lead-and-gold posts

The weekend is getting closer and we have far too many PC games to play. It's time to pace ourselves before we become part of our PC office chair.

• Steam has automatic updates for Arcadia, Booster Trooper, Dogfighter, and Lead and Gold.
• Left 4 Dead 2 is repeating the Last Gnome on Earth gameplay mutation this week.
• You can now check out a free streaming video of the GDC 2011 Doom post mortem panel taped earlier this month.
• Why is Duke Nukem Forever now being released overseas a few days before it comes to the US? 2k Games says blame retailers.
• You can now buy official Minecraft t-shirts. How cute.
• Ubisoft is hiring for someone to write a Assassin's Creed encyclopedia.

Earlier this year we were the first to report that Direct2Drive had decided to start offering PC game download that required that Valve's Steam client be installed after previously banning games that required such a feature. At the time Direct2Drive's head told Big Download that it gave in to customer demands for such games to be offered on the service. Now another PC game download outlet, GamersGate, has also started to offer PC game download that require the third party Steam client and registration.

The games, added earlier this month, include R.U.S.E. and Lead and Gold Gangs of the Wild West. Both listings state, Note: This product requires a 3rd party download and account." Back in July, GamersGate CEO Theodore Bergquist sent us a statement, "At this time, we have no plans to offer games that use Steamworks." He added, "We listen to our customer base very closely and they clearly prefer to not use a client."

So why the about face? Big Download contacted GamersGate and got a new statement from Bergquist. He states, "The original plan was to not offer anything that requires a third party download, but we had a few users request those titles. We want to provide the best service possible and we listen to our customers regularly. If a gamer would rather spend his/her hard-earned money with us and then go and play the game with someone else's software, that's alright with us. It's also good to see that Steam finally has to give-in a bit. In these retail versions, many of the more intrusive features have been turned off and are not shown to the customers. They require only a registration like any other multi-player service. We're trying this on just a few games and hopefully our customers will accept this. If not, we will know quite fast."

It's currently unknown exactly what Steam and Steamworks features are "turned off" for the GamersGate versions of the games and we will follow up with GamersGates to get more info.

It's a bit of a shame to hear that the Ender's Game adaptation won't be happening at Chair Entertainment. We still think a "Battle Room" game would be fun:

• Steam has new bug fix updates for Serious Sam HD The Second Encounter, Killing Floor, Galcon Fusion, and Lead and Gold Gangs of the Wild West.
• Steam has put Football Manager 2011 on sale for the next week for $27.99.
• A month after it was released, Steam now has Need For Speed Hot Pursuit available to purchase and download.
• Sony Online's free-to-play MMO Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures is now available to play on the Mac.
• Commander Keen, the very first id Software game, turned 20 years old today. Check out some game developer memories over at the Bethblog.com site.
• The theme song to the upcoming Ubisoft game Might and Magic Heroes 6 will have its public debut at the Video Games Live concert in Paris, France on December 17.
• You can download a hand-drawn texture pack for Minecraft, called ScribbleCraft, over at the game's forums.

It's the weekend and also six days until a bunch of us eat until it hurts. MMMM...turkey.

• It's finally out: the 1.1 beta patch for Elemental has been released via Impulse.
• This week's Mutation gameplay mode for Left 4 Dead 2 is a repeat of Gib Fest.
• There are lots of bug patch updates today on Steam including Lead and Gold, Left 4 Dead 2, Twin Sector, Killing Floor, the open beta of Men of War Assault Squad. Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike Source, Day of Defeat Source, and Half-Life 2 Deathmatch,
• A new indie-themed game download portal, Show Me The Games, is now available.
• The official Breach web site now lists all of the weapons that will be featured in the upcoming game.
• Heroes of Newerth has introduced a new hero character, Moraxus.
• It's another mysterious bar code teasing us about BioWare's next game.
• Most of us, for better or for worse, would not be playing PC games without Microsoft's Windows OS. This week is its 25th anniversary.

As promised earlier this week two inide game games are having a free play weekend on Steam. Fatshark's third person Western shooter Lead and Gold and Futuremark's sci-fi zero-g shooter Shattered Horizon are now currently available to play for free until 4 pm Eastern time on Sunday. Both games are on sale until Monday at 1 pm with Shattered Horizon just $9.99, Lead and Gold priced at $7.49 or get both in the Frontiers Pack for just $12.49.

Also on sale until Monday on Steam is Gas Powered Games' sci-fi RTS game Supreme Commander 2. You can get the game for a mere $5.10 at the moment. The recently released DLC pack for the game also has a big price cut this weekend to just $3.40.

Two of Steam's higher profile indie games are joining forces later this week for a special event. The zero-g space-based first person shooter Shattered Horizon and the Wild West-themed third person shooer Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West will both be free to play starting on Thursday and ending on Sunday. Pre-loading for the free versions will begin on Wednesday.

In addition to the free play period, both games will be on sale in a bundle called the Frontiers Pack. The games from developer Futuremark and Fatshark will be priced together for $12.49, a savings of 60 percent from the games' normal prices.

So we are getting a graphical remake of Defense of the Ancients with some enhanced community features. But will Valve continue to support the original DoTA? How much will DOTA 2 cost? Will the game be a downloadable only title? Will it support third party mods? There are still lots and lots of questions.

• Want to read Jordan Mechner's script for the Prince of Persia movie before the Hollywood types got a hold of it? Now you can.
• New Stream updates to Alien Swarm, Recettear, Shattered Horizon, Lead and Gold, Team Fortress 2, Worms Reloaded, and Booster Trooper have been released.

Last week players got to check out a free preview build of R.U.S.E.on Steam. Starting sometime today another free game period will start on Steam. This time it will be Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West, the recent multiplayer-only third person shooter title from developer Fatshark and publisher Paradox Interactive.

The game's official web site said the free play period will end sometime on Sunday and we will bet the full game will get a nice fat discount as well. Since the game was released via download a few months ago, Fatshark has added a new map, gameplay mode and dedicated servers to the game.

While the Steam PC game download service has put hundreds of its games on sale during its new summer sales event it continues to give several titles special treatment for one day only. From now until 1 pm Eastern time on Saturday the games below get an extra special price cut ranging from 33 to 80 percent off:

• Aliens Verses Predator Classic 2000 - $1.25 (not a typo)
• Ghostbusters The Game - $4
• Serious Sam HD Bundle (Both remakes of First and Second Encounter) - $7.50
• Grand Theft Auto: Episodes From Liberty City - $14.99
• Galcon Fusion - $2.50
• Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West - $5.10
• Alpha Protocol - $33.49 (just came out a few weeks ago)
• Resident Evil 5 - $12.50

Developer Fatshark's Western-themed multiplayer shooter Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West has been out for the PC for a while now. Today the game got a big update via Steam that finally adds dedicated servers to the title, allowing folks to run their own independent multiplayer servers for the game.

The dedicated server files for Lead and Gold can run without owning the full game or using the Steam client. The files have a number of other features including be able to turn friendly fire on and off, adding some new leaderboards and many more new features.