diablo posts

It's good to be working at Blizzard. The massive PC game developer continues to rule as its various games sell, sell and sell more copies. The NPD Group's list of the top 20 best selling PC games for April 2009 (via info from US retail stores) shows that Blizzard-published titles took up a full third of the games on the list

Also of note are two strong debuts for Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor at number four and Demigod at number 6. And an ultra-cheap price point has put Illusion Softworks' 2004 released WWII shooter Hidden And Dangerous II at the number 20 slot.

1. World Of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - Blizzard
2. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
3. World Of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
4. Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor - Relic/THQ
5. Empire: Total War - Creative Assembly/Sega
6. Left 4 Dead - Valve
7. Demigod - Gas Powered Games/Stardock
8. Diablo Battle Chest - Blizzard
9. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
10. Spore - Electronic Arts
11. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Blizzard
12. StarCraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
13. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard
14. Warhammer 40, 000: Dawn of War II - Relic/THQ
15. World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
16. The SimCity Box - Electronic Arts
17. Bejeweled Twist - PopCap Games
18. Fallout 3 - Bethesda Softworks
19. The Sims 2 Pets - Electronic Arts
20. Hidden & Dangerous 2 - Illusion Softworks/2K Games

The two year period of 1996 and 1997 was a huge era for the PC gaming. It seemed as if there were a number of things that came together at the right time for PC game developers to take advantage of. One was the success of Windows 95 which quickly became the de facto development platform for titles (good bye MS-DOS). Another was the farewell to 3.5 inch floppy disks for game distribution. It had already started by 1996 but by the end of 1997 nearly all PC games used the CD-ROM format allowing for more content to be crammed into games.

But there were even more developments that occurred, such as the surging popularity of this new-fangled Internet dealie that made online multiplayer much easier to get into. The Internet itself spurred consumers to buy PCs like never before. More powerful processors allowed games to have higher resolutions and perform faster. Finally the 3D acceleration movement popularized by companies like 3dfx allowed games that supported such hardware to look more realistic than ever.

It goes without saying that the 1996-1997 period had some pretty remarkable games come out, and we look back at just 15 of them in our latest feature installment.

Click on the image above to continue reading We Love The 90s (for PC Games): 1996-1997

Blizzard has been hinting about this for some time and tonight the developer/publisher has just launched the new version of its Battle.net web site. The 2.0 version of the site still serves as the multiplayer gaming hub for a number of Blizzard games, including the original Starcraft, their Warcraft RTS game series, the Diablo titles and of course their World of Warcraft MMO.

While the "classic" Battle.net accounts are still around for Blizzard's older games the new 2.0 version will give people who play World of Warcraft and the upcoming Starcraft II and Diablo III a way to sign on via just one Battle.net account. Creating a free Battle.net account also gives anyone an option to beta test upcoming games, including Starcraft II. In fact, Starcraftwire.net states that beta invites for the RTS sequel have already begun to be given out to random Battle.net account holders (it should be noted that these are invites only; the beta test itself has not yet begun).

On Wednesday we began our series of the most influential PC games of all time by going through our choices for the 20-11 spots. Today the gloves come off as we reveal our picks for the top 10 PC games that have been the biggest influences on the industry as a whole.

Our list of games in the top 10 includes three first person shooters, an RTS game, a turn-based strategy game, a action-RPG, a RPG-MMO combo franchise and a game that has become the best selling PC title of all time. We know all of you reading this most likely have your own ideas about what games should be on the list and in what position and we want to hear what you think. So, make sure you put in your two cents in the comments.

Click on the image above to continue reading the top 10 most influential PC games

Diablo III's official reveal was the biggest PC game story of 2008 (at least according to us) and just before the Christmas holiday 1Up.com posted up a new interview with the game's lead designer, Jay Wilson of Blizzard. The rather extensive chat goes over some new info about the game including why the Barbarian class was the only hold-over from Diablo II (Wilson states, "We decided that this is the one class that, when you look back [Diablo 2], you feel like he could be significantly better.")

