dawn-of-discovery posts

The Steam PC game download site still has a few more days before its annual holiday sales event ends. In addition to all of the deals that have been active since the sale began on December 20 it has some one-day price cuts that are in effect from now until 1 pm Eastern time on Saturday.

Far Cry 2 Fortune's Edition - $4.99
Command and Conquer games - Save 75 percent off all games in series
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl/Call of Pripyat bundle - $4.99
Star Wars Dark Forces/Jedi Knight collection - $5 for all five games in series
Empire/Napoleon Total War Game of the Year Edition - $24.99 or $19.99 if you own Medieval Total War or Rome Total War
Dawn of Discovery Gold Edition - $14.99
Supreme Commander 2 - $3.74
Flight Control HD - $1.70
Theatre of War - Save 75 percent off all games in series
Team Fortress 2 - $5
The Hitman Collection - $5 for three-game bundle (Hitman: Codename 47, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Hitman Blood Money)
Guardians of Graxia - $2.49

Dawn of Discovery: Venice, the first add-on for Dawn of Discovery (aka Anno 1404), released today, giving players access to all-new features and units. The add-on includes a rich Venetian setting with ship types to match, an online multiplayer mode that supports up to eight players, along with new challenges and quests. The add-on can be purchased by itself or as part of Dawn of Discovery Gold. A playable demo for the original Dawn of Discovery can be downloaded here.

Download HD Dawn of Discovery: Venice Launch Trailer (64 MB)
Download Dawn of Discovery Demo (1.67 GB)
Check out all Dawn of Discovery downloads

This patch for Dawn of Discovery (a.k.a. Anno 1404) updates the game to v1.2 and addresses a number of different game issues including balance changes. Continue reading after the jump for full patch notes. The Dawn of Discovery playable demo can be downloaded here.

Download Dawn of Discovery v1.2 Patch (122 MB)
Download Dawn of Discovery Demo (1.67 GB)
Check out all Dawn of Discovery downloads

Next week Ubisoft plans to released Dawn of Discovery Gold via digital download. The release of the historical strategy-sim game contains the original title (released in 2009) and the new Venice expansion pack. However the expansion isn't the only extra you get when you put down your money ahead of time

Ubisoft is now offering a free game, The Settlers: Heritage of Kings, for people who pre-order Dawn of Discovery Gold before its release on Feb. 25. The 2004 released game, a $9.99 value, should be good preparation for those who are interested in the next game in the series, The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom. That title is due for release on March 23. In the meantime the Dawn of Discovery Gold pre-order is now available via Steam and Impulse.

Previously announced for the European market, Ubisoft has now officially announced that the US release of Dawn of Discovery (known in other parts of the world as Anno 1404) will be getting an expansion pack titled Dawn of Discovery: Venice. This expansion will be adding multiplayer features to the game for the first time, with versus modes for up to eight players along with a co-op mode that will let players fight against AI enemies.

The game will use the new Venetian setting to add two new ship types, 300 new quests, up to 60 new items and more. The expansion will be released in the US via download exclusively on February 25. On that same day Ubisoft will release Dawn of Discovery: Gold Edition which will have both the original game and the new expansion.in one product. It will also be released as a download product only.

Technically Steam's final day of PC game price cut sales has nothing to do with Cyber Monday but if it makes you feel any better you can call it Steam's Cyber Monday 2009 sales event if you want to. For the next 23 hours Steam has priced a bunch of titles, from major publisher hits to small indie games, at well below their regular Steam prices.

This is also the last day you can take atvanage of the LucasArts and THQ game bundle packs. You can still grab a ton of games all at once for just $49.99 for each bundle.

Quantz - $2
Evil Genius - $2.49
The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena - $9.99
Mirror's Edge - $5
Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood - $20.99
Section 8 - $24.99
The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition - $2.49
Dawn of Discovery - $34.99

We kind of expected this would happen today and we were right. Online download sites are having some big Thanksgiving weekend sales and are breaking out the sales cutter and slicing down prices on a number of PC games. Direct2Drive's "All Killer, No Filler" sale takes $10 off the prices of Dragon Age: Origins and Grand Theft Auto IV and $20 off of The Sims 3. They also have deep 50 percent price cuts for Dawn of Discovery, Crysis Maximum Edition and Resident Evil 5. All sales end Monday except for Resident Evil 5 which ends on Friday.

Over at Impulse they have put over 40 games in their download library on sale. Prices are cut between 35 percent to 75 percent with some games cost as little as 79 cents to purchase. And that's not a typo.

Those crazy people who live in other countries. They sometimes get stuff we here in the States don't get (at least at first). Take Anno 1404, for example. The historical strategy-sim game is known by Dawn of Discovery here in the US but today publisher Ubisoft announced that an expansion pack for the game is coming this February . . but just for the Anno 1404 version.

Yes, Anno 1404 Venice will expand the game to the canal city with 60 new items, 300 new quests and for the first time adding multiplayer features like versus and co-op for up to eight players. Right now the expansion is just for Europe, the Middle East and Australia; there's no word if Ubisoft plans to bring the expansion to the US and Dawn of Discovery.

This update addresses a number of different gameplay issues in Dawn of Discovery (Anno 1404). Patch notes are shown after the jump. The Dawn of Discovery demo can be downloaded here.

[Update]: The v1.1 patch for EU, Middle East and Asian releases of Anno 1404 can be downloaded here.

Download Dawn of Discovery v1.1 Patch (214 MB)
Download Anno 1404 v1.1 Patch [EU/Asia/Middle East] (218 MB)
Download Dawn of Discovery Demo (1.67 GB)
Check out all Dawn of Discovery downloads

The retail game web site GoGamer.com is launching yet another mis-named "48 Hour Madness" sale on its site. It's mis-named because the sale will actually end at 3 am ET on Tuesday morning. However don't let that throw you; they have some excellent price cuts on lots of current and older PC game titles.

Among the game you can get on the cheap (or at least cheaper) are Champions Online for $39.90, Anno 1404 (also known as Dawn of Discovery) for $20.90, City of Heroes for $18.90, Painkiller Black for just $4.90, and Stronghold Legends for a mere $3.90. There are some other deals on both PC and console titles so make sure to check out the entire sales list.