While Star Wars: The Old Republic is still at least a year or more away from launch, LucasArts and Sony Online's MMO Star Wars Galaxies is still giving its players new content. This week the game has added a large new content update called Galactic Civil War: Forces Under Siege. The update has three major cities in the game under attack. Imperial forces can attack with the huge AT-AT walkers while the Rebels can defend by manning turrets and putting up barricades.

In addition to all the new content in the update, Sony Online is giving former players of the game a chance to sign onto Star Wars Galaxies for free starting February 1. The free play will last the entire month and those former players re-sign with the game they get an in-game house painting for their trouble. Current subscribers will get their own in-game house painting.

The 2010 edition of the Game Developers Conference is less than two months away but the events and keynote speeches are beginning to be announced. Today the GDC organizers announced that legendary game designer Sid Meier of Firaxis Games will present one of the event's main keynote speeches.

The keynote itself is titled "The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong)". Meier's speech will give his theory that the"driving force of a game's design should be the psychology of the player." Meier is of course beta known for the Civilization series of strategy games. He is currently working on an upcoming Facebook version of the franchise, the Civilization Network.

Tomorrow, Digital Illusions will begin the long awaited PC multiplayer beta test for their first person shooter Battlefield Bad Company 2. So it stands to reason that the developer wants to get all those players ready for its launch. Now the game's blog site has some details on the beta launch which should begin at noon Eastern time on Thursday.

The beta client itself will apparently be available on various mirror and torrent sites along with Steam. The client will also have SecuROM which DICE says is being used only "to make it difficult to hack the Closed Beta client to run the final game". The final game will also use SecuROM for a one-time authentication only; once that happens you can play the single player gae without needing to go online. EA will allow for the full game to be installed on up to 10 PCs. However the full version will also require an EA.com account to play online.

This patch updates the retail box version of Divinity 2 to v1.03. Patch includes a number of bug fixes and game enhancements, and is available for English, Spanish, Italian, French and German releases. The playable demo can be downloaded here.

Continue after the jump to watch a montage trailer showcasing some of the different features of Divinity 2.

Download Divinity 2 v1.03 EN/IT/SP Patch (406 MB)
Download Divinity 2 v1.03 FR Patch (876 MB)
Download Divinity 2 v1.03 GER Patch (1.8 GB)
Download HD Divinity 2 Montage Trailer (121 MB)
Download Divinity 2 Demo (1.77 GB)
Check out all Divinity 2 downloads

Monte Cristo Games' launch of their city simulator Cities XL last fall had both a single player aspect as well as a MMO feature that allowed for potientially thousands of players to build their cities on a virtual planet. However it appears that there was little interest in an city sim MMO. The game's web site has now announced that due to a lack of subscriptions, the MMO aspect of Cities XL will be shut down on March 8. No new subscribers will be taken after February 1.

A anew FAQ page gives more details on the MMO shut down and how it will affect players of the game. It also reveals that Monte Cristo plans to launch an all new single player online game called Cities XL 2011. Until that game is released the original Cities XL won't be getting any new content updates.

[Via Voodoo Extreme]

We are now less than a week from the official launch of Star Trek Online with pre-orders getting access to the game on Friday. Cryptic's next MMO already has a number of pre-order offers from several retailers but now comes word of yet another special pre-order offer from the Syfy Channel web site.

Their special offer gets you the game along with some exclusive items such as an in-game "Neodymiun Deflector Dish" (say that three times fast) along with 500 Cryptic points to unlock and purchase other in-game items. Finally you will be getting a 15 percent discount from the next purchase off of Syfy's online store. All in all, it's a cool offer.

This patch for Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising updates the game to v1.02. In addition to addresses a number of bugs and game issues, it installs the Overwatch DLC expansion for free. Continue reading after the jump for the complete patch notes. The playable demo can be downloaded here.

"The 'Overwatch' DLC extends the Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising experience in solo, co-operative and adversarial play. In new multiplayer mode Blindside the PLA must complete objectives in the shortest time possible while the USMC defends in tense, tactical engagements. An additional new mode, Supremacy, tasks opposing forces to occupy strategically vital positions featuring force multipliers like gun emplacements and air strikes."

Download Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Overwatch DLC Patch (244 MB)
Download Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising English Demo (1.39 GB)
Check out all Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising downloads

Earlier this week it was revealed that Ubisoft was going to move to have its future PC games require an online connection in exchange for allowing gamers to download and install those games on as many PC games as they want. Now Ubisoft has gone ahead and posted an FAQ on the subject.

