dreamcatcher-games posts

Last May, publisher JoWood announced their plans to publish Spellforce 2: Faith In Destiny, the second expansion to the fantasy RPG-RTS hybrid game. Since there's been, well, nothing announced about the game and it missed its planned winter 2009 release date.

Today, JoWood basically re-announced their plans to publish the game, this time for the second quarter of 2010. They also released the game's first screenshots. Fans of the series can expect a new single player campaign featuring the player character dealing with a new threat against the game's setting of Eo. Look for new units, maps and creatures to fight in this expansion. In addition the game's graphics have supposedly gotten a revamp with better shader effects.

Publishers JoWood and its subsidiary Dreamcatcher Games have been promoting their just released first person shooter Painkiller Resurrection as having co-op support for the single player game. But is that totally true? A post on the game's official message boards by a JoWood community manager reveals that the "co-op support" isn't quite as advertised.

The message states, "To play a coop game you have to start a dedicated server with the tool provided together with your game. Pull in the campaign maps from C9L01 to C9L06, choose FFA and start the game. You can also add / remove bots accompanying you there." Obviously most people think of setting up a co-op mode in a game via other means. The message adds, "We will add a more convenient ingame coop menu with the next update " So if you were expecting a normal co-op mode out of the box, this is just a heads-up.

Other people on the message boards have complained about other aspects of the game (filled with bugs, only six levels, price differences between Steam version and retail version) but those issues are really for reviewers to pounce on. However we felt the issue with the advertised co-op support should be addressed in a news article as an FYI to consumers.

[Thanks Matthew D]

Download the updated Painkiller: Resurrection Demo

Looks like the rush to get a demo out for Painkiller Resurrection has caused some issues. While the game's publisher JoWood (and its US subsidiary Dreamcatcher Games) are not recalling the single player demo to the upcoming first person shooter, they are admitting that the current demo is not up to their standards.

A JoWood spokesperson states on their message boards that, " . . . we accidentally released an old demo version. We really feel sorry for that." Never fear, however, as the publisher plans to release a new demo for the game next week that will mirror the quality of the final shipping version of the title. In the meantime Painkiller Resurrection is scheduled to be released on October 27.

Download Painkiller: Resurrection Demo (1.3 GB)

The third stand alone game in the Painkiller first person shooter series is supposedly ready for your enjoyment. JoWood's subsidiary publisher Dreamcatcher has announced that Painkiller: Resurrection has now gone gold and will ship to stores and via download on October 27.

As we mentioned earlier this month, Steam is offering all of the previous Painkiller games for free when you pre-order the Homegrown Games' developed Painkiller Resurrection title. Dreamcatcher has also mentioned that a demo of the game should be released "shortly". The full game will feature a co-op mode through the game's all new single player campaign (a first for the series) along with improvements to the Painkiller graphics engine, new items and monstes and more.

[Via email press release]

We have a very soft spot for Painkiller. The 2004 released first person shooter from developer People Can Fly had some crazy weapons, weird creatures, truly massive bot battles and some unique level design. In short it was everything we wanted in a FPS game.

Publisher Dreamcatcher released an expansion pack for the original game from People Can Fly and in 2007 released Painkiller Overdose (created by another developer, Mindware Studios). Now they head back to the chaos once again with Painkiller Resurrection, this time developed by Homegrown Games. At E3 2009 we got a chance to play with an early version of the title.

Can you believe it? There's another Painkiller game in the works. Yep, IGN has the first word on Painkiller: Resurrection, the third stand alone title in the wild and woolly first person shooter series. Publisher JoWood/Dreamcatcher Games have recruited the previously unknown developer Homegrown Games to create this installment which is due out late in 2009.

This new game willl apparently have more of an actual single player storyline than the first two games in the series as you play the role of a CIA assassin who is thrown into the battle between Heaven and Hell. Expect to see lots of enemies to take on, an enhanced version of the Painkiller engine and multiplayer modes. Oh, and for the first time in a Painkiller game there will be a two player co-op campaign.

It looks like we don't have to wait for the weekend to get some good PC game sales. The indie-themed game download site Greenhouse has just put three of their titles on sale this week. You can get the just released And Yet It Moves along with Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 1 and Defense Grid: The Awakening for just $9.99 each. That's a 33 percent savings off the first two games and a 50 percent sale for the third. The sale ends on Sunday.

Meanwhile, Steam has given permanent price cuts to two of Dreamcatcher Games' titles. You can now down download and purchase the FPS Painkiller Overdose and the space-based RTS game Genesis Rising for just $4.99 each. Also GamersGate has put the space combat games Tarr Chronicles and Dark Horizon together as a bundle for just $2.99 this week.

The Gothic RPG franchise got served a detour with Gothic 3 in 2007. The game was released with tons of bugs and issues so publisher JoWood dumped the game's developer Piranha Bytes and moved on, even deciding to rename the next full game in the series, Gothic 4, to Arcania: A Gothic Tale.

But before that game is released in 2009, JoWood will release Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods, an expansion pack to the 2007 release. Developed by Trine Studios, the expansion will add new locations, quests and monsters to Gothic 3 and is also designed as a story bridge between Gothic 3 and Arcania: A Gothic Tale. The expansion has now been declared "gold" and will ship to stores on Nov. 21. JoWood's US subsidiary Dreamcatcher Games will handle the North American release

Gallery: Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods

Dungeon Lords was, well, just plain broken when it was first released in 2005 by developer Heuristic Park and publisher Dreamcatcher Games. It was full of showstopping bugs and missing features that basically made the fantasy RPG unplayable. Even the release of a so called Collector's Edition a number of months later with a ton of fixes and improvements did little to improve the game's reputation.

Well it looks like Dreamcatcher and its parent company Jowood are going to the Dungeon Lords well again this winter with the release of The Orb and the Oracle. Described in the press release as the "next installment" of Dungeon Lords, the game is supposed to have a huge world to explore, support for both single and co-op multiplayer modes, a new combat system and other features. The feature we really want at this stage is for the game to just work out of the box.