Time Card - $19.95
  
• Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning - $19.95
  
• World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - $25.95

[Via Joystiq]

Tomorrow's the day; thousands of folks are at this moment getting ready to raid stores early tomorrow morning to get the best early bird deals on holiday gifts as part of "Black Friday" Here at Big Download we have been running a lot of holiday gift guide ideas over the past week. In case you missed any of them here's a round-up of all of our articles. It might give you some ideas before heading to stores or going online to your favorite retail web site:

How PC gaming saves you money
Big Download's 2008 PC Gaming Holiday Gift Guide
Big Iron's 2008 Holiday Wish List
Big Download's 2008 Holiday Gift Card Guide For Future Games
15 Indie Games For The Holidays
Black Friday 08 Virtual Bargain Bin

Plus don't forget; we are also giving away a new $2,499 gaming PC rig from iBuypower to one lucky Big Download reader. Head over to the contest page for more info and to enter.