That’s where my weekly Discount Drone feature comes in. In Discount Drone I take a weekly look at everything that is on offer and extract the best deals for your perusal. These are formatted by genre and accompanied by short and accurate descriptions, so that you can decide whether a game might be worth having. This includes special offers on: Direct2Drive, GamersGate, Get Games, Good Old Games, Green Man Gaming, Impulse and Steam.

Most of the summer deals have ended by now, but Impulse steps up to the plate with a sale for charity, Child’s Play to be precise. This and numerous interesting deals on the other digitial distribution platforms ensures that we actually have even more interesting games to choose from than last week!

Some of the more notable deals this week are the awesome RPG/Strategy bundle of the 1C Pack on Good Old Games, the entire Unreal series of first person shooters on Impulse, the excellent Star Wars shooters of the Jedi Knight Bundle on Direct2Drive and the entire third season of the adventure game series Sam & Max! And there are many more interesting deals this week, so be sure to check them all out below. And subscribe to GameDrone for weekly coverage of the best digital download offers!

Deals of the Week

• 1C Pack on Good Old Games – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 21,76 EUR
  This is an excellent pack for fans of strategy role-playing games as it includes the excellent turn-based fantasy RPG King’s Bounty: The Legend. Also of note are futuristic organization building and alien killing games UFO: Afterlight, Aftermath and Aftershock. The space RPG Star Wolves and turn-based fantasy RPG Fantasy Wars round things out to form a package that offers many hundreds of hours of great strategic gameplay.
• Altitude on Steam – Free Weekend And Save 50% Weekend Deal – 4,49 EUR
  A multiplayer sidescrolling action game involving several classes of airplanes, numerous game modes, perks, power-ups and general 2D mayhem. It’s colorful and fun, with a lot of variety and a fair amount of players. Definitely worth a look if you’re in for some good multiplayer fun and even more-so if you can play it with a few friends.
• Commandos Complete on Get Games – Save 50% Summer Deal - 7,49 EUR
  This package includes all Commandos games, from the excellent and ridiculously difficult squad-based strategy games of Behind Enemy Lines & Commandos 2, to the sub-par shooter Strike Force. An awesome bundle at a great price – definitely worth a look.
• Company of Heroes Complete Pack on Steam – Save 75% Weekend Deal – 11,49 EUR
  Company of Heroes is a World War 2 themed real-time strategy game that revolves around controlling resource nodes on the map. It slims down base building and places a greater emphasis on aggressive play, which makes for much more intense gameplay. Both stand-alone expansion packs are also included, with Opposing Fronts mostly offering more of the same and Tales of Valor placing the emphasis on small-scale tactical battles without any form of base building or resource management.
• Jedi Knight Bundle on Direct2Drive – Save 60% Anniversary Sale – 6,- EUR
  These are some of the best Star Wars games ever created. Ranging from Doom-clone-with-a-plot Dark Forces to the epic post-movies tale of Jedi Knight 2 that sees Kyle Katarn place the foundations for Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Academy. It’s unclear whether this package includes Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight, but all the other games are included. Dark Forces is a straight-up shooter, whereas the Jedi Knight games mix shooting, lightsaber and force power elements to great success. Jedi Knight 2 and Academy are still popular multiplayer games today.
• Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse on Telltale Games  – Save 43% Launch Deal – 15,55 EUR
  The third season of Telltale’s popular adventure game series has finally concluded and it’s the best season yet! This package includes all five episodes of the third season for some hilarious point-and-click adventure gameplay. It’s been reduced in price to celebrate the launch of the final episode, but it can also be found over at Steam at a slightly higher price.
• Space Rangers Bundle on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 11,70 EUR
  This bundle pack includes both Space Rangers and Space Rangers 2: Rise of the Dominators. These are two very difficult games to describe as they mix elements of space exploration, adventure, real-time strategy and other genres into one awesome spacefaring experience. They’re highly unusual, but also very fun and engaging games. This bundle does not include the Space Rangers 2: Reboot expansion pack.
• Titan Quest Bundle on Direct2Drive – Save 70% Anniversary Sale - 6,- EUR
  Arguably the best Action RPG after the Diablo series, Titan Quest presents a linear world studded with countless monsters to slay, items to acquire and quests to partake in. This gold edition also contains the excellent Immortal Throne expansion pack which adds another campaign and eight new classes, amongst other things. Definitely a worthwhile purchase, especially because it also includes online and local co-op!
• Trine on Green Man Gaming – Save 76% Deal – 4,81 EUR
  A great indie platform game featuring singleplayer and local (same computer) co-op modes. Read my first impressions for an indication of what the game plays like and why you should get it.
• Unreal Pack on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 15,60 EUR
  This bundle contains the very epitome of hardcore shooters: Unreal Tournament. It’s still a very popular multiplayer game today with thousands of players every night! Also included is the excellent singleplayer FPS Unreal that offers an engaging science-fiction tale and similarly excellent first person shooter gameplay. Add in a good singleplayer FPS in the form of Unreal 2, a modding favorite but somewhat poor on the out-of-the-box gameplay front Unreal Tournament 2004 and an excellent multiplayer shooter held back by terrible menus and weird design decisions Unreal Tournament 3 and you get one heck of a deal. These games are all extremely popular amongst modders so they offer countless hours of fun in single- and multiplayer even beyond the out-of-the-box offerings. Only Unreal Tournament 2003 is exempted from the list, which is a good thing: it was so bad that Epic doesn’t even count it as part of the UT franchise anymore.

