strategy-first posts

It's the middle of the week but do you know what we would say to that? We would say, "It's the middle of the week but we can still find some PC game sales." Yep, that's what we would say. We are pathetic.

Over at Steam they have another of their truly massive sales going on. They have put all of their titles from publisher Strategy First on sale for 50 percent off their normal price from now until September 7. That includes games like the first Flatout and Space Empires 4 and 5.

Meanwhile Direct2Drive has put F.E.A.R. 2 on sale for just $24.95 for the next week. You also have a chance to win a lifetime subscription to Champions Online if you get the game from them before September 7. Finally they have cut the prices permanently on a number of titles.

The July 4 weekend is just a few days away and it looks like some downloadable PC game sites are getting a head-start on offering deals from their library of titles. Impulse has put several of their games on sale for the holiday period including a Sins of the Solar Empire bundle (with the original space strategy game and its mini-expansion Entrenchment) for $29.99. It has also put all of the Unreal franchise games on sale for 25 percent off.


Meanwhile Strategy First has put all of their games on sale for 50 percent off at their online store. This includes their "Take No Prisoners" bundle which has a whopping 20 games. During the sale you can get the bundle for a mere $34.99. The sale lasts until July 12.

Update: GamersGate has annouced they will put one game on sale on their site every day in July for at least 50 percent off. Here is the list of games for the first week:

July 1: Buccaneer: The Pursuit of Infamy - 75 percent
July 2: X-Com Complete - 50 percent
July 3: Atlantis Collection - 50 percent
July 4: Men of War - 60 percent
July 5: Arena Wars Reloaded - 50 percent
July 6: Painkiller Universe - 50 percent
July 7: Civilization IV: Colonization - 50 percent

As we reported a few days ago, Steam has now added a number of library titles from publisher Bethesda Softworks to their line-up of downloadable PC games today.Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, the two acclaimed open world fantasy RPG titles and the first person horror action-adventure game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth are currently available for 20 percent off their usual Steam prices for one week.

Steam has also added four Strategy First games (Ankh 2 - Heart of Osiris, Ankh 3 - Battle of the Gods, BC Kings and Port Royale 2) with all four also available for 20 percent off their normal prices for a week. Two recent Atari games, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena and Ghostbusters, are also available via Steam today but no discounts for them.

Over at Stardock's Impulse site they have added three Ubisoft games (Assassin's Creed, Far Cry 2 and Heroes of Might & Magic V: Tribes of the East) to their library and are currently on sale for 10 percent off their normal price.

Do you like saving money? Of course you do. Even if we were not in the worst economic situation in 80 years, saving money is always the way to go. Web sites are now posting up their weekend sales deals for PC game titles so now you can have a chance to keep a few dollars in your pocket.

• GoGamer.com's 48 hour madness sale has quite a few PC games with slashed prices this weekend, including Painkiller Overdose for just $7.90 and the first DiRT game for just $4.90.
• Over at the downloadable game site Gamersgate they have MotoGP 08 for just $9.99 and 1701 AD Gold Edition for just $14.99.
• The Impulse web site has several deals including Age of Booty for just $4.99.
• The GameTap web site has added Infernal for free play for now until Thursday.
• Mesmer Games has Stalin Vs. Martians on sale for $7.99 this weekend.
• GoG.com has put Sacred Gold and DarkStar One on sale for 25 percent off its normal price this weekend.
• Finally the Strategy First site has posted up word that their online store is offering a "Buy 2 games, get a third free" deal.

It looks like efforts to keep UK-based Empire Interactive going have been to no avail. Gamesindustry.biz is reporting that company has now gone into administration (the UK's term for bankruptcy) with 49 people laid off as a result.

Rights to properties owned by Empire Interactive have apparently been sold to a US-based company, New World IP, for an undisclosed sum. The company itself will not be sold off and six remaining staff members will work with the group handing the administration to shut down Empire's operations. Empire Interactive was owned by Silverstar Holdings which also owns the PC game publisher Strategy First.

Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!

When it comes to X-COM: UFO Defense, there have only been two games that have ever truly captured the feel of top-level strategy with bottom-level tactics. The first is X-COM: Apocalypse, which was the only other X-COM game to be made by the original team. The second is Jagged Alliance 2, which was made by a completely different team for a completely different company. Where X-COM is about alien invasions, Jagged Alliance is about private military contractors. They could not be more thematically different. And yet, when you begin to play, you realize that, like X-COM, Jagged Alliance 2 is a truly incredible game that all strategy fans should play.

UK-based Empire Interactive has been dealing with some poor financial results for the past few years, even before the recent economic downturn. Now it appears that time may have run out for the once major game publisher. According to a story at MCV the company went into admistration this week after offers to buy out the company fell through. An official announcement on Empire's fate is expected on Monday

In the past few years Empire's biggest selling games have been the FlatOut series of arcade racing games. Empire itself is owned by Silverstar Holdings which also owns the PC game publisher Strategy First. Last March Silverstar was delisted from trading from the NASDAQ stock market. It's currently unknown if Empire's shut down will have any effects on Silverstar or Strategy First.

[Via Blue's News]

Steam users are used to game sales but this week's new event is bigger than most. Starting today and running through April 14, all of the games from publisher Strategy First that are offered via Steam are on sale for 50 percent off their normal price. For a few games such as Alien Shooter Vengeance and Vegas Make It Big their individual price has gone down to just $2.49 during this time period.

But why stop there? Steam is also offering the entire catalog of Strategy First games in one 26 game bundle for just $74.99. That's a savings of over $100 off the price of the games if they were bought individually. Again the bundle sale ends on April 14.

If you are a person like us who gets money from family and friends as our Christmas gift, then you can use that new cash to purchase some cheap games. Strategy First is making that easy with a new holiday deal on their online downloadable store. Every game that's available to download and purchase is now priced at 50 percent off their previous price.

This discount is available until January 11 so you should have plenty of time to make your purchase decisions. An even bigger savings is found in the Take No Prisoners collection which has 20 games that can be bought together for one low price of $69.99.

We've been following the development of Perimeter 2 for some time now and this week we learned that Strategy First has landed the US publishing rights to the sci-fi RTS sequel. The game will be released on January 10 by the publisher and will be priced at $29.99 in both boxed and download versions.

Developed once again by KDV Games, Perimeter 2 continues the wild gameplay element of units that morph and even merge to become new larger units along with deformation of the game's level terrain. New RPG-lite elements have also been added to the sequel. It should be interesting to see if Perimeter 2 gets more of a mainstream audience than the original who perhaps wasn't used to the first game's unique features.