As we reported earlier this week, Stardock's fantasy turn-based strategy-RPG game Elemental: War of Magic won't make it's planned first quarter release and will instead come out sometime in the third quarter of 2010. However that doesn't mean you can't try out the game in a incomplete form. People who pre-order the game can gain access to beta builds before the full game's release.

The second beta for Elemental will add support for multiplayer matches and will be released to beta testers around the end of February. In a recent post on the Impulsedriven.net site, Stardock's head man Brad Wardell has posted up how folks will sign in to play a multiplayer match in the game. While you can play on an official Stardock server you will also be able to host their own servers. These servers will support custom rules and mods althoug that will be turned off in the beta version. Be warned, however, as Wardell states, "The betas are NOT fun. These aren't demo betas. These are real, painful, boring, ugly betas. The graphics engine is disabled in both beta 1 and beta 2."

While you are dealing with getting Pants On The Ground out of your head, you might want to check this story out. The development team that brought us Pyroblazer have just announced their plan for another arcade-style game. Epix Entertainment has revealed their plans for Eclosion, a top down old fashioned sci-fi shooter. The fully 3D game will feature over 40 different levels (plus extra unlockable bonus levels) with 10 different environments.

Players will be able to use over 20 weapons in the game to fight off waves of over 50 different enemies. Your ship can be upgraded for better performance. There's over 90 minutes of music planned for the game and it will also offer co-op support. In other words not the world's hardest game but a title that might be a lot of fun. A release date for the game has yet to be announced.

Earlier this week Ubisoft announced plans to revive the Driver driving action game series sometime in their next fiscal year. Now folks can download and purchase the last PC game in the series, Driver: Parallel Lines, over at the DRM-free PC gaming web site GoG.com.

Released back in 2007 by the franchise' previous owners Atari, the game takes place in their version of an open world New York City. It follows the life of "TK", a getaway driver who gets sent to prison in 1978 for a murder he didn't commit. The game then changes to 2006 as TK get out of prison and ready to exact some revenge against the people who put him in jail. The game is now available to download for $9.99.

While some people are still waiting for Nvidia to launch their high end DirectX 11 graphic chip, AMD continues to add to their library of ATI Radeon graphics chips that support DirectX 11-based games. Today AMD announced the launch of their ATI Radeon HD 5670 chip. Graphics cards with the chip will sell for under $100, giving even cheapskates a way to upgrade their PC for DirectX 11 gaming.

AMD claims that in performance tests the 5670 outperforms the card's direct competition by over 20 percent in some high end games. The new card also supports the ATI Eyefinity tech which lets gamers hook up to three monitors to one video card. In other words you will be able to play Casino Kingdom on this card without any trouble.

While we asked the head of Capcom's US PR operation if there would be a PC demo of Dark Void his response was, "Looks like it's console only." Apparently the PR folks were unaware that there were in fact plans for a PC demo of the upcoming third person action game and that furthermore it would be a FilePlanet exclusive.

Yep, it looks like the demo for the Airtight Games-developed title is only going to be available via IGN's download service. Oddly the release of the demo was not promoted ahead of time by Capcom on their blog site nor on the game's official web site. In fact they still haven't promoted the demo's release as of the posting of this article. In any case we are emailing Capcom to see if we can mirror a non-FilePlanet version of the demo.

Last time Ubisoft announced the release date plans for I Am Alive, the disaster-themed action game was being delayed to sometime in the publisher's 2010-2011 fiscal year that begins on April 1, 2010. Now IGN is reporting another delay that will keep the game from being released until sometime in the next fiscal year that begins on April 1, 2011.

The game was first announced in July 2008 but has had a troubled development history. In 2009, Ubisoft made a game change and pulled the title away from its original developer Darkworks. Now under development at their internal Shanghai studio, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot stated during this week's financial conference call, "It will use the Splinter Cell engine. We think it can become a very good quality product."

Electronic Arts' latest financial numbers, announced earlier this week, were well below its own expectations and as a result the publisher's stock price has gone down considerably. Now a former EA executive has publically slammed the company's current leaders and its overall direction.

Mitch Lasky, who previously was head of EA's mobile division, posted a note on his personal web site this week that stated, "EA is in the wrong business, with the wrong cost structure and the wrong team, but somehow they seem to think that it is going to be a smooth, two-year transition from packaged goods to digital. Think again." He's not the only one. This Reuters article has comments from financial analysts who don't fee EA and its leadership have been doing a good job.Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter states EA currently has "zero credibility" with investors. However he does add that upcoming quarters might signal an improvement saying "I think their lineup is going to save them." Their line-up includes games like Mass Effect 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2, the recent console action game Army of Two: The 40th Day and more.

Valve's community for its multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2 continues to grow thanks in part to Valve's regular content updates to the game's various character classes. This week the developer is launching a way for its fan to suggest its own game changes in terms of fan submitted items and avatars.

To that end, the developer has launched their new Team Fortress 2 Contribute web site for that very purpose. As the team mentions on the official TF2 web site, "Many of you have been building fantastic TF2 work for a while now, and we wanted a way for you to get it in front of all TF2 players, and for everyone to see that you were the one that built it." In related news a new update for the game has been released via Steam with quite a few new bug fixes including some that center on the Spy character.

