terminator-salvation posts

GoGamer.com always has a ton of PC games ready to unload at sale prices during their 48 Hour Madness periods. This one is no exception and ends at 3 am Eastern Time on Friday. For example you can get the boxed PC copy of Wolfenstein for just $24.90 (compare that price to getting game via download for its full $49.99 price).

Other sales include the PC port of X-Men Origins Wolverine for just $14.90, Wanted: Weapons of Fate for $19.90, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood for $24.90 and the recently released PC game adaptation of Terminator: Salvation for a mere $9.90. Ouch.

"When one door closes, a window sometimes opens." That old saying could be used to describe the formation of Outbreak Studios, a newly launched game development team made up mostly of old members of GRIN, the Stockholm-based team that officially shut their doors today.

About 25 folks comprise the Outbreak team including Peter Bjorklund, the lead programmer for Terminator Salvation. He previously worked at Digital Illusions where he helped to create the engine that was used for, among other games, Battlefield 2. There's no word on what projects they will be coming up with but the company's web site did say they want to develop titles for Games For Windows Live, among other platforms. That makes it clear that Outbreak won't be just a console dev house.

Even with the release of three major games in the space of a few months this year, the Stockholm-based game developer GRIN could not stave off extinction. Today the company's official web site has now admitted it will close its doors after shutting down two of its satellite development teams earlier this year.

In its farewell message, GRIN blamed unarmed publishers it worked with for its demise saying, " . . . many publishers have been delaying their payments, causing an unbearable cashflow situation." It doesn't look like one of those publishers is Capcom; the company's two founders Bo and Ulf Andersson thanked the publisher of their Bionic Commando game "for being honest, a rare gift" in their farewell message. GRIN also had two other games come out this year; Wanted: Weapons of Fate (from Universal's interactive division) and Terminator Salvation (from Evolved Games).

GRIN released a couple of smaller PC games in the early part of this decade; the futuristic racer Ballistics and the post apocalyptic racer Bandits. Later Ubisoft hired GRIN to create the two PC ports for the Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter series before they were signed to multiple console-PC products. In their farewell message, GRIN's founder makes mention of "our unreleased masterpiece that we weren't allowed to finish" indicating they were indeed working on a new game project before their shut down.

It's been a couple of months since rumors started to fly about major issues with game developer GRIN. Despite releasing three games in the space of just a few months earlier this year (Wanted: Weapons of Fate, Bionic Commando and Terminator Salvation) the company reportedly shut down two of its satellite dev studios late in May.

Now Gamasutra is reporting through unnamed sources that GRIN's central office in Stockholm, Sweden could be going under as well. The reports claims that employees of the office were told not to show up for work today and it's possible that the company is preparing to go into bankruptcy or shut down completely. This news comes on the heels of this morning's announcement of Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West. Developed by Stockholm-based Fatshark, the company has GRIN as a stakeholder and used GRIN's engine as the basis for the game.

It's Friday and while some are working for the weekend, some of us are also working to find new PC game sales deals and then reveal those price reductions to you. Our favorite retail gaming site GoGamer.com has their usual massive price cuts on a number of older and more recent PC games. The prices stick around until 3 am ET on Tuesday.

Among the games on sale are Mirror's Edge for $5.90, the original ArmA: Armed Assault for $9.90 and Enemy Territory: Quake Wars for $4.90. More recent games are also on sale like Terminator: Salvation for $27.90 and X-Blades for $17.90.

GoGamer.com has launched their latest 48 Hour Madness sale on their site and this time the PC game sales are mostly of recently released titles rather than those that are several years old. Indeed the sale includes the just released Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen game which is priced at just $19.99 for the sales time period.

Also cut in price is Spore Galactic Adventures, the first real expansion pack for the alien evolution sim. GoGamer has the title available for $24.90. Other games with price cuts include Fallout 3 ($32.90) Grand Ages: Rome ($12.90) and Terminator: Salvation ($24.90). The sale lasts until 3 am ET on Tuesday.

Yep, you guessed it; the retail site GoGamer.com has a new 48 Hour Madness sale going on. From now until 3 am ET on Saturday they have a number of PC game titles that have had their prices cut. Among them is the just released PC ports of Terminator: Salvation and Prototype which can now be purchased for just $34.90 each , a 30 percent cut from their normal prices.

Othe games on sale during the new 48 Hour Madness event include War Front: Turning Point for $4.90, Ground Control 2 for $7.90, Kane and Lynch: Dead Men for $5.90, and Act of War: Direct Action for just $1.90.

We've been following the . . . interesting way the PC port of Terminator: Salvation has been sent out to retail stores. It was quickly discovered that the retail version of the movie-based action game had an installation bug that was basically a show stopper.

Publisher Evolved Games, to their credit, quickly announced that those copies of the game would be recalled and that folks who already bought the game would get a replacement copy. Now it appears that Evolved Games is trying again as Gamestop has posted up word on their retail web site that Terminator: Salvation will ship (again) for the PC on June 5. Let's hope they got things right this time.

They seemed to be one of the most successful independent game developers around. Now rumors have hit the Interwebs that European based developer GRIN has been hit with mass layoffs, which might include the shut down of two of its development teams.

Kotaku is reporting through unnamed but "multiple sources" that between 100 and 160 GRIN team members are affected by the layoffs. In addition two of the company's development teams (one in Barcelona, Spain and the other in Gothenburg, Sweden) will be shut down, according to the report. In addition the company's headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden have alledgedly let go of 30 team members.

GRIN has released three games inside of three months; the movie based Wanted: Weapons of Fate (released in late March) and two games this month; Terminator Salvation and the console versions of Bionic Commando (the PC version is scheduled for July).

Gallery: Wanted: Weapons of Fate

Gallery: Bionic Commando Screenshots

Gallery: Terminator Salvation

It's one of the bigger blunders in recent PC game release history. Retail copies of the movie adaptation of Terminator: Salvation had a show-stopping bug that prevented the game from being installed. The game's publisher Evolved Games has already stated they are recalling the unsold defective copies from store shelves with replacement (and presumably working) copies shipping in a few days.

But, you may ask, what about all those folks who have already gotten their defective copies of the game? Evolved has set up a support page on their web site with a toll free number people affected by this issue can call. They state, "They will coordinate the replacement and make sure everyone that was affected by the defective disc is taken care of." Again this is just for the PC retail game version; this install bug has apparently not been an issue for downloadable versions of the game via Steam or Direct2Drive.