medal-of-honor posts

It's not exactly a shock but a new Medal of Honor game from Electronic Arts is officially confirmed as being under development at the publisher's Danger Close studio in Los Angeles. The game's official web site has a message from EA's executive producer Greg Goodrich who states, " ... we've studied, listened and absorbed much of your feedback and are very excited to be marching forward on the next title."

EA's revival of the Medal of Honor franchise, set in the modern day war of Afghanistan, launched back in October and managed to sell 5 million copies. It's currently not known if Digital Illusions will return to work on the new Medal of Honor's multiplayer modes.

If you like PC game music soundtracks this might be right up your alley. Today Electronic Arts announced plans to release a limited edition collection of the soundtracks for the games in the Medal of Honor shooter series. The eight CD disk collection with a whopping 10 hours of music will be released via LA-LA Land Records on March 1.

The collection will include music from all of the games in the series including the 2010 revival of the Medal of Honor series. It will also have a 40 page booklet with track info and a new introduction by movie director Steven Spielberg who started the game series via his now defunct Dreamworks Interactive. The collection will contain some of the earliest soundtrack work from composer Michael Giacchino, including previously unreleased tracks. He composed the music for the first few games in the series and later graduated to working on a number of TV and music scores. He won an Academy Award in 2010 for the music to the move Up.

You thought that since the holidays were over that the sales event for PC game sales were also over, didn't you? Well think again, buster. A couple of PC game download sites have some special deals that await your pleasure. One of them is the Direct2Drive service. For the rest of the week it has cut the prices on all of its games from publisher Kalypso Media by as much as 75 percent off. In addition the Impulse service has continued its daily sales deal into the new year. For today only it has put Cities XL on sale for just $7.99.

In addition to today's sales, there are some permanent price cuts on a number of major games that are now in effect on Direct2Drive, Steam and other sites. These include Medal of Honor ($39.99), Mafia 2 ($29.99) R.U.S.E. ($29.99) Borderlands Game of the Year Edition, ($29.95) and Splinter Cell Conviction ($19.95).

There's just a couple of days left before Steam ends its massive annual holiday sale event. Remember that nearly every game is on sale on the download site to some degree and that even more savings can be found with special publisher bundles. From now until 1 pm Sunday you can get the following PC games with even deeper price cuts.

Company of Heroes series - Save 75 percent off all games in series
Football Manager 2011 - $26.79
Zeno Clash - $3.75
Medal of Honor - $29.99
Swarm Arena - $2.50
Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga - $19.99
Half-Life series - Save 75 percent off all games in series or 85 percent if you own Left 4 Dead 1 or Left 4 Dead 2.
The Settlers 7 - $24.99
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity - $2.50
Bionic Commando Pack (Bionic Commando/Bionic Commando Rearmed) - $12.49
Mafia 2 - $12.49

It's the start of a new work week which means there's some more one day PC game sales to check out before they expire. This week Direct2Drive has a new Electronic Arts-published game on sale every day on its site.

• Direct2Drive begins its EA week by putting the recent shooter Medal of Honor on sale for $29.95 for today only, a 50 percent price cut from its normal price.
• Over at the Impulse web site it has put the strategy game Civilization IV on sale for just $4.99, a 75 percent price cut.
• Finally the GamersGate web site has cut the price of the tactical action game 7.62 High Calibre on sale for a mere $3.99, an 80 percent price cut.

GameStop managed to post higher revenues for its latest financial quarter. The game-based retailer recorded $1.90 billion in revenues for the quarter that ended on October 30, compared to $1.83 billion in revenues for the same period a year ago. Net profits for the quarter came in at $54.7 million, slightly higher than the $52.2 million in profit that was recorded by GameStop a year ago.

Among the five best selling games at GameStop in the last quarter were Fallout New Vegas and Medal of Honor. GameStop has also raised its per share guidence for its full fiscal year to $2.63 and $2.69 a share.

Even though Electronic Arts seems to admit that Medal of Honor's relaunch had its issues, the military shooter game also seems to have done OK in terms of sales. In its financial press release today EA said the game has sold 2 million copies during the game's first two weeks of release (it shipped out on October 12).

During the publisher's quarterly conference call with financial analysts (You can listen to the repeat at EA's financial site). EA's CEO John Riccitello took some issue with some of the game's mediocre review scores from critics, stating that the scores "come from an exceptionally narrow demographic of reviewers which is offset by the amount of people buying the game." He added that Medal of Honor's sales have exceeded the publisher's expectations and "it's a franchise we can successfully continue in the future."

Hot off the heels of the game's new PC multiplayer patch, Electronic Arts has now released the Hot Zone DLC pach for its first person shooter Medal of Honor. The Hot Zone DLC package costs $9.99 and can be purchased at EA's online store.

As previously reported the DLC adds two new maps (Hindukush Pass and Korengal Outpost) along with two redesigned maps for the new Hot Zone multiplayer mode which is basically a "King of the Hill" mode for the game. The DLC also unlocks all of the multiplayer weapons and mods for the game. EA is also supposed to release the free Clean Sweep DLC mod for the game today that adds yet another gameplay mode, two more new maps and two more redesigned maps.

In related news, Eurogamer's new Q&A with EA's Patrick Soderlund asks him about the critical reception of Medal of Honor. While he feels, "The game is better than today's reviews are indicating," he does admit, "the game didn't meet our quality expectations. In order to be successful in that space, we're going to have to have a game that is really, really strong." He would not comment on which developer would be making the next Medal of Honor game nor what the game's single player developer Danger Close is working on next although he did say, "Absolutely they're working on something."

Gallery: Medal of Honor

This manual patch for Medal of Honor installs the R7 update, which prepares the game for the upcoming Clean Sweep and Hot Zone DLC expansions. It also includes a number of multiplayer gameplay fixes and enhancements. A full list of changes can be found after the jump.

Download Medal of Honor Patch R7 (440 MB)
Check out all Medal of Honor downloads

Halloween is a time for people to indulge their inner dark side and play the role of the villain instead of the hero. In celebration of this year, we take a special look at the real power behind the masterminds looking to gain global dominance. No leader is complete without an army of minions to boss around, but which ones are best suited to planetary conquest? We take a careful look at video gaming's most popular fodder to help determine what forces work best for a plot to take over the world. Continue reading after the jump to find out which minions will do your bidding best!