Action

• Call of Juarez on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 5,99 EUR
  Call of Juarez is a third person shooter in a wild west setting. Horseback riding, shootouts, bank and train robberies, all the staples of the wild west genre are included. It’s not quite as good as the sequel and nowhere near as good as Red Dead Redemption, but certainly still a very decent purchase.c
• Dark Sector on Green Man Gaming – Save 50% Deal – 6,02 EUR
  A decent third-person action game with a cover system and mediocre plot.
• Greed: Black Border on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 14,99 EUR
  A new top-down alien shooter with fancy graphics, different classes, skills, items and more importantly: co-op! Perhaps not such a great deal anymore with the co-op alien shooter Alien Swarm available for free on Steam.
• Tank Universal on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale - 3,89 EUR
  Speaking of excellent innovative games – this is one too! It’s an absolute blast to play through this singleplayer tank game with strategy and RPG influences as well as TRON-styled graphics.

Adventure

• Broken Sword: Director’s Cut on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 4,99 EUR
  This is a reenvisioning of the original Broken Sword adventure game with new content, a new hint system and more. It’s an adventure game classic that involves a conspiracy tale surrounding the Knights Templar and locations around the globe.
• Ceville on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 9,99 EUR
  A comical point-and-click adventure game in which you play a fallen tyrant who has turned to saving his kingdom.
• Daemonica on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 5,84 EUR
  Daemonica is a dark adventure game with a role-playing game interface. It has an engaging storyline that can culminate into several different outcomes and is supported by interesting characters. But its not the most well-paced adventure game and can become tedious.

First Person Shooter

• NecroVisioN: Lost Company on Green Man Gaming – Save 87% Weekend Deal – 3,62 EUR
  The latest title in the NecroVisioN franchise is actually a prequel that puts you in the shoes of a German soldier fighting off hordes of monsters during World War I. A good deal if you’re into arcade first person shooters with hordes of mindless monsters to blast your way through.
• Painkiller: Black Edition on Impulse – Save 50% gamescom Deal – 4,99 EUR
  Go all-guns-blazing in this excellent fast-paced first person shooter with a grim mythical setting that puts you in the role of a demonic ass kicking mercenary. Crazy weapons, crazy enemies, crazy powers and a crazily fast pace make for one heck of a ride. And multiplayer offers solid competitive arena-based hardcore FPS play that’s unfortunately quite empty nowadays due to the free excellence that is Quake Live. This Black Edition also includes the Battle Out of Hell expansion pack, which was the last decent Painkiller game.