Wilson also goes over details like the new game's "deeper" combat system, randomized scripted events and the fact that their character class plans are still in a state of flux. Wilson states, "The fourth class is playable in game but is using a placeholder model." And what about the fifth unnamed character class? "We're just about finished concepting it and are about to start building it." It's clear that there is still a lot of development work to go for this title.

It's been a little while since new screenshots of Diablo III have been released but today Blizzard posted up seven new screenshots from their highly anticipated action-RPG sequel on the game's officially web site. Naturally we have put in those shots in our ever growing gallery of visuals from the title.

The new shots continue, for the most part, the trend to showing the more "colorful" graphics and visual effects in Diablo III, as opposed to the darker graphics in the first two 2D games in the series. Blizzard has defended the move, saying that in making Diablo III a 3D game they wanted people to see the combat more clearly. Still this seemingly minor change has got some long time Diablo fans concerned. We still have a long way to go before this game is released, however. Blizzard has yet to announce a release date.

If you love the musical soundtracks for the games created by Blizzard then you may be in for one heck of a treat next month. Music 4 Games has revealed plans to publish The Music of Blizzard Entertainment: Echoes of War, a two disk CD of various themes from Blizzard's games as performed by the Eminence Symphony Orchestra.

The CD package will have 70 minutes of music from Blizzard's games include tracks from unreleased games like Starcraft II, Diablo III and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King. Two versions of the product will be released. The standard edition with just the music CD will go on sale Nov. 22 for $29.95. A "Legendary" edition will be released on Nov. 1 for $49.95 and will include the two CD disk along with a DVD that has behind-the-scenes footage of the recording sessions and more, along with a 32 page booklet and nine artcards.

[Via Blue's News]

The NPD Group has revealed the top 20 best selling PC games in the US for the entire month of September and it's not a shocker to see that EA's alien evolution sim Spore is right up top at number one. New releases Warhammer Online, Crysis Warhead and Civilization IV: Colonization also did well in their debut months. Perhaps the biggest dissapointment was S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky. The GSC Game World shooter only came in at number 20 on the list in its first month, perhaps because of a lack of promotion by its publisher Deep Silver.

1. Spore - Electronic Arts
2. Warhammer Online - Mythic/Electronic Arts
3. The Sims 2 Apartment Life - Electronic Arts
4. Warhammer Online Collector's Edition - Mythic/Electronic Arts
5. Spore Galactic Edition - Electronic Arts
6. World of Warcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
7. Crysis Warhead - Crytek/Electronic Arts
8. The Sims 2 Double Deluxe - Electronic Arts
9. World of Warcraft - Blizzard
10. Spore Creature Creator - Electronic Arts
11.World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard
12.Civilization IV: Colonization - Firaxis/2K Games
13. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Blizzard
14. Civilization IV - Firaxis/2K Games
15. The Sims 2 IKEA Home Stuff - Electronic Arts
16. Diablo Battle Chest - Blizzard
17. Starcraft Battle Chest - Blizzard
18. Hot Wheels: Beat That - Activision
19. Crysis - Crytek/Electronic Arts
20. S.T.A.LK.E.R. Clear Sky - GSC Game World/Deep Silver

We've all been told that Blizzard wasn't -- and continues to not be -- affected by Activision. But is that really the truth? I hadn't questioned the claim until recently, when changes began to trickle out of BlizzCon 08.

At first, there was an announcement of a new StarCraft II singleplayer addition each year, for the next three years. Blizzard says: We wanted to make so much StarCraft II, that we needed to split it into three separate games that each need around a full year of development -- huzzah! I was ecstatic, it was Blizzard-nerd nirvana. Then these pesky questions began creeping into the forefront of my mind, buzzing about like infuriating flies that refuse to leave your room on a particularly hot summer day.

Another BlizzCon has come and gone, and I'm still trying to recover from it, personally, not only from the blisters on my feet, but from the information overload from Diablo III. With that in mind, here's one last infodump from the last Diablo III panel of the con, the art and lore panel. If you're a lore nerd like me, you'll want to read up on it, and even if you aren't, there's a few little tidbits of gameplay information that are worth checking out.

After you have read this part, be sure to read parts 2 and 3 as as well!