We've been seeing the rise of the digital download business model for PC games for the last few years but one PC gaming publishing executive believes that the industry will turn completely to that model within a year. MCVUK.com reports that 1C Company's international publishing director Darryl Still believes, ""Q1 2011 is my estimate as to when PC games will be sold completely via digital."

We don't think that's going to happen that quickly, at least in the US (we are pretty sure there will be lots of retail copies sold of StarCraft II released when it finally ships) . But it is clear that the presence of PC games in retail stores is getting smaller and smaller. Still states, "Digital is fantastic, and we're very pleased with it. But it is not us as the developers and publishers driving products to digital – it is because the options for the PC at retail are so limited."

For some reason today has been a busy news day for Ubisoft. Today the publisher announced it was taking sign ups to beta test The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom, the upcoming and latest game in the long running strategy-sim series from developer Blue Byte Software.

Beta sign ups are being handled by FilePlanet although you will still need an Ubi.com account to participate. The beta will officially begin on January 19 and will consist of the game's single player tutorial levels as well as skirmish maps in both multiplayer or against the game's AI. The game itself is scheduled for release later in 2010.

One of the best indie strategy games released in 2009 was the space-based game AI War from developer Arcen Games. Now the game has an expansion pack. Announced a few months ago, The Zenith Remnant is now available to purchase and download via the Arcen Games expansion pack. It's also available via the Steam and Impulse download services.

Priced at $9.95 the expansion adds over 120 new ships to the game. That includes 14 new ship classes and seven of the massive new Golem ships (you can see an example in the screenshot above). There are also new map types, new AI types and beheviors and more. If you own AI War you can download The Zenith Remnant and play it for a free trial period. Just so long as you don't download Poptropica instead.

Epic Games' lengthy Unreal Tournament 3 based Make Something Unreal mod making contest is nearing its end. Today the developer announced the winners of the fourth and final phase of the contest in various catagories. The winner of the best first person shooter mod went to The Ball (winning ($10,000) with Prometheus getting the first runner up prize (winning $7,000). Both mods have been turned into small stand alone games via the Unreal Development Kit. The winner of the best non-FPS mod went to the zombie third third person shooter The Hunted which also won $10,000.

While the contest is no longer taking any more entries there's still one more part of the contest that will be awarded soon in Las Vegas (and we aren't talking about playing in a casino kingdom). That's the grand prize of the best overall mod where the winning mod team will get a $50,000 cash prize as well as access to a full commercial Unreal Engine 3 license. The winner and runner-ups will be announced at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas in February.

The Mass Effect 2 Soldier class is all about pure offense without relying on gadgets or biotics. However, that doesn't mean the class doesn't come with some unique perks. The class can use every type of gun in the game, and it's the only one that can use the assault rifle. Additionally, Soldiers can use specialized ammunition for a variety of effects, like burning enemies alive or freezing them solid. Abilities include an adrenaline boost to gain the upper hand in battle. The bottom line is, if you love guns (and who doesn't?), the soldier is the best class for you. Mass Effect 2 releases on January 26th.

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No one expected that James Cameron could win the equivalent of the Megamillions lottery when Avatar was released in theaters last month, but the 3D sci-fi epic has now generated more revenue (before inflation) than any other movie in history besides Cameron's own Titanic. So, you would think all that success would help sales of James Cameron's Avatar: The Game, right?

Wrong. According to the game's developer and publisher Ubisoft, the game (which released a few weeks before the film) did not meet its expectations. In today's financial report Ubisoft stated, " . . . .not all of the Company's games have reaped the full benefits of the measures implemented, with James Cameron's Avatar: The Game . . . reporting lower-than-expected sales." The game itself, which supposedly had Cameron as an active consultant, only got average reviews from critics. One wonders if Ubisoft will be so quick to sign onto making a game based on any Avatar movie sequel.

Overall, Ubisoft didn't have as good of a quarter than it though it would in terms of revenues. Today it revealed that it was now expecting revenues for the just completed third quarter to be 495 million euros versus previous estimates of 540 million euros. For its full fiscal year it is predicting it will have revenues of 860 million euros versus predictions of 1.08 billion euros.

A teaser trailer for Transformers: The War for Cybertron released, announcing the first recent Transformers game that isn't based off a movie plot. This trailer extends the original teaser with greater detail, showing the motivations behind the civil war on Cybertron. It's an epic struggle between Autobots fighting for freedom and Decepticons battling for control, and players will get a front row seat as they choose which campaign to play. What isn't revealed is a expected release date.

"Transformers: War for Cybertron features two distinct storylines: the AUTOBOT campaign tells a story of heroism to save their home planet against overwhelming odds, and the DECEPTICON campaign tells a story of an unquenchable thirst for power to control the universe. For the first time in a TRANSFORMERS title, fans will be able to play the game with their friends through team-based online co-op, or go head to head in a variety of intense, online multiplayer game modes. The game features a sci-fi art style that introduces to fans the entire living, metallic world of CYBERTRON, as well as all-new visualizations of the iconic TRANSFORMERS characters in their original Cybertronian forms."

Download HD Transformers: War for Cybertron Reveal Trailer (160 MB)
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