her-interactive posts

This is the playable demo for the mystery adventure game, Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy. The full retail boxed game is already out and the digital download version is scheduled to release on October 13th. System requirements are shown after the jump.

"You, as Nancy Drew, are undercover at a prestigious girls' boarding school to discover the culprit behind threatening notes and dangerous accidents aimed at its valedictorian candidates! Is there a secret someone wants to protect or are the malicious pranks intended to scare away the competition - permanently? Solve the mystery before the threats turn deadly and you're expelled from the case!"

Download Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy Demo (237 MB)

This is the playable demo for Nancy Drew: Resorting to Danger, the second game in the Nancy Drew Dossier series. More information and purchasing options can be found on the official site. System requirements are shown after the jump

"You, as Nancy Drew, must stop a bomber from ruining the Redondo Spa clients' rejuvenation and relaxation. The high maintenance clients won't be happy if they find that their retreat is about to explode, even if the bombs are more prankster gross-outs than dangerous.

Now, Nancy Drew is undercover as the spa gopher catering to the customers' eccentric requests while defusing bombs. From celebrities who escape here to the receptionist at the front desk-everyone is a suspect! Who is sabotaging the spa and can Nancy catch the culprit before the spa loses all of its clients?"

Download Nancy Drew: Resorting to Danger Demo (93 MB)

Valve's Steam service isn't just for hardcore games like Left 4 Dead. The download service also has a lot of casual titles. Today it was announced.that Steam has added Her Interactive to its list of publisher and will provide Steam with a number of games in their popular Nancy Drew series of adventure titles.

The new arrangement begins today with six titles including Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses!, Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek, Nancy Drew: Phantom of Venice and Nancy Drew: The Creature of Kapu Cave. Two of the titles, Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy and Nancy Drew: Legend of the Crystal Skull, will have a 20 percent price cut until July 23. In addition, Nancy Drew: The Phantom of Venice has had its price cut by 50 percent until July 23.

Update: The addition of the Nancy Drew games to Steam is apparently part of an overall launch of a Family Games section for the download service. Quite a number of the games in the category are on sale. Included is a Mumbo Jumbo games collection which currently has 19 games available for just $19.99. That's a savings of nearly $170 if each game was bought separately

This is the playable demo for Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships, an adventure game from HER Interactive.

"Your friend Bess Marvin is kidnapped and the only chance you have to save her is by solving a 300-year-old Bahamian mystery! Dangerous waters keep treasure hunters from exploring the reefs around Dread Isle, but this remote island might hide the riches of El Toro's lost fleet! Can you, as Nancy Drew, track down the treasure before time runs out?"

Download Nancy Drew: Ransom of the Seven Ships Demo (240 MB)

The official for Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy includes an option to purchase the full game.

"Touted as the most romantic event to grace the ruined halls of Ireland's Castle Malloy, the Simmons-Mallory wedding was supposed to be a fairytale beginning, but now the groom is missing! Did a banshee crash the wedding or is this a case of cold feet? Can you, as Nancy Drew, unravel the knot of scattered clues and scary superstitions? You'll need to catch more than a bridal bouquet to make this a happily ever after!"

Download the Nancy Drew: The Haunting of Castle Malloy Demo (248 MB)

It's been a relatively slow week here at Big Download. That said, we've still seen a handful of interesting files. The biggest rage: the demo version of GRID, a critically acclaimed racing game. We also have the 1.1 patch on hand. If racing isn't your thing, though, there are alternatives.

Yeah, we're twiddling our thumbs for the Spore creature creator too, but why not kill time with these other diversions? Have a great weekend!

	GRID eBay Motors Demo 1.1 Try out this acclaimed racing game from Codemasters, which includes excellent replay features.
	GRID 1.1 Retail Patch This fixes several bugs and performance issues in the retail version of GRID.
	Nancy Drew: The Phantom of Venice Demo The young supersleuth challenges the criminal underworld of Venice as she tracks down a thief in this adventure game.
	SimCity Societies Demo SimCity Societies reinvents the SimCity franchise by focusing on the social values of your city over economic concerns. EA released this demo to promote the upcoming Destinations expansion, and the SimCity Box compilation.
	LEGO Batman HD Nightwing Trailer Batman is back, but this time he's more funny than threatening. If you've previously played LEGO Star Wars or LEGO Indiana Jones, though, you know that's a recipe for awesome!

Her Interactive's series of adventure games based on the long-running Nancy Drew book series have become very popular with some of them appearing on the NPD list of best selling PC games. Now a demo for the newest game in the series has just been released. Nancy Drew: The Phantom of Venice takes place (natch) in the city of canals and love in Italy as the teenage detective tries to solve a series of thefts of priceless artifacts.

While the full game (the 18th in the game series) won't be available until July (at the bargain price of $19.99) you can try out a sample demo of the game right now via a download here at Big Download. Just don't think too much of Pamela Sue Martin while you play the demo

Download the Nancy Drew: The Phantom of Venice demo at Big Download right now.

Well this is certainly a fine mess. There is now mass confusion over who will and who won't be at the E3 2008 press event in mid-July. Activision and Vivendi Games (soon to merge as Activision-Blizzard) have confirmed that they will not attend E3 and have in fact pulled out of the event's organizer the Entertainment Software Association.

Now there seems to be some confusion as to who else might be at E3 with conflicting stories running around the Internet. Here's what we currently know. NCsoft has officially told BigDownload.com that they will not be attending E3 this year but will still remain a member of the ESA. Their official spokesperson told us that the timing of their upcoming game releases was not ready for an E3 presentation. Kotaku claims in a story that id Software will not attend but another story at Gamepot states the developer, an ESA member, will be at the show. The Gamespot story also states that D3Publisher, Warner Bros. Interactive. and Bethesda Softworks will be attending E3 even though they are not currently listed on the E3 web site. Gamespot also reports that game developer Foundation 9, who attended E3 last year, won't attend this year (although its likely some of their games will be show at their publisher's exhibits). Kotaku also states that ESA member Her Interactive won't attend E3 but the publisher, best known for their Nancy Drew games, didn't attend E3 in 2007 either.

Kotaku also claims through unnamed sources that the reason for the pullout of Activision and Vivendi from the ESA was the perceived lack of leadership from current ESA president Michael Gallagher. He came on board in early 2007 following the departure of ESA founder and long time president Doug Lowenstein. Gallegher and the ESA have yet to comment on these allegations.