Role-playing Game

• ArcaniA: Gothic 4 on GamersGate – Save 15% Pre-order Deal – 42,45 EUR
  ArcaniA is the fourth game in the long-standing open-world RPG series Gothic and is looking to be no less engaging than its predecessors. Hopefully it will be released without the slew of bugs that plagued Gothic 3.
• Avencast: Rise of the Mage on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 4,99 EUR
  Avencast is a mediocre hack & slash RPG with gameplay centered around wizardry and magic. There are many better games in the genre, but there are worse games to play if you’re looking to pass the time until Diablo 3, Dungeon Siege 3 or Torchlight.
• Disciples 3: Renaissance on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 19,99 EUR
  Disciples 3 is a gothic fantasy turn-based strategy games with strategic RPG gameplay similar to a Heroes of Might & Magic or King’s Bounty. This latest installment isn’t quite as good as its predecessors with numerous bugs and poor AI. It makes up for this by a story that miraculously doesn’t quite suck and solid, addictive, strategic battles. A good game to play after you’ve had your fun with Heroes of Might & Magic V and King’s Bounty, but you’ll definitely want to play those games first.
• Dungeon Defenders on GamersGate / Impulse – Save 10% Pre-order Deal – 7,19 EUR
  Dungeon Defenders presents an entirely new take on the popular tower defense genre. Players choose a class and actively engage in fighting off waves of monsters while acquiring experience and loot. Throw in a wide variety of towers, 4-player co-op, a story-driven campaign, survival and challenge modes, achievements, statistics, tons of monsters, epic boss encounters and colorful graphics and you’ve got a very promising indie game. Pre-orders gain an exclusive familiar that aids them in battle and differs depending on the digital distribution service (Direct2Drive, GamersGate, Impulse or Steam).
• Gothic 2 Gold on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 7,49 EUR
  An open world RPG with great gameplay, but sub-par voice acting and graphics.
• Gothic 3: Game of the Year Edition on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 7,49 EUR
  An open world fantasy RPG that’s mostly known for the buggy state in which it was released rather than the good gameplay it provides.
• Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 9,99 EUR
  The stand-alone expansion for Gothic 3.
• King’s Bounty: Crossworlds on GamersGate – Save 15% Pre-order Deal – 16,99 EUR
  Return to the hilarious and crazy world of King’s Bounty: Armored Princess. It includes two new campaigns and an expansion on the Armored Princess campaign. Also included are new creatures, items, spells, abilities and even a game editor! It promises to be mostly more of the same, but more of the very best game in a genre tends to be a good thing. A platinum edition including all King’s Bounty games is also on sale, just in case you’ve yet to bite into this tasty turn-based fantasy RPG franchise.
• Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale on Steam / GamersGate / Impulse – Save 10% Pre-order Deal – 13,49 EUR
  Recette Lemongrass is stuck with her father’s debts after he ran off to do some adventuring and when fairy creditor Tear knocks on the door there’s only one thing left to do: open up an item shop and work off those debts! There are a lot of ways to make Recettear a successful item shop, from simply buying low and selling high to actual adventuring in randomized dungeons for free items. It includes a lengthy campaign, alternate game modes, shop customization and more. It’s surprisingly fun.
• Space Siege on GamersGate – Save 66% Weekend Deal – 5,09 EUR
  Despite generic gameplay, slimmed down RPG elements, an unimaginative story and terrible mouse-driven controls, Space Siege still manages to be fairly entertaining if you’ve got nothing better to do.
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic on Direct2Drive – Save 15% Anniversary Sale - 6,- EUR
  BioWare delivered one of the best Star Wars games ever with this RPG that predates all previous Star Wars material. Become a jedi in the time of the Old Republic, many hundreds of years prior to The Phantom Menace, and experience an epic fantasy tale in this unique Star Wars setting. This is one game you don’t want to miss out on and it also forms an excellent introduction to BioWare’s upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG.
• Star Wolves 3: Civil War on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale - 12,49 EUR
  This game hearkens back to the original Star Wolves with similarly awesome and addictive RPG/RTS gameplay, no DRM and poor voice-acting. It’s nowhere near as buggy as Star Wolves 2 and while the interface takes a bit of getting used to it’s definitely a fun game to play.
• The Guild 2 on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 7,49 EUR
  The Guild 2 is a medieval life simulator with an emphasis on economics. It suffers from a low budget and a plethora of bugs, which make it significantly less appealing than that other low budget medieval life simulator which focuses on action: Mount & Blade.
• The Guild 2: Pirates of the European Seas on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 7,49 EUR
  A standalone expansion pack for The Guild 2 that introduces naval gameplay and a new campaign.

