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PC Gaming is a News and downloads site for the
PC, We have all the latest emulators, homebrew and all the downloads on this site,
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We're going to make it rain bullets this weekend, playing through both Left 4 Dead 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, shooting (almost) everything in sight. It may the shootin'-est Saturday and Sunday ever!
Being a huge fan of the first Left 4 Dead, I'm dying to stop working and play the thing, kill me some Southern fried zombies. Of course, any questions you have that would like addressed in an upcoming review, let me know in the comments or shoot me an e-mail. The same for Modern Warfare 2, folks.
I'll probably have to brush up on my Call of Duty 4, just to make sure I'm remembering the multiplayer experience for proper comparison, but even I'm not sure I can take this much gunplay in a 48 hour period.
How about you? What's your game plan for the weekend?
During yesterday's Activision Blizzard investor conference, Blizzard chief Mike Morhaime said the next World of Warcraft update would be released "in the coming weeks".
VG247 heard the words, and got so excited they thought Morhaime was actually referring to next expansion pack Cataclysm. Bless.
However, we're pretty sure he means the update known as Patch 3.3, which is currently on WOW test servers. This update introduces three five-man dungeons and one 10 or 25-player raid within Icecrown Citadel, and allows players to fight the Wrath of the Lich King end boss, Arthas.
The patch will also introduce the new dungeon system, with cross-server grouping and other features that make it easier to find a party and more rewarding to run dungeons. There's also a quest-tracking feature allowing quest objectives to be tracked on the in-game map. For more info, we recommend that you check out WOW.com's patch guide.
As the final major update to the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, the imminent appearance of patch 3.3 raises questions about how soon we can expect to see Cataclysm. A release before the end of next year seemed unlikely, but Blizzard allowing WOW to go without major content updates for a whole 12 months would be unprecedented. Could Cataclysm be coming sooner than we thought?
features
Experience an all-new and exciting Clone Wars storyline that bridges the gap between season one and two of the TV series as you learn more about the mysterious bounty hunter Cad Bane and hunt down the all-new Skakoan super villain Kul Teska
Play as your favorite Jedi heroes including Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, Mace Windu, and Kit Fisto
Slice and dice your way through Separatist droids with your lightsaber and Force powers and use your agility to perform amazing leaps and navigate levels filled with interactivity
Turn your enemies into weapons as you commandeer droids and use their unique abilities to blast enemies and solve puzzles as a Jedi
Be part of an elite clone trooper squad with unique gameplay that puts firepower at your fingertips. Blast droids and unleash devastation with heavy weapons like rocket launchers and thermal detonators as Commander Cody, Captain Rex and all of your favorite clone troopers
Compete against a friend with in-level challenges for rewards and points to be spent to upgrade your character and unlock bonus items
description
Star Wars® The Clone Wars™: Republic Heroes™ lets Star Wars fans young and old live out the sweeping galactic adventures of the Clone Wars. For the first time ever, players can fight as their favorite Jedi and clone troopers from the preeminent animated television series — from familiar faces like Anakin Skywalker to new heroes like Clone Captain Rex. A brand-new storyline, which bridges the gap between season one and two, takes the player on a multi-faceted adventure to stop a mysterious techno assassin's destructive plot. Built around two-player cooperative action, the accessible controls and family-friendly gameplay bring Star Wars fans across generations together like never before to fight the evil Separatists and restore peace to the galaxy.
EA has announced a new endless free trail version of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, which will replace the 10 day time-limited demo players were previously able to try out.
As well as giving both new and returning game users the opportunity to play through more of the game, a new streaming client decreases the trial's download time - the initial download will be limited to 1GB, while additional content will stream in the background while playing.
Players will be able to create and play any of the game's 24 careers, progress to character level 10 within the tier one Empire vs Chaos zones of Nordland and Norsca, explore a newly added tier one dungeon, and battle other players in three instanced scenarios.
"With the introduction of the endless free trial and streaming client, we are making it easier than ever for a new player to join the WAR," said Jeff Hickman, executive producer at Mythic. "We've worked hard to create a more informative and community driven new user experience, and now we are giving players an unlimited amount of time to explore the early parts of the game at their own pace.
"We are confident that players new and old will find all the enhancements we've made to WAR over the past year worthy of their time and commitment."
Trial players will be introduced to the game through a New User Journey, featuring enhanced tutorials and community elements such as a 'new player' guild. The trial is available to download from today.
Warhammer Online was launched in September 2008. Earlier this year, figures showed that the numbers of subscribers to the game had dropped from 750,000 the month after launch, to 300,000. However Mythic has defended its subscriber numbers, saying it's "super proud" of those that have been achieved.
While the worst of it seems to be behind us, 2009 will still be remembered as the year of the global economic crisis. And when people are in times of economic crisis, well, they buy less video games.
A joint report issued by Enterbrain, the NPD Group and GfK Chart-Track has revealed that video game sales across the world's three largest markets (the US, Japan & UK) are down 6% in 2009's third quarter compared to the same time last year.
