hitman-blood-money posts

The Steam PC game download site still has a few more days before its annual holiday sales event ends. In addition to all of the deals that have been active since the sale began on December 20 it has some one-day price cuts that are in effect from now until 1 pm Eastern time on Saturday.

Far Cry 2 Fortune's Edition - $4.99
Command and Conquer games - Save 75 percent off all games in series
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl/Call of Pripyat bundle - $4.99
Star Wars Dark Forces/Jedi Knight collection - $5 for all five games in series
Empire/Napoleon Total War Game of the Year Edition - $24.99 or $19.99 if you own Medieval Total War or Rome Total War
Dawn of Discovery Gold Edition - $14.99
Supreme Commander 2 - $3.74
Flight Control HD - $1.70
Theatre of War - Save 75 percent off all games in series
Team Fortress 2 - $5
The Hitman Collection - $5 for three-game bundle (Hitman: Codename 47, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Hitman Blood Money)
Guardians of Graxia - $2.49

Less than four days now until StarCraft II is released. Will it live up to the hype? Fingers crossed:

• Nexon has relaunched the official Vindictus web site.
• Kalypso Media also launched the official Patrician IV web site today
• More rumors about the next Hitman game are showing up on the web.
• Want to play Alien Swarm in first person mode? Here's how you do it (there is no ceiling or sky, naturally).
• A new update for Counter-Strike Source adds Steam Clan Tag support along with the new achievement Clan Warfare
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II will have Boba Fett in it.
• The novel Star Wars The Old Republic Fatal Alliance is now in book stores. Here's a sample of the first chapter.

With the end of the episodic game series American McGee's Grimm last week, the Gametap PC download site has settling into its new routine of offering one premium game from their extensive library of titles for free play for one week on their site. Today the site is offering the third person action game Hitman: Blood Money from developer Io Interactive and publisher Eidos. Again this title can be played for free via Gametap starting today and lasting for one week.

Unfortunately Gametap's blog site has announced that due to more technically issues they are unable to add their new premium game, the RTS title Age of Empires II Gold, to the site. There's no word on when the issues will be resolved.

The Gametap digital download service usually adds new games to their lineup on Thursday but this week that day is also Thanksgiving so Gametap is releasing their new titles early this week. Among the new additions is the latest American McGee's Grimm episode, titled The Golden Goose. For this week only the episode is available to play for free for Tuesday through Friday instead of just 24 hours.

Also added as a temporary free game on Gametap is Hitman: Blood Money. You can play the third person action game from Io Interactive and Eidos until Dec. 3. Gametap has also added People Can Fly's first person shooter Painkiller to their premimum service.

Eidos has announced their participation as the latest publisher to support the Novint Falcon, a controller that claims to give gamers a greater advantage in three-dimensional video games by applying tactile control.

What sort of touch sensations will the Novint Falcon offer Eidos titles? "Simply imagine the feel of sandstone in your palms or the weight of a gun in your hand, and you've got the general idea," writes 1UP. Eidos plans support for Tomb Raider: Legend, Hitman: Blood Money, 25 to Life, Just Cause, BattleStations: Midway, and Kane and Lynch: Dead Men by the end of 2008.

In June, developer Valve announced future Novint Falcon support for The Orange Box, a collection containing Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episodes One and Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. The Falcon will reportedly allow gamers to feel the weight of holding different objects with the gravity gun, the recoil of guns, and more.