Real-time Strategy

• Achtung Panzer: Kharkov 1943 on Direct2Drive – Save 70% Anniversary Sale – 6,- EUR
  A historically accurate real-time strategy game featuring World War 2′s Battle of Kharkov and turn-based overmap gameplay. Suffers from an overly complex interface, lengthy battles with no save options and bugs. Still a fairly decent World War 2 strategy game, but no match for the likes of this week’s Battlestations: Pacific or Company of Heroes.
• Battlestations Pacific on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 17,47 EUR
  This game combines the real-time strategy and action genres as players get to control large fleets in the Pacific arena of World War 2 or take control over individual units. It even includes several multiplayer game modes to re-enact some of World War 2′s most memorable naval engagements.
• Darwinia on Green Man Gaming – Save 50% Deal – 3,61 EUR
  A retro-themed indie real-time strategy game where you have to save the Darwinians from extinction as a computer virus has infiltrated their world. It only features singleplayer, but is actually quite fun to play.
• Defense Grid: The Awakening on Direct2Drive – Save 15% Anniversary Sale – 6,- EUR
  Defense Grid is a singleplayer tower defense game with a futuristic setting. Its generic plot hardly matters in the face of excellent tower defense gameplay, with widely varied towers, maps and enemies.
• Grand Ages: Rome on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale - 9,99 EUR
  A city-building real-time strategy game set in the Roman era.
• Grand Ages: Rome: Reign of Augustus – Save 50% Charity Sale – 9,99 EUR
  An expansion pack to Grand Ages: Rome. Allows for players to transfer their Grand Ages: Rome character into the new campaign.
• Gratuitous Space Battles Complete on Impulse - Save 35% Deal – 20,18 EUR
  An excellent indie strategy game that puts you in command of a space fleet. Design your own ships and set up your armadas before each battle, then watch as they tear into the opposing fleets. There is no direct unit control in this game, but it really doesn’t matter given the gratuitous space battles and excellent pre-battle planning systems. This package also includes all three race expansions (The Order, The Swarm and The Tribe). This should really be bought from the developer’s website instead, because it’s equally cheap and all the cash goes straight to Positech Games and thus even more such cool indie games.
• Imperium Romanum Gold Edition on Impulse – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 9,99 EUR
  A celebrated series of Roman Empire simulation games. This includes the first expansion packs, but all the other expansion packs are also on sale.
• King Arthur: The Role-playing Wargame + Saxons on Steam – Save 33% Weekend Deal – 33,49 EUR
  A recent strategy game with a fantasy setting inspired by the legends of king Arthur. It’s based around a turn-based campaign map and large scale real-time strategy battles that forms a mixture similar to the Total War games. The key differences being the inclusion of heroes, magic, RPG elements and a fantasy setting. This deal also includes two DLC packs and the Saxons expansion pack.
• Men of War: Red Tide on Green Man Gaming – Save 55% Deal – 10,84 EUR
  This sequel to Men of War introduces a brand new campaign spanning 23 missions and 4 factions during World War 2. It also includes six historical battles fought in the 1941-1945 time period and more than one hundred different units.
• Real Warfare 1242 on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 13,99 EUR
  A large scale real-time strategy game set in medieval Russia. It offers realistic strategic battles based on authentic historic events with decent graphics and large armies.
• Spellforce Platinum on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale - 7,49 EUR
  A collection that contains the entire original Spellforce series (Order of the Dawn, Breath of Winter and Shadow of the Phoenix). These games offer a very enjoyable mix of RTS and RPG gameplay, but aren’t quite as good as the Spellforce 2 series, which isn’t contained in this pack.
• Spellforce 2: Shadow Wars on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 7,49 EUR
  Shadow Wars offers an excellent mixture of RTS and RPG gameplay in an engaging and expansive singleplayer campaign. It’s good for more than 50 hours of gameplay and features both an overarching narrative and a multitude of sidequests. Spellforce 2 may largely have been overlooked by gamers at release, but it’s definitely worth picking up.
• Spellforce 2: Dragon Storm on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 7,49 EUR
  A large expansion pack to Spellforce 2: Shadow Wars that introduces a 30+ hour long singleplayer campaign and tons of new items, spells and a new race. The multiplayer component it introduced is unfortunately no longer supported, but it’s still a very good game.
• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Complete Pack on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal - 22,48 EUR
  Dawn of War and its three stand-alone expansion packs offer intense futuristic real-time strategy gameplay. It deviates from the RTS norm by pushing players out to capture resource nodes and control points to be victorious. This is one package that any self-respecting strategy gamer can’t afford to miss in their collection.