The breakdown? Sales are down 9% in the US, and a whopping 19% in the United Kingdom. Japan, however, bucks the trend, with game sales up 15% year-on-year. Thanks, Dragon Quest IX!
Trials developer RedLynx has admitted that in order to market its PC title it leaked it to torrent sites for pirates on the same day it was released to paying consumers.
The pirated version of the game does not include support for leaderboards, said company CEO Tero Virtala, a crucial feature that is the "soul" of the game. Without it, he hoped users of the hacked version would want to upgrade to the legitimate copy once they began enjoying the game.
"Piracy is here, so how can we take advantage of that? What we did actually, on day one, we put that game immediately on all the torrent networks ourselves," revealed Virtala, during a panel discussion at Develop Liverpool yesterday.
"That game relies really heavily on the server side – the leaderboards are the soul of the game. I don't know if it's helped, I'd assume so because even though the version that we put on the torrent networks wasn't the full version, it's the version of the game without the actual soul, without the leaderboards to play against other players."
Virtala said that the game has sold close to 150,000 copies since it was launched 18 months ago. "When we compare that hacked version with those who have access to leaderboards and are accessing our servers they match. So at least people have not cracked out leaderboards yet," he added.
During the same discussion, Torsten Reil of NaturalMotion expressed his frustrations at the amount of piracy for the company's iPhone title Backbreaker – despite the game being sold at the lowest possible price point on Apple's App Store.
"We know anecdotally that even at 59p a lot of people have pirated the game," he said. "At 59p it's pretty fair to assume that a lot of those pirates would have been able and would have bought the game, but there's an overall attitude that it's fine to pirate."
While technology can be employed to hinder piracy of games on all formats, Reil said that it's just as important to try and change the attitude that content should be free for consumers.
"There is in general a feeling that IP and content should be free. That's fine to say, but if you have to pay all the people that actually put their heart and soul into a game – who have to pay a mortgage off and have children – it becomes much more difficult. Yes, you can limit [piracy] with technical tricks, but there needs to be an overall change in the perception of IP and the people who create it."
Sony's PSPgo sold 29,000 units in its first week on sale in Japan to push the PlayStation Portable platform above its rivals, according to the latest sales data from Media Create for the week ending November 1.
Combined with other PSP sales the Sony handheld shifter just over 64,000 units in that week, ahead of the Nintendo DS on 44,400 - with the latter breaking the 3 million barrier for calendar 2009.
The PlayStation 3 meanwhile sold 36,000 units, the Wii 29,000 and the Xbox 360 6000 in a week which saw most platforms increase their numbers.
However, if platform types were split out into their editions, the Nintendo DSi would sit top with 37,500 in sales, ahead of the PS3 and PSP, with the PSPgo fourth and Wii fifth.
The full list is as follows:
1. PlayStation Portable: 64,020
2. Nintendo DS: 44,419
3. PlayStation 3: 36,061
4. Nintendo Wii: 28,888
5. Xbox 360: 6047
6. PlayStation 2: 1966
Unit sales soar though revenues fail to keep up
Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows 7, has surpassed launch window sales of Vista by 234 per cent in the US, according to new research.
But analyst group NPD also revealed that Microsoft’s revenues from the W7 launch wasn’t close to equalling the success of its unit sales.
Early discounts and a lack of promotion for W7 Ultimate Edition meant that launch revenues were still up on Vista’s – by 82 per cent in fact – though ultimately far below what unit sales would suggest.
“Microsoft’s program of early low-cost pre-sales, high visibility marketing, and aggressive deals helped make the Windows 7 software launch successful,” said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD.
“In a slow environment for packaged software Windows 7 brought a large number of customers into the software aisles.”
Mobile peripherals firm Zeemote has closed down, with one of its key financial backers looking to sell off its assets. The news was reported last night in the US, with Commonwealth Capital Ventures' Michael Fitzgerald revealing the news.
Sources from sister site ME have also confirmed that Zeemote is no longer a going concern.
The company released one product, the Zeemote JS1 gaming controller. It was an analogue Bluetooth joystick originally for playing mobile games, although more recently Zeemote launched an application - Zeekey - that enabled the device to control all aspects of a phone.
Zeemote struck deals with Nokia and Sony Ericsson to distribute the joysticks, but it seems those deals were not enough to keep the company in business.
The question now is who might buy the company's assets. Those two handset makers could be in the frame, as well as Research In Motion, with whom Zeemote was working in recent months.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that the company's search engine partnership with Yahoo will be introduced around the world once it has been approved by regulators.
The software firm signed a contract with Yahoo in July this year in a challenge to Google’s monopoly over the search engine market. US and European antitrust regulators are currently examining the deal.
"It's possible that we will extend that partnership outside the US," Ballmer reportedly told a news conference. "We will have to wait and see if we can get approval and consummate that partnership inside the US first."
A Microsoft spokesman told Reuters that the agreement will extend worldwide once it is passed by regulators. The deal is expected to close in early 2010.
