strategy-first posts

March ends with a bang with a ton of major gaming news today; some good, some bad. Tomorrow we will get hit with a bunch of non-news thanks to April Fool's Day. We will post some of it on this site but we will be very careful to label them as April Fool's jokes (in fact it looks like a couple of web sites have started already; no names).

BTW, should be be scared that Steam hasn't held a big mid week or weekend PC game sale like it usually does? Just saying.

• Steam has a small automatic update for Shattered Horizon.
• The soon-to-be-owned-by-GameStop Impulse has posted its weekend PC game sales deals.
• Strategy First will donate 20 percent of proceeds from its online store to the Red Cross from now until April 11.
• Ubisoft is trying to stop THQ from poaching its game developers from its Montreal offices.
• Finally let's remember that Company of Heroes Online will be shut down for good in a few hours.

GoG.com's latest addition to its DRM-free PC game download site is the Pinball Gold Pack, a collection of five PC pinball games from the early 1990s. Some of the pinball games in the pack come from none other than Battlefield developers Digital Illusions in some of the studio's first ever games. You can purchase and download the Pinball Gold Pack for $9.99.

In other GoG.com news, you may have taken advantage of the site's last weekend sale where it marked down some games from publisher Strategy First by 50 percent. Well as it turns out you now have plenty of time to get those games for the lower price. GoG.com has decided to make the weekend price cuts on the game (Jagged Alliance, Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games, Disciples: Sacred Lands Gold and Port Royale 2) permanent.

As part of its 14 day holiday promotion, the PC download site GoG.com has just launched its second annual screenshot scavenger hunt contest. Starting today and for the next three days the site will replace one screenshot on 5 different gamercards with a holiday-themed screenshot. That's 20 screenshots in total.

That actually sounds fun all by itself but there's more. If you find all 20 screenshots you can email GoG.com with the games that had their screenshots replaced. The correct entries will be put into a drawing. The grand prize winner will get the entire GoG.com games catalog from three of five of GoG.com's publishers (Annuman Interactive, Atari, Rebellion, Strategy First, or Ubisoft). That means the grand prize winner will get over 40 of GoG.com's games for free.

While the DRM-free PC game web site GoG.com isn't apparently offering a new game on its site this week there are a couple of cool things happening today. For all users there's a new sale of games from the Strategy First library of titles. There are 18 games on sale. If you buy select games you get 30 percent off but if you get all 18 you get 50 percent off.

But that's not all. Remember how GoG.com basically lied to everyone last month when it looked like the site was shutting down before being relaunched a few days later? Well it looks like it's trying to make it up to everyone who was using the site before the "shut down". Everyone who was a registered member of GoG.com during the site's beta phase until its relaunch on September 20 will be getting the turn-based strategy game Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games for free. The game will be added automatically to those user's accounts in the next few days.

For a little while now we have been following the development saga of Darkstar, an independently-made full motion video action adventure game that's been in development for 10 years. The game from developer Parallax Studio (not related to the folks that made the original Descent game) is notable for having actors from the cult hit TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000 playing some of the roles.

This morning the game's developers finally announced, via a YouTube traler, that Darkstar actually has a release date. In fact it has two release dates. On November 5, the game will be released via digital download with Strategy First handling the publishing. It will also be available in a box copy in mail order on the game's official web site and Amazon.com. Pricing will be $29.95. On February 14, 2011 the game heads to retail stores. Will it be worth the wait? You can check out the release date announcement trailer after the jump:

This is the playable demo for Razor2: Hidden Skies, a top down action shooting game. Continue reading after the jump for system requirements.

"Razor2: Hidden Skies is a top view shooter. The game has the style of successful classic arcade games, while using the latest technology to create great visuals and effects. An old-school game with all new technology. Razor2 has easy gameplay, while challenging your skills with hundreds of enemies and bullets threatening you all the time. The soundtrack is another great feature, Razor2 uses classic orchestrated music, composed especially for the game."

Download Razor2: Hidden Skies Demo (153 MB)

The Disciples series has been missing in action for a while now. The last entry in the series was Rise of the Elves in 2003, with all releases after that being various "gold editions" and such. Thankfully, the series is returning with Disciples III this July, and it looks to be quite the grand return, if this trailer is any indication. It brings back memories of both Heroes of Might and Magic and Disciples II, and that makes us positively tingly with joy.

Download HD Disciples III Teaser Trailer (170MB)
Check out all Disciples III downloads

On Monday we reported that Kalypso Media had taken over the publishing duties of Disciples 3 from its former publisher Strategy First. Today another Strategy First owned game, Jagged Alliance 3, also has a new owner in BitComposer Games. Indeed BitComposer claims they now own the full Jagged Alliance IP aside from a social networking-based game that's currently under development at Strategy First. Financial terms were not disclosed

BitComposer claims they are aiming for a 2011 release date for Jagged Alliance 3, a game that's been in development off and on for the past several years with a number of developers. The Jagged Alliance series is a turn-based strategy game with modern day mercenaries who complete missions and take down enemies such as military dictators. BitComposer says that for Jagged Alliance 3 they want to "preserve the popular basic concept of the previous versions and place it in a contemporary setting."

The Disciples turn based strategy series now has a new publisher. Today Kalypso Media announced that they would be taking on the North American, Western Europe and Asia Paciific publishing duties for Disciples III: Renaissance. The game itself is being developed by Russia-based Akella. The first two games in the series were developed and published by Strategy First but the third game has been in development for the past several years.

The game itself, due for release for the PC later this summer, will have three playable races (The Empire, the Legions of the Damned and the Elven Alliance), a customizable hero system and more.

[Via email press release]

Steam is continuing to sneak in some sales and some pre-orders this week. In terms of price cuts, Steam users can get 10 percent off the just released first person shooter Darkest of Days until September 15. Also the upcoming Popcap casual game Zuma's Revenge, due out on September 15, has a 10 percent discount of its own until its release.

Also on sale until tomorrow is the recently zombie shooter Nations Red for 25 percent off its normal price. If you buy the game via Steam you also get an exclusive level and two unique weapons. Also a new Strategy First game collection containing 29 titles is on sale for a mere $49.99. Finally the upcoming fantasy RPG Time of Shadows, due out on September 11, has a 10 percent price cut on its pre-order.