demigod posts

As promised, the second of the two free new demigods is now available for use in Demigod. The 2009 released multiplayer strategy-RPG game from developer Gas Powered Games and publisher Stardock can now be updated for free to add the new Oculus demigod. If you own the game all you have to do is update to the latest version, log onto the game's multiplayer server and Oculus should be available for both single and multiplayer matches.

As you can see Oculus rides around on his own floating throne (although he can get out of it for special attacks). His main weapon is lightening but he can also recharge the mana of any friendly demigods in matches.

Stardock's Impulse PC game download service is trying something a little different in terms of its holiday sales this year. Instead of posting about special sales on the Impulse web site, the service will be using the Impulse downloadable client itself to alert uses to big one day sales cuts on games.

Basically if you download the Impulse client and keep it running in your Windows system tray and check on the Promotions section in Settings, you might see something like what's up above this post; a promotion for a one day sale of a game (in this case the original Galactic Civilizations for just 99 cents). At the moment the one day sale is for Demigod for just $7.50 and Dragon Age: Origins for $37.50. We will of course keep you up to date on any more sales that come down the pike.

The holidays are a time for coming together, eating way too much food, and getting in plenty of gaming action. Last week, we gave you gift recommendations for games that provide a fantastic single player experience. Now it's time to throw off those AI limitations and head into multiplayer, and we're not talking MMO's. Whether fighting cooperatively or going head-to-head against other players, 2009 has some excellent offerings that put players skills to the test.

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

It's taken longer than first thought, but the folks at Gas Powered Games and Stardock have finally added a new demigod to use in Demigod. The fantasy RTS/RPG game has gotten a major update via Stardock's Impulse client that adds the Demon Assassin along with a host of other changes.

The 1.2 update's release notes can be checked out at the game's official web site. Besides the new addition to the cast, the update now adds third party mod support to Demigod and mod samples will be released in the coming weeks "to get the ball rolling." There's all sorts of game balance changes, bug fixes and other things in this new update. The second promised free demigod addition, Oculus, "will be distributed in the coming weeks."

Most people think of Stardock mainly as a game developer of titles like Galactic Civilizations II and the upcoming Elemental but the truth is that the company has its hands full in several areas including third party publishing of games, developing non-gaming Windows applications like Object Desktop and the Impulse PC game download service. Today Stardock issued its 2009 customer report which gives an overview of what the company has done in the past 12 months.

The report is brutally honest with the fact that the launch of Stardock's big 2009 game, Demigod (developed by Gas Powered Games) did not go as well as anticipated due to multiplayer networking issues. The report does say that despite the launch issues, Demigod "continues to sell thousands of copies weekly."

The report goes over a number of the company's other issues such as future updates to their Impulse service (which include adding pre-loading of games), how weekend sales reductions have reduced the overall cost of PC games to consumers and lots more.

Sailing takes us away . .. oh, wait. That's would be sales, not sailing (sorry Christopher Cross). If you are looking to save a few buck this weekend, the various downloadable PC game sites have you covered:

• Steam has put both Crysis and Crysis Warhead on sale for 50 percent off their normal price this weekend. They have also put all of the Overlord games on sale for a whopping 75 percent off.
• Impulse has put their exclusive game Demigod on sale for 50 percent off this weekend. Other games on sale from Impulse include Titan Quest and Tropico Reloaded.
• Direct2Drive has a $5 coupon offer for Borderlands this weekend with people able to put in the code 5OFFBORDER at checkout.
• GamersGate has several games at 50 percent off their normal price this weekend including Elven Legacy, Darkstar One, Company of Heroes Complete and STALKER Clear Sky.

While we wait for developer Gas Powered Games and publisher Stardock to finally release their promised two new demigod character for Demigod, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell keeps teasing us with info about the upcoming free updates. The Demon Assassin is one of those free additons and Wardell goes into detail about his powers and abilities on the Impulse web site.

Some of the powers for the Demon Assassin include the ranged Spine Attack, Demon Speed and a power where he can exchange places with another demigod. As Wardell states, "You've just capped that portal flag, you're running away. You're going to make it. No. No you're not. You're going to die. Because the demon assassin has just exchanged places with you and now you're back at that portal and he's out in front of you." The post includes a YouTube Video of the demigod's skill tree that we have embedded above.

We've been hearing for quite a long time that there have been plans to add two new free demigod characters into the RTS game Demigod. Now it looks like that those plans are finally bearing fruit. A post on the Impulsedriven.net site by Stardock CEO Brad Wardell states the new demigod will be made available via an update that should be released "in the next couple of weeks."

Players will be able to add the two new demigods to their account and use them in regular games. Wardell says this will allow them to test the new additions out for balance issues. After that, he says that "we'll expand out access to it until everyone who has Demigod can access it." Stardock previously released info on both of the new demigods this summer.

One of the biggest PC game developers currently in operation is Gas Powered Games. It's founder, Chris Taylor, first gained fame for another developer with the RTS title Total Annihilation. For Gas Powered he has lead the development of the action-RPG Dungeon Siege series and the RTS game Supreme Commander. This year they released their latest game Demigod with Supreme Commander 2 waiting in the wings for 2010.

Industry Gamers got a chance to quiz Taylor on the games that have influenced him the most in his career. He goes in chronological order with titles like Space Invaders and Robotron first on the list, then proceeds to early PC games like SimCity and Populus. He says playing the early RTS games from Westwood Studios (Dune 2 and Command and Conquer) "changed the course of my life. Not only did I now know I loved and wanted to make video games, I wanted to very specifically make games like this..." It was those games that caused Taylor to create Total Annihilation.

More recent favorites include the Diablo series, Battlefield 1942 (" I played EVERY night for over a year") and the arcade racing game FlatOut ("I seemed to plug right into that game and it will always be a favorite.')

The current lead developer behind the popular Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients has made the suprising announcement that he is "now leading a team at Valve". Presumably he means the same Valve that has mostly worked on first person shooter game titles like Half-Life and Left 4 Dead. In his announcement on the official DotA page "IceFrog" (that's the only name he goes by) he stats that now he has "all the resources needed to do some very exciting stuff that you guys will love. I look forward to revealing more specific details when the time is right."

This would certainly be a change of pace for Valve if they decide to develop a DotA-like game. The mod has become an inspiration for a number of current and upcoming commercial games including Demigod, Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends (who have former DotA team members as part of their dev team).

[Via Shacknews]