The FAQ confirms that future Ubisoft PC games will require a constant online connection in order to be played. However, but if the service is shut down for whatever reason in the future Ubisoft will issue patches for the PC games affected that will allow gamers to continue playing them on their PCs. It should be interesting to see what the reaction is like when this is fully implemented and if any other publishers will follow Ubisoft's wake.

Leave it to Valve to make a seemlingly minor bug fix seem cool and important. The latest update to the Team Fortress 2 web site talks about fixing an issue in the Scout player class that let the player animations go all weird while the player attempts the Double Crouch Jump.

Yes, we know: "Double Crouch Jump" sounds like a new position for . . . intimate relations or the title for the new Lady GaGa song. But Valve has some fun with the whole bug fixing in their post. We don't want to give their story away but buses are involved.

Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!

Last week we talked about one of the better business simulations, Railroad Tycoon 2. It's still considered a classic to most fans of the genre, but we talked about it plenty then. The developer, not content to merely work with Sid Meier's formula, decided to invent their own. The result was Tropico, a simulation of life as a tropical dictator. It is a satirical take on both Latin America politics and the business simulation genre, and serves as a good example for what a developer can make when it simply steps outside the box. PopTop may be no more, and the franchise may belong to a different publisher, but we can still reminisce about a strategy gaming classic.

Last December we put Creative Labs' upcoming World of Warcraft-branded PC gaming headset in our Vaporware section since the company was supposed to release the product by the end of 2009 but failed to do so. Now it looks like the company is gearing up to finally release the headset. As evidence the company has now launched a dedicated web page for the product.

There's a lot more info about the headset itself in terms of its technology and features, but Creative Labs is still being cagey on a release date and price. Their FAQ page does say they will be taking pre-orders in "early 2010" and will ship the headset (in wired and wireless versions) shortly after pre-orders are launched. The product looks like it will be worth the wait but the question is how much longer will we have to sit around before Creative Labs brings the headset to light.

A game development studio co-founded by former members of the World of Warcraft development team has reportedly laid off a large fraction of its workers. Gamasutra reports via unnamed sources that Red 5 Studios has recently let go of about 30 of its approximately 100 workers. So far Red 5 Studios has yet to officially comment on these reports.

Red 5 Studios was formed in the fall of 2005. It's co-founders include former Blizzard team members Mark Kern and William Petras who worked as the team leader and art director, respectively, on World of Warcraft. The company has been working in near-silence on an MMO project since its formation. It's last press release was issued in November 2008.

Update: Kotaku claims to have more info on the layoffs (again from unnamed sources) saying that Red 5 Studios now has just 30 people employed. The company was very close to closing entirely but Kotaku's sources say the company was saved by an unnamed buyer. The developer also claims that Red 5 Studios was working on a MMO FPS project but that game is now on hold while the studio works on a game for the Asian market.

It's the same song on a different day. Much like how BioWare had some DLC issues when Dragon Age: Origins was released back in November, the developer is dealing with some of the same issues for the just released sci-fi RPG Mass Effect 2. Folks on the BioWare message board have complained about not being able to sign into the game's DLC-based Cerberus Network. BioWare's Chris Priestly has posted up word that, "We are actively pursuing a fix to this and will update everyone once it is fixed on the server-side."

Priestly also has some workarounds and advice for folks who have had other download issues particularly for folks who have the PC Collector's Edition of the game.

With the IGF finalists announced, game makers only have a short while longer to find out the best of the best in indie games from last year. From the best overall game to the one with the most impressive art, there's several different categories for indie game designers to aspire to be the top of. This week we're going to take a look at a few of the games that have made it to the finals.

People love a good art style. Sure, you can make your game so that it's all black pixels and monotony, but if you have a cohesive and engaging visual style, players will like it more. Everybody likes something done well and clearly, and the members of the IGF judging team are no exception. Here are the five games that made the top of the list in visual artistry.

Long time PC gaming fans know the Ultima franchise as a RPG game series, either in its classic single player form or in the long running MMO Ultima Online, both created by Richard "Lord British" Garriott. Two attempts at a sequel to the latter MMO game have been canceled. However today publisher Electronic Arts has finally released the first new official Ultima game since 1999's Ultima IX: Ascension.

However instead of a complex RPG game, the newly launched Lords of Ultima title is a browser-based free-to-play strategy game. Developed by EA Phenomic (the folks behind another free-to-play game Battleforge) this new game lets folks build a city in the Ultima universe and interact with other players online. The game is already available as an open beta and is apparently very popular in its first day; we tried to sign in and were unable to get into a game because the servers were too busy. There's no word yet on when the game will officially launch nor how it will generate revenues.