southpeak-games posts

Publisher Southpeak Games has announced that it has settled a dispute that came up in November 2010 with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. At that time the company announced that the SEC had tried to file a to issue a cease and desist order against Southpeak, alleging that the company violated the SEC's rules for revealing company details in Southpeak's first quarter 2009 financial report."

This week the company announced that it has reached a settlement with the SEC with its CEO Melanie Mroz stating that in the end it felt that it was best, " ... to negotiate an acceptable settlement that does not require us to admit any wrong-doing and close this chapter as we constantly strive to improve our processes, systems and personnel to meet our obligations as a public company."

At the moment the only announced game that is due out from Southpeak Games is the PC exclusive RTS game Stronghold 3.

While the PC port of the fantasy RPG Two Worlds II has been on sale for the past several weeks via digital download sites, the retail Royal Version of the game has been greatly delayed. Today the game's US co-publisher TopWare announced that limited quanities of the Royal Edition are now available at GameStop.

The $79.99 edition, which has both PC and Mac builds of the game, includes a number of extras including an art book, a Dragon Queen statuette, a deck of playing cards, a mouse pad, a map of the game's land as a poster, five codes for exclusive in-game items, and a bonus DVD with music tracks, trailers for the game and a special trial version of the upcoming game Battle Vs Chess.

This is the playable demo for nail'd, the pulse pounding off-road stunt racing game with an awesome soundtrack that includes bands such as Deftones, Fear Factory, Hatebreed or Static X. The demo includes two tracks from the full game. System requirements are shown after the jump.

Download nail'd demo (304 MB)
Check out all nail'd downloads

Southpeak Games managed to sneak in its latest financial results late last week for the quarter that ended on December 31, 2010. For the time period the game publisher brought in revenues of $7.5 million compared to $10.1 million for the same period a year ago. The company recorded a let loss of $2.1 million for the quarter compared to a loss of $2.6 million for the same period a year ago.

In the press release, Southpeak stated that it has a "substantial investment" in the success of the fantasy RPG Two Worlds II which it co-published here in the US with TopWare. The release of that game, however, does not figure into the financial results it published last week. At the moment the only upcoming game that Southpeak has announced officially is the PC exclusive RTS title Stronghold 3 which is due out this spring.

This patch updates Two Worlds II from v1.0 to 1.2 and includes a number of gameplay fixes and balance changes. The patch is available for both the PC and Mac releases. Continue reading after the jump for a full list of changes.

"After the downfall of Aziraal, God of Fire, the Dark Lord Gandohar has nearly achieved his objective to disrupt the balance between the elements. Dark magic surges into the land to fill the void. Recognizing the potential for complete control over the dark powers, Gandohar starts to use the power of Aziraal trap within Kyra, the descendant of the Orphans. Despite her ancestry, Kyra cannot endure the strain. With Antaloor already in his clutches, Gandohar concocts a new plan from his stronghold in Oswaroth. There are still those who struggle against the tyrant, hoping to shift the balance of forces in their favor. The fight for Antaloor continues..."

Download Two Worlds II v1.2 Patch (86 MB)
Download Two Worlds II v1.2 Mac OS Patch (33 MB)
Check out all Two Worlds II Downloads

The fantasy RPG sequel Two Worlds II has been released in parts of Europe for a while now but it will finally be released in the US soon. The game was originally set for release this week but today its co-publisher Topware announced it will finally be released in the US on February 4.

In the same press release, Topware announced that a limited Royal Edition of the game is now available for pre-order. The PC/Mac Royal Edition is apparently only accessible at Amazon.com where it shows only two copies are avaialble. The $79.99 Royal Edition includes the Reality Pump-developed game along with extras like a Dragon Queen statuette, a behind-the-scenes DVD, a double sided poster with a map of the game's fantasy world, an exclusive art book, playig cards and exclusive in-game weapons and items.

Two Worlds II, already released in parts of Europe last fall, is finally scheduled to show up for the US market in early February. In the first video developer diary released by its US publisher Southpeak Games, Scott Cromie, the creative director of the game's co-publisher TopWare Interactive talks about some of the game's new features compared to the original title.

Those features include the improved graphical engine which Cromie claims shows off the best visuals no matter which platform the game is made for. Players can also dismantle weapons in the game to upgrade equipment and the spell system can now be customized to make over 1 million potential spells available.

Download the Two Worlds II Developer Diary 1 trailer at Big Download

It's been a while since developer Firefly Studios has released an all-new retail commercial game in its multi-million unit selling Stronghold series of historical RTS game. But 2011 will feature the return of the series with Stronghold 3 which once again will blend the gameplay of a sim title as you build your castle and village with RTS elements as you have to defend your creation against outside forces.

Big Download got Firefly's lead designer on Stronghold 3, Simon Bradbury, to tell us more about the game. He also updates us on other projects like its recently launched free-to-play browser game Stronghold Kingdoms and a tiny update on their long-in-development fantasy action-RPG Dungeon Hero.

While Two Worlds II has yet to be released here in the US, folks in Europe who have already bought the Reality Pump-developed fantasy RPG can now download files that will add native Mac support for people who purchased the Royal and Premium Edition of the game.

Owners of the game will have to put in the game's serial number and the included bonus code in order to download the Mac game files. The PC version must be in the PC's disk drive during the installation of the Mac files. The Mac retail version goes on sale on January 25 which is also the date that the game is released in the US.

Gallery: Two Worlds II

Earlier this fall, the fantasy RPG sequel Two Worlds II got a last minute delay here in the US to January 2011. Today the game's main publisher TopWare Interactive announced that the game from developer Reality Pump Studios now has a more specific January 25 release date for the US and UK.

Two Worlds II has already been released in other parts of Europe and today TopWare stated that the game has already sold one million units in its first three weeks of release. Southpeak Games will still be the game's distributor here in the US but TopWare will take over the game's release in the UK and Ireland.

[Via email press release]