Blog

Team Fortress 2 Free To Play For The Weekend

21 May

Bellevue, US – 21 of May, 2009

Today Valve announced that in an attempt to promote the upcoming ‘Sniper vs. Spy’ update for the online shooter Team Fortress 2, the game would be free to play for the remainder of the holiday weekend. The game can be played exclusively through Steam, which is a Valve’s digital distribution platform for PC games.

Normally, Team Fortress 2 costs 19.99 in both Euro and Dollars to purchase.

Despite the fact that the game has been on the market for a considerable time, it still receives regular updates and extra content. Also, the developers are still in the process of updating each of the 9 playable classes based on user-feedback.

The cartoon-styled shooter, which was released in October 2007, is highly successful on the PC, and has also been ported to the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, where it was part of the Half-Life 2 collection The Orange Box, which also included the aforementioned Half-Life 2, both of its downloadable chapters, and the puzzle-game Portal. On the consoles, Team Fortress 2 generally received less spectacular reviews than its PC counterpart and also has a much smaller community. The game will only be free to play on the PC this weekend, and not on the consoles.

2-Disc "Street Fighter IV" Soundtrack Sees Release

21 May

New York – May 21st,  2009

Sumthing Else Music Works continues it’s part in their partnership with Capcom in announcing the planned release a 2-Disc soundtrack to the recently released fighting title, Street Fighter IV. The set features original in-game compositions from the newest installment in the franchise, and is set to hit retail shelves on May 26th. Like its previous soundtrack releases, both a hard disc and digital copy of the set will be made available, the former to be distributed by Sumthing Else with the latter being available on iTunes. Those looking for more information on both this and other releases from Sumthing Else can check out their website at www.sumthing.com.

THQ Celebrates Release of "BIG Family Games" With Wii for the Queen

21 May

May 21, 2009

Artist Approximation

Artist Approximation

In a PR move garnering much attention, publisher THQ has presented HRH The Queen of England with a gold-plated Nintendo Wii system in Buckingham Palace today. The specially made system also serves to comemorate the release of the publisher’s latest casual release on the Wii, BIG Family Games, a collection of 24 alternate takes on classic family passtimes like horseshoes and tennis, a copy of said game being an additional gift for Her Majesty.

“BIG Family Games is the ultimate Wii game to get all family members, from grandparents to young children, playing together.” said Danielle Robinson, THQ Product Manager, “The Royal Family is arguably the most important family in the country so we felt that they had to have a copy of the new game.

“But we thought that Her Majesty the Queen wouldn’t want to play on any old console, so an extra-special gold one was commissioned. We hope that she and the rest of the Royal Family enjoy the game!”

3D Realms Not Closed Down After All

20 May

Garland, US – 19th of May 2009


In a letter sent to game media today, unnamed representatives of 3D Realms stated today that contrary to recent news, the developer itself has not closed down, and will not do so in the foreseeable future. However, due to a lack of funding, it has confirmed that it was forced to let the Duke Nukem Forever development team go, while it regroups the remainder of the company.

The developer, which has technically been working on Duke Nukem Forever for the past 12 years, recently ran into financial problems. After the news was released that the members of the development team would lose their jobs on May 6th, more and more images and footage of the game has been leaked, showing that the game itself was already quite far into the development process.

In the statement released today, the 3D Realms representatives stated that the rights to the game remained with the studio, and that development would continue as soon as possible.

In response to the lawsuits raised by Duke Nukem Forever‘s publisher, Take Two Interactive, concerning 12 million USD allegedly invested by the publisher, 3D Realms stated that such money had never been received. In fact, the studio claims that the only funding they ever received for the game was in 1998 and amounted 400.000 USD from then-publisher GT Interactive. Over the years, over 20 Million USD has been invested in the game, according to the statement, all of which was capital owned by 3D Realms itself.

How the studio intends to finish the game, is currently unclear. The developers website is currently unavailable, but it seems like the website was sold to a new owner.

News post written by Robin Meijer