Mass Effect - DLC Now Available

Mass Effect’s promised “Bring Down the sky” DLC is now available on PC. Unlike Xbox360 version, this DLC is completely free.

Press Release:

Leading video game developer BioWare, a division of Electronic Arts Inc., has announced that “Bring Down the Sky,” the first piece of downloadable content for the award-winning space epic Mass Effect, is now available for PC gamers to download free1 of charge.

Fully optimized for the PC, “Bring Down the Sky” is the first in a series of planned downloadable content that will further expand the Mass Effect story and universe. It includes a new uncharted world that introduces the deadly Batarian alien race, approximately 90 minutes of new gameplay and an original soundtrack. Instructions on how to download and install the new content is available at http://masseffect.bioware.com/downloadablecontent/. “Bring Down the Sky” is currently available for international languages including English, Spanish, Italian and German, with additional language versions coming soon. Read more

Games for Windows LIVE goes FREE

Well about time, Microsoft realised PC gamers hate paying to play online multiplayer and thus are making their Games for Windows LIVE service free. All features that required a gold account are now accessible free of cost. Yay indeed as the platform is finally evolving and who knows, maybe big as Steam some day?

In addition to making Games for Windows Live free, Microsoft will also be creating a brand new GFW marketplace this fall to rival the marketplace found on the Xbox 360. As with the Xbox Live Marketplace, GFW’s will offer demos, videos, downloadable content, and more. The GFW interface will also receive some tech-friendly changes, lowering requirements for developers looking to make their games GFW compatible.

Microsoft on Games for Windows LIVE

Microsoft’s epic fail of a service; Games of Windows LIVE, got jackshit exposure/mentioning at this year’s E3. Why did that happen and will it actually evolve into a brilliant platform like Steam or die a cold/dry death? Kevin Unagnst has the answers as he tries to explain Microsoft’s ignorance towards pc gamers and pc gaming.

At the end of the day, E3 is the battle of the consoles. We know that’s predominantly what people are interested in, that’s what the air time is about,” said Unangst. “And so, rather than try and raise a volume level that’s five minutes out of an hour and a half keynote, we said ‘you know what, let’s give PC its due.’ We did an event in San Francisco two weeks ago, it had a whole separate rollout, we talked to folks, we showed some of the great new games coming up. And then here tonight we’re having our own dedicated event for the people who truly care about the PC and are tracking it. That was a decision on our part that says the consoles are going to fight it out, I’d rather have a dedicated event where we can talk, where we can showcase the news. There’s going to be even more. We’re talking about it at Gamefest next week. If we did it the other way, you’d be saying why was there only five minutes of Games for Windows during an hour and a half? ‘

Awesome.

No DirectX10 Support for Call of Duty: World at War

The latest Call of Duty game will once again be deprived of any DX10 goodness. According to Cesar Stastny of Treyarch:

Cesar Stastny: Maybe if there is a compelling benefit to doing so, such as new superior hardware which requires DirectX 10.

That’s quite alright, PC Gamers are now used to getting left out anyway.

Diablo III. Is. Official.

 

After years and years of wait, speculation and rumors, it’s finally here. The moment millions of PC gamers have been waiting for - Diablo III has been officially announced by Blizzard! D3 will first and foremost be a co-op title as Blizzard said. More details as soon as they are unveiled. Meanwhile, catch a little taste of D3 at this Blizzard Splash page.

Now On Steam - Race Driver: GRID

Codemasters’s latest racing title; GRID is now available via Steam. GRID can be purchased for $39.95 and requires 12.5GB HDD space.

GRID — a new racing title from Codemasters, creators of the Colin McRae racing game series — is now available via Steam. Available to PC gamers around the world, GRID is constructed upon the next generation of the technology that powered recent Colin McRae games. Offering multiple racing modes, cars, and tracks, GRID is now available for purchase.

Crytek going multi-platform due to rampant Piracy

In an interview with PCPlay Magazine, CEO of Crytek; Cevat Yerli has revealed that they longer will remain PC exclusive. The rampant piracy of Crysis and the high-development costs have forced the german developer to this decision. Full quote below:

Cevat Yerli: We are suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis. We seem to lead the charts in piracy by a large margin, a chart leading that is not desirable. I believe that’s the core problem of PC Gaming, piracy.  To the degree PC Gamers that pirate games inherently destroy the platform. Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we wont have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive anymore.

Devil May Cry 4 Coming to PCs in Summer, Demo with Benchmarks to be released soon

Capcom has released more details about their upcoming PC port of Devil May Cry 4. The game will hit PCs in summer, before that, Capcom plans to release a demo with in-built benchmark utility. Devil May Cry 4 for PC will support DirectX9 as well as DirectX 10. Full press release below:

Capcom®, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, today announced that the highly anticipated PC version of Devil May Cry® 4 is ready for release this summer. Devil May Cry 4 is already a certifiable hit in the console world, having shipped over two million units worldwide since its European release in February. A demo of the game will be released for PC players before the retail version ships, allowing PC gamers to try the game ahead of time as well as testing their system’s prowess with the included benchmark mode. The PC version of Devil May Cry 4 will feature new modes, enhanced graphics options and some additional content. Devil May Cry 4 has been rated 16+ by PEGI. Read more

Tim Sweeney Talks Future of Unreal Engine

Tim Sweeney has boycotted PC gamers, but that doesn’t mean he won’t harp back and depend on them for their mod needs. Sweeney talked about the future of Unreal 3.0 engine with NextGEN, here’s a snippet:

“Game teams working on Gears of War or Unreal Tournament 3 will add features to extend the engine and make it all available to licensees,” said Sweeney. “There’s this continuous integration cycle. If you look at the resources that really go into engine development, it’s probably 40 or 50 people at any time.”

Check out the full interview here.

Steve Nix: “Core PC Gamers are moving to consoles”

Another PC gaming is dying newsbit. We’re as tired as you. Speaking with Eurogamer.net, Steve Nix of id Software said:

“I know that I have friends who are considered core gamers, who years ago were just keyboard and mouse guys - now, when a game ships on all platforms, they buy the console version, even though the PC version is sitting there and they have a PC that would run it perfectly well. It’s just their preference,” explained Nix

Read more

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