free-to-play posts

This latest champion spotlight for the ever-expanding League of Legends puts its gaze squarely on Brand, the latest champion to worm his way into the league. It's an excellent video, if just for the fact that it shows champions getting massacred. It's always cool to see a champion steamroll, even if it's not that fun to play against in the game proper. Brand seems to be focused primarily on nuking, with his only true utility effect being a secondary effect on the sear spell.

Stardock has announced as part of GDC 2011 that its Impulse::Reactor game development tools will soon be able to support microtransactions for PC games. The new features will be added to the tools in an upcoming update for Impulse:Reactor's beta testers later this month.

The new features will allow any game developer who uses Impulse::Reactor to add support for microtransactions in the game without the need for a separate client software tool such as Valve's Steamworks. In a phone conversation with Stardock CEO Brad Wardell last week he told Big Download that Stardock would get 30 percent of all the revenues generated by games using the Impulse::Reactor microtransaction features.

So will any of Stardock's current and upcoming games use these new features? Stardock's PR head told us today, "Right now the migration has begun, but we'll be announcing which titles are ready when the time comes." Impulse::Reactor, originally scheduled to be made to all game developers in 2010, is now scheduled to be released in full in the summer of 2011.

Vindictus is one of the best free-to-play MMOs we've ever palyed, and its now on episode five of its continual update scheme.These two trailers give a brief look into the new content for those that are interested, and while it's not really a ton of new stuff, it'll please hack and slash players nonetheless. The first trailer, above, covers all of the new features and goodies that are included in the update, such a Heroic Mode and a new level cap. The trailer below shows off the various bosses that players will be forced to fight. It's not just one, end boss, either. There's quite a few.

Download HD Vindictus 'Lost Artifact' Preview Trailer
Download HD Vindictus 'Lost Artifact Raid Boss' Trailer
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Mytheon has had plenty of hands-on previews and gameplay videos, but this trailer is not one of them. Rather, it's a cinematic detailing the grief of Zeus as he attacks a group of mortals that dare to defy him. While it's not quite as good as other cinematics, it's also for a free-to-play game, so we can't be too overly critical. Zeus's voice-acting wavers between genuinely emotional and unintentionally hilarious, mostly because of the tremors, and the animation is a little bit stiff, but it's still a trailer worth watching.

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The newest Magic: The Gathering Tactics trailer visits yet another one of the five elemental colors. This time, it is black: the color of death, despair, and hopelessness. Like one would expect, the creatures of black are either eldritch horrors or monstrosities brought forth by death-defying magic. Zombies, gigantic spiders, black knights, and massive winged demons are all creatures that swear their allegiance to a wielder of black mana. In other words, these are all the creatures you can summon in Tactics!

Download Magic: The Gathering Tactics Black Mana Trailer
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S4 League is one of the lesser known free-to-play games, but that doesn't meant the developers have given up on maintaining it. It has finally launched the first season, which is aptly titled Dark Lightning. This trailer shows off the new maps, characters, and weapons that are included with the update. Everything has a spooky feel to it, and both the maps and character designs remind us of Atlus' seminal Shin Megami Tensei series. It's like Halloween in January!

Download S4 League 'Season 1 Gameplay' Trailer
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This client installs the free-to-play version of Champions Online, a superhero themed massively-multiplayer online role playing games. Visit the official website for more information and to create an account. System requirements are shown after the jump.

Note: The client will install the game, but the free-to-play servers are not expected to come online until tomorrow - January 25, 2011, 9:00am EST.

Download Champions Online Free-to-Play Client (2.9 GB)
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In 2010 developer Zombie Studios released Blacklight: Tango Down, a downloadable near-future themed first person shooter. Pricing for the game was just $15. At the time of the game's release, Big Download learned from Zombie's CEO Mark Long that a sequel was already in the works. Today Big Download has learned exclusively that the sequel will have an even cheaper price; free.

Yes, the Blacklight: Tango Down sequel (which at the moment is titled "Blacklight" for now) will be released as a free-to-play game. According to what Long told us today, "The full game will be free along with premium content that can be purchased in-game. Blacklight will feature a large number of improvements based on the player feedback we've gotten. And we hope going free-to-play will close that loop so we can respond even faster to player preferences."

So why go with the free-to-play/microtransaction business model? Long told us, "The free-to-play model is something we've been interested in since we first began working with Korean publishers four years ago. Free-to play is the model in Asia. It's exploding in China growing fast in Europe and emerging here in Facebook and iOS games."

The sequel will not reuse any of the content of the original Blacklight: Tango Down, according to Long. It will be an all new game with new weapons, levels, items and more. That includes the previously announced drivable mech vehicles. You can see the mech in the background of the first ever publicly released screenshot above (you can check out a high-res version when you click the above image). Long told us that the sequel will use the latest version of Epic's Unreal Engine 3 tech.

The Blacklight sequel does not yet have a release date and Long would not comment on who might be publishing the sequel (the original Blacklight Tango Down was published by Ignition Entertainment). We hope to have more info on the game in the coming weeks and months.

It's been revealed that Champions Online is going free-to-play on January 25th, and the folk at Cryptic have put together a new trailer to commemorate the launch. Titled "System Shock," it covers the changes that have happened to Champions Online in the past year as well as new content that can be expected from the free-to-play update. Some of the new stuff includes the inclusion of pre-defined archetypes, reworking of melee powers, and the polishing of the Westside subzone to be more friendly to newer players.

Download HD Champions Online 'System Shock' Trailer
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Dungeon Fighter Online is one of Nexon's many "out of the box" properties, and judging by these trailers it's still going strong. They aren't really much, but they do detail the fighting moves of the sub-classes. The two shown off are a massive laser (similar to Iron Man's hyper combo in Marvel vs Capcom 2) and a gigantic drop pod filled with electricity and explosives. They are certainly pretty trailers, but are extremely short, and useful for just a good look at how pretty Dungeon Fighter Online is. That's it.

Download HD Dungeon Fighter Online 'Spitfire and Valkyrie Awakenings' Trailer
Download HD Dungeon Fighter Online 'Launcher and Demolitionist Awakenings' Trailer
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