impulse posts

Who loves to save money? We do, of course. And the weekend PC game sales that have been posted today could save you enough money to get a few more chips and beer for the big game on Sunday.

• Steam has put both Far Cry games on sale with the original first person shooter priced at $4.99 and Far Cry 2 at $9.99 until Monday. It's also offering a free version of Red Faction Guerrilla with the purchase of Metro 2033.
• GamersGate has added all of Telltale Games' titles to its service and all of Telltale's games are priced at 10 percent off. Other games on sale this weekend include Space Siege at 75 percent off and the original BioShock at 50 percent off until Sunday.
• Impulse also has several games on sale this weekend including the Red Faction collection with all three games in the first person shooter series for $22.50

Die hard fans Ironclad Games' 2008 sleeper PC game hit Sins of a Solar Empire have already gotten a small mini-expansion to the space strategy game Entrenchment. Next week those fans will get a second mini-expansion in Diplomacy while folks who have never played the original game can get it and the two mini-expansions together in the new retail collection Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity.

Stardock is handling the publishing duties for the mini-expansion and new collection and Big Download got Stardock's CEO Brad Wardell to chat briefly about what fans can expect from Diplomacy. We also tried to get him to talk about future Sins of a Solar Empire plans but as you will read later, he's not yet talking about it.

As we await the release of the second mini-expansion for Sins of a Solar Empire, developer Ironclad Games and publisher Stardock have released a new patch for the original space strategy game and its first expansion Entrenchment. The new update can be downloaded automatically via the Impulse client.

The new patch invalidates all previous save games but contains quite a few bug fixes in terms of both gameplay and graphics along with some improvements for game modders. In related news, the beta testing for the upcoming second mini-expansion, Diplomacy, has officially ended. Anyone who pre-ordered the expansion and participated in its beta testing will regain access when the final version is ready on February 9.

Stardock's upcoming fantasy themed strategy-RPG title Elemental War of Magic may have been pushed back a few months but the game is still deep in development on its latest beta build. On the Impulse web site Stardock head man Brad Wardell gives an update on the game's progress.

At the moment the game is close to completing the first phase of its beta test before moving onto Beta 2 which will add multiplayer support for the first time. One of the big features in the game is that player characters can marry, have children and then those kids grow up and marry others. Some of the visuals of the children still need to be worked on with Wardell saying, "You can (end) up with some pretty ugly grand-children and later great-grand-children." Other features like a basic quest system are in but the 3D engine has yet to be implemented for beta testers. The final game will be released later this year.

While other folks are trying to rest up this weekend in preparation for the Super Bowl the next week, there is no such rest for the PC gamer looking for some deals. Some sites are already bringing us their price cuts for the weekend.

Impulse has put several games on sale for their download service. That includes the 1C Company Racing Mega Pack for just $9.99 and the downloadable puzzle-platformer Trine for $9.99.

Over at GamersGate, its site also has quite a few games with price cuts this weekend. Among those games is the indie title Osmos for $9.95 and the arcade shooter Zombilution for $5.56.

Thursday evening is the start of the weekend, at least that's what we have heard happens in college towns. So it's natural that Steam and Impulse have launched their weekend PC download game sales deals today:

• Steam has put all of Relic's Company of Heroes games on sale until Monday. The WWII RTS games are now 75 percent off their normal prices. That includes the Company of Heroes Complete Pack with all three titles in one bundle. You can also download the two soundtracks to the games for free.
• Impulse has put quite a few of their games on sale this weekend. These include several games from publisher Kalypso Media including titles like Ceville for $9.99 and Tropico 3 for $29.99

It's the weekend and what do you know? We have some weekend PC game sales on various download sites. Gee, what will people think up next?

• Steam has put Codemasters' recent racing game Dirt 2 on sale for just $19.99
• which will last until Monday.
• Impulse has a number of PC games on sale for this weekend only. They include Company of Heroes Gold or just $14.99, AI War for $9.99 and Alganon for just $19.99.
• Finally, GoG.com has put all of the games in the Tex Murphy adventure game series on sale for 50 percent off their normal price until the end of the day Monday.

As we reported earlier this week, Stardock's fantasy turn-based strategy-RPG game Elemental: War of Magic won't make it's planned first quarter release and will instead come out sometime in the third quarter of 2010. However that doesn't mean you can't try out the game in a incomplete form. People who pre-order the game can gain access to beta builds before the full game's release.

The second beta for Elemental will add support for multiplayer matches and will be released to beta testers around the end of February. In a recent post on the Impulsedriven.net site, Stardock's head man Brad Wardell has posted up how folks will sign in to play a multiplayer match in the game. While you can play on an official Stardock server you will also be able to host their own servers. These servers will support custom rules and mods althoug that will be turned off in the beta version. Be warned, however, as Wardell states, "The betas are NOT fun. These aren't demo betas. These are real, painful, boring, ugly betas. The graphics engine is disabled in both beta 1 and beta 2."

If you are in the current beta for Sins of a Solar Empire: Diplomacy, you got a new build to try out today. Developer Ironclad Games and publisher Stardock have got a new version of their upcoming micro-expansion to their hit space strategy game to download via Impulse.

The change notes for the new beta are quite extensive and have some new content including the addition of Pirate Missions and a new Bomb Planet mission type (that seems self-explanatory). You can still get into the beta by pre-ordering the $9.99 expansion which is expected to be released in early February alongside the new retail collection Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity.

Last week we were in the middle of masive hoilday sales from various PC game download sites. This week things have calmed down a bit but there are still some deals to be had from the various site for the weekend. Steam has posted up a sale of Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter. You can grab Croteam's graphical remake of its classic shooter for just $6.79. Meanwhile, Direct2Drive has the indie strategy game AI War: Fleet Command on sale for just $9.99.

Finally Impulse has several games on sale this weekend including Supreme Commander Gold for $14.99 , Sins of a Solar Empire for $16.99 and Braid for a mere $4.99.