The Lord of the Rings Online Website announces a head-start program for the new free-to-play version of this MMORPG will commence on September 8 (thanks Acleacius). Here's a bit:
Open to current and former subscribers as well as recent participants in the closed beta, The Lord of the Rings Online™ Head Start begins 09/08/10. Players who join us for this event get exclusive access to play early. The head start allows all participants to fully experience the new game content and features, including the new region of Enedwaith, the new LOTRO store, and the Free-to-Play option, before the general public is admitted on 09/10/10. Reserve your character names on the new servers, play the new content first, or simply get a jump on trying out the latest game features. It all begins on September 8th!
A new
Portal 2 trailer from PAX 2010 offers a look at the co-op gameplay from Valve's upcoming platformer sequel shown off at the trade show. The clip runs almost nine minutes, showing off new gameplay mechanics and how cooperative puzzle solving will operate. There's also a ShakyCam trailer on
GameVideos showing the game being demoed. Thanks
Ant.
Kotaku has some details on how
Duke Nukem Forever survived the sacking of its development team to live on as an
ongoing project at Gearbox Software. It turns out that in spite of little hope they would be able to release the game due to legal complications, some of the former 3D Realms staff could not let go of the project, and continued development from home: "One of the co-creators of the well-known Duke Nukem character, Allen Blum, was among the 3D Realms developers fired in May of 2009. He was a veteran. 'He couldn't let it go,' Pitchford said. 'I wouldn't either. He decided to keep it going.' So, post 3D Realms, Duke Nukem Forever development continued in the apartments of some of the laid off staff. It became, essentially, a garage game. 'I got wind of it,' Pitchford said. 'I came around and checked things out'." Apparently it was Pitchford's history with Duke, 3D Realms, and Take Two all lead to Gearbox being able to bet on Duke. Pitchford says: "The short story of it is: Because of my history with Duke, because of my relationship with Scott and George, because of the trust and respect that Gearbox and Take Two were able to build through our work together with Borderlands, and through the capabilities that I have built with my team to be able to ship games on these platforms — because of all of these things, I was in a spot that, if I took a bet and got in there and put myself in the line of fire in the middle of this thing, I knew that I could bring all these pieces together and that I could save Duke." On a related note, there are some
DNF gameplay screenshots on Computer and Video Games.
Steam News announces a patch for
Left 4 Dead is now automatically available with three bug fixes for the co-op zombie shooter. They
also announce a new automatic patch for
Left 4 Dead 2, which addresses a couple of bugs in the sequel, while also adding Hard Eight at this week's developer's choice mutation.
Telltale Games announces The Great Adventure Bundle 2010, a collection of six adventure games on sale for $19.99 USD, with proceeds from the sale going to charity. Games in the bundle include
The Whispered World,
Jack Keane, the
King's Quest Collection, and
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 1, with Telltale saying the other two titles,
Puzzle Agent and
Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space, "will unlock as more people purchase the bundle." The charities to benefit from this include Child's Play, The World Wildlife Fund, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Nyota e.V., and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Here is Valve's list of the top 10 bestselling titles on
Steam for the week:
- Worms Reloaded
- Mafia II
- Company of Heroes Complete Pack
- Battlefield: Bad Company 2
- Sid Meier's Civilization V
- Mount & Blade: Warband
- Mafia II: Digital Deluxe Edition
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- R.U.S.E.
- Left 4 Dead 2
A hearty thank you to Frans for fixing the problems with our
Twitter feed caused by their recent switch in authentication methods. This turned out to be a little trickier than it should have due to the way things are handled on our end, rather than theirs, which is why it took so long to clear up. The feed has finally caught up with several days worth of posts, apologies for how spammy that undoubtedly was.
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