plants-vs-zombies-game-of-the-year-edition posts

You now have less that 24 hours before the third annual Steam holiday sale ends. That means you will have less than a day to take advantage of the price cuts that are available on nearly all PC games on the service. It also means that you have until 1 pm Eastern time until these extra-special price cuts (all repeats of previous one-day sales) expire:

Neverwinter Nights 2 Platinum - $9.99
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl/Call of Pripyat bundle - $4.99
Left 4 Dead 2 - $6.80
Grand Theft Auto IV + Episodes from Liberty City - $9.99
Empire/Napoleon Total War Game of the Year Edition - $24.99
The Hitman Collection - $7.49 for three-game bundle (Hitman: Codename 47, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Hitman Blood Money)
Mafia 2 - $12.49
Dead Space - $6.80
Plants Vs Zombies Game of the Year Edition - $3.99
Amnesia The Dark Descent - $6.80
Need For Speed Hot Pursuit - $29.99
Killing Floor Complete Pack - $4.99

The Steam PC game download site continues to willingly give out some huge one-day price cuts on top of the sales that are already in place as part of its annual holiday sales event. Here's the latest list of games with price cuts that will last until 1 pm Eastern time on Thursday:

Dead Space - $6.80
Plants Vs Zombies Game of the Year Edition - $4
Swords and Soldiers - $2.50
Kane and Lynch 2 - $4.99
Brothers In Arms series - Save 50 percent off all games in series
Hearts of Iron III Complete Pack (game plus all DLC) - $14.10
City of Heroes Going Rogue Complete Collection - $10
Greed Corp - $2.50
The Quake Collection (all games in series except Quake IV and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars) - $10.20
Sniper Ghost Warrior - $7.50
The Ball - $4.99
Amnesia The Dark Descent - $6.80 or $4.80 if you own any game in the Penumbra series.

Once again we will still be updating and posting news and some cool features throughout the next 10 days or so while other sites will shut down completely. However it looks like news from now until January 3 will finally be on the slow side. So if you don't see a news post every hour on the hour you will know what happened :)

• There's a new Natural Selection 2 beta patch available to download on Steam.
• Steam has new automatic updates for Team Fortress 2, King's Bounty Crossworlds, Pirates, Vikings and Knights II, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee, and Plants Vs Zombies Game of the Year Edition.
• The StarCraft II web site has some more "lost transmissions" to check out.
• Sign ups for beta testing for the upcoming Everquest II expansion Destiny of Velious have started.
• Yes, the Interplay-Bethesda Softworks Fallout court battle is still going on.
• The Desura PC game and PC game mod download service is officially out of beta.

Tomorrow Need For Speed Hot Pursuit is released. Thanks to the pre-release reviews praising this game we can't wait to get our hands on the PC port. Running down and crashing racers in million dollar police sports cars is pretty much the perfect game for us.

• New Steam bug fix updates for Plants Vs Zombies Game of the Year Edition, Sol Survivor and Supreme Commander 2 have been released.
• Steam also has all four of the Borderlands DLC releases in one bundle for the price of $29.99.
• Telltale Games has launched a free Back to the Future Facebook game, Blitz Through Time.
• Check out some very brief footage from the now canceled Mercenaries 3. It's not that exciting
• Someone found an Easter Egg while playing the Nuketown level in Call of Duty Black Ops. Again, it's not that exciting.
• Direct2Drive has Manhunt 2 on sale for today online for just $4.95.

Not to be outdone by GamersGate, the Impulse download site is now offering up its own Halloween-based PC game download sale with price cuts on a number of scary and semi-scary games. Many of the games on sale have had their prices cut by as much as 50 percent off.

Among the games on sale this week include the recent Haunted House remake for just $9.99, the Penumbra Collection for $10, Amnesia: The Dark Descent for $9.99. Plants Vs Zombies Game of the Year Edition for $7.49, Dead Space for $9.99, and the not-very-scary game Sins of a Solar Empire for $8.95.

Another busy day brings the work week to a close. Next week is the Tokyo Game Show which should have a couple of PC game-related announcements even though its mostly a console-based show.

• This week's Left 4 Dead 2 Mutation gameplay mode is a repeat of Follow The Lifer.
• Steam bug patches are now available for Plants vs Zombies: Game of the Year Edition, Team Fortress 2, and Worms Reloaded.
• Minecraft and its server also has a new update via its auto-updater.
• Just a reminder: The official StarCraft II custom map contest closes for entry on Saturday.

It's going to be a big day tomorrow. Irrational will finally reveal its next game and id might make one or more announcements at QuakeCon 2010. We have our coffee ready.

• id Software's John Carmack says the next Doom game "shouldn't take as long to ship as Rage." Since the next Doom game was announced over two years ago id had better hustle up.
• Carmack has also found out about Twitter. An example post: "AV output on ios devices is giving me some grief." That's pure Carmack speak.
  
• Impulse has just added Plants Vs Zombies Game of the Year Edition to its line-up.
• Pre-order HAWX 2 via Steam and you get Blazing Angels 2 (a $19.99 value) for free.
• Pre-order Kane and Lynch 2 via Direct2Drive and you get Deus Ex Game of the Year for free.
• New Steam updates are available for Killing Floor and Counter-Strike Source Beta.
• Another Elemental dev journal entry has been released.
• A new hero for Heroes of Newerth has been revealed with the great name Flint Beastwood.
• Razer has announced a new (and very green) gaming headset called the Orca.

We are just a couple of days away from some interesting game announcements. Are you ready?

• Steam now has added the previously released Plants Vs Zombies Game of the Year Edition for PC and Mac to its library with additional Steam Cloud and Steam achievement support.
• In related news, Impulse has started adding titles from PopCap Games to its lineup
• Global Agenda is now on sale for 25 percent off.
• The free Moonbase Alpha game has a new bug patch update via Steam.
• The fantasy MMO game Alganon is moving to a free-to-play model starting on Friday.
• Double Fine reveals its upcoming downloadable game Costume Quest, except that there's no PC version mentioned. Ouch.
• Here are the currrent top 200 StarCraft II players online in North America. Fear them.

It looks like PopCap Games is wasting no time in getting the new Game of the Year version of Plants Vs Zombies to PC and Mac players. The game's official web site now has the new version of the popular tower defense game available for purchase and download for $19.99.

As we reported before the Game of the Year edition of the title has some extra features including 20 new achievements to, well, achieve. They have titles like "Explodonator" and "No Fungus Among Us." The biggest new feature is the Zombatar, the make-your-own-undead program that allows you to customize the zombie of your dreams and then see that zombie attempt to eat your back yard in the game.

[Thanks Mikhail]

Earlier this month we reported that Popcap Games will be releasing a PC/Mac "Game of the Year" edition of their tower defense game Plants Vs Zombies. At the time Popcap would not say specifically what new content will be added to the Game of the Year version but a recent visit to our local GameStop retail store had a pre-order mock-up of the game on display.

The mock-up stated that in addition to new achievements, the Game of the Year edition will allow players to create their own zombies and then see their custom undead creations in the game itself. GameStop is currently showing a release date of August 10 for Plants Vs Zombies Game of the Year.

One thing that won't be in the game is a zombie that looks like Michael Jackson. According to MTV Multiplayer, the Jackson estate frowned on having a "dancing zombie" that looked like an undead version of the late King of Pop in the original version of the game. Popcap, who clearly don't want to go through a costly legal battle, have issued a statement saying that the dancing zombie will be replaced with another version, saying, " The phase-out and replacement process is underway."