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This week the GameTap online PC game subscription-download service has added the third person action game Damnation to its list of titles people can play for free with their monthly subscription rate. The game, released last spring, began life as an Unreal Tournament 2004 total conversion before it was made into a commercial game by the developer Blue Omega Entertainment.

In related news, the 2007 WWII action-strategy game Battlestations Midway is still free to play on GameTap until this Tuesday, November 24. Also two more games have been given 64-bit support; the casual game Jewel Craft and the historical RTS game Praetorians. Finally, next week's update on GameTap will come on Tuesday due to the Thanksgiving holiday.

This is the playable demo for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, an open-world military combat shooter. The demo includes the early tutorial missions from the full game and is available in five languages. System requirements are shown after the jump.

"Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is a game about a fictitious conflict on one of the Sakhalin islands, a conflict that is in danger of erupting onto a global scale. The player takes the role of a US soldier, part of the allied force fighting against outnumbering Chinese forces vying for control of the island."

Download Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising English Demo (1.39 GB)
Download Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Spanish Demo (GB)
Download Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising German Demo (1.4 GB)
Download Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising French Demo (1.4 GB)
Download Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Italian Demo (1.4 GB)
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Read the Review

Codemasters surprised many people when they decided to delay the release of the PC version of Dirt 2. As it turns out the rally racing game will now become the first PC title to support DirectX11 graphics out of the box when it ships to stores on December 1 (Battleforge is the first DirectX11 game via a patch last month).

Codemasters has now posted the system requirements for the game on the Dirt 2 message boards. While the rest of us mortals can still run the game in non-DirectX11 mode you will need a beefy PC rig to play the game with the updated graphics. Check out the requirements after the jump.

This patch for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising installs the Skirmish pack DLC expansion and addresses a number of gameplay issues. Content includes four multiplayer maps and two Fire Team Engagements. A full list of changes along with information about for the Skirmish pack DLC can be seen after the jump.

Download Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising 'Skirmish DLC' Patch (232 MB)
Download HD Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising DLC Trailer (91 MB)
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While certain upcoming military shooters have yet to reveal if they will have any mod tools, Codemasters' recently released Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising game has a full mission editor for anyone to make their own maps and missions in the game. Now PC processor maker Intel will be rewarding folks who come up with the best missions for the game in a new contest.

People who own the game can use the mission editor to submitted their creations to the contest (they have to have, among other things, an Intel i7 processor as one of the mission's objectives). Deadline for entries is November 29. After the top 12 are decided by the game's community via their votes, the winners will be determined by a jury of people from Codemasters, Intel and others. The people who create the top two missions will each receive a gaming PC valued at over $2,000.

This trailer showcases the new features that will be included in the first Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising DLC expansion, set to release tomorrow. The Skirmish pack will include four new multiplayer maps and additional fire team engagements.

Download HD Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising DLC Trailer (91 MB)
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Codemasters has been saying for a while that they have some major downloadable content plans for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. Today the developer/publisher of the recent military shooter announced that the first such release, the Skirmish pack, will be made available to download tomorrow along with the game's first patch.

The Skirmish pack will add four new multiplayer maps to the game along with two Fire Team Engagement missions for single and co-op play. The patch will also address a number of issues that have crept up since the game was released just under a month ago. Unlike the console version the Skirmish DLC wlll be free to download for the PC version.

The PC port of DiRT 2 will be one of the first games to support DirectX 11, making it "the best looking racing game that has ever existed." Judging by the tech demo shown above, it's hard to argue with that. The DiRT 2 tech video demonstrates extensive use of Tessellation, which is "implemented on the GPU to calculate a smoother curved surface resulting in more graphically detailed images, including more lifelike characters." It also compares the DX11 look to DirectX 9.0c.

However, players will need to upgrade to Windows 7 (DX11 for Vista will be released at a future unspecified date) and ATI is currently the only manufacturer to have DX11 cards available. Players will have some time to save up and take advantage of these features, since DiRT 2 for the PC won't be releasing until December.

The official DiRT 2 for PC trailer can be seen after the jump.

Download HD DiRT 2 DirectX 11 Tech Video (98 MB)
Download HD DiRT 2 PC Trailer (65 MB)
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Codemasters' military shooter Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising seems to be doing well in both sales and in reviews but that may be just the tip of the iceberg for the game. In a new chat over at the UK-based Telegraph web site, the game's executive producer Sion Lenton is already talking about their plans for downloadable content.

We shouldn't have to wait very long for the first example of DLC for the game. Lenton states, " . . . our first pack is coming up in a matter of weeks." He claims Codemasters has some "very ambitious plans" in this area, adding, "Ours is a game that lends itself very well to expansion – there will be weapons packs, map packs – all sorts of things we can do to get our product out there." Of course we expect that we might have to pay for at least some of this stuff which, for PC gamers, is never a good thing.

[Via Blue's News]

Those that have been keeping up with the development of Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising know that the emphasis of the game is on intense realism. The island of Skira, where all the action takes place, is based on satellite footage of a real-world island located near Japan. Its 220km^2 is completely open, so players can use almost any approach when handling a mission. Everything from the sounds of the weapons and vehicles to the animations are meticulously represented in this modern day shooter. With all this attention to realism, one could probably guess that it's not meant for fast paced run-and-gun shooter fans. A single bullet can potentially incapacitate or kill your character. At the same time, the single player experience is held back by the unreliable artificial intelligence, so the best way to experience this game is alongside other players, preferably ones that are really good at realistic shooters.

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