Turn-based Strategy

• Elven Legacy on Green Man Gaming – Save 52% Deal – 14,46 EUR
  In this turn-based fantasy strategy/RPG you take command of a small army of troops and scour clean maps with gameplay that’s mildly reminiscent of Heroes of Might & Magic. Interestingly the entire map is a battlefield so you always have to properly position your forces when moving, not just during combat. A solid strategy game that should be good for a fair few hours of fun, but don’t expect too much from the storytelling. Don’t bother with it until you’ve finished Heroes of Might & Magic V and King’s Bounty.
• Europa Universalis 2 on Green Man Gaming – Save 25% Deal – 7,22 EUR
  A turn-based grand strategy game that lets you lead a nation from the 15th to 19th century. It offers a wide variety of options while remaining very playable and is generally considered to be amongst the best in the genre.
• Future Wars on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale - 7,49 EUR
  This is a futuristic turn-based strategy game similar to Advance Wars and the Battle Isle series. It features colorful 3D graphics and relatively straightforward turn-based strategy gameplay, but adds some unique gameplay modes (e.g.: AI vs AI) and extensive modding capabilities to the mix. This Impulse version includes five additional maps.
• Reign: Conflict of Nations on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 13,99 EUR
  An ambitious game even by grand strategy standards, Reign: Conflict of Nations manages to present solidly crafted turn-based strategy gameplay. But it suffers from a lack of personality and many of the various gameplay elements aren’t quite fully realised. This results in a decent game that offers deep gameplay but never quite pulls you in.

Simulator

• Air Aces: Pacific on GamersGate - Save 40% Weekend Deal – 29,99 EUR
  An arcade flight simulator set in the Pacific arena of World War 2 with variable reality-mode settings for different flight experiences.
• Echelon: Wind Warriors on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 9,99 EUR
  A futuristic arcade flight simulator. Comes with dated graphics, a generic story and fairly repetitive missions, but with so little else on offer in the genre it’s still worth mentioning.
• Football Manager 2010 on Direct2Drive – Save 70% Weekend Deal – 6,- EUR
  Become the manager of a football team and lead it to top of the local and international leagues. It’s a fairly addictive game despite the lack of actual control over the football matches themselves, but you do get to decide on the tactics, training and line-ups beforehand.
• Patrician 3 on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale - 7,79 EUR
  Build a trading empire in this 13th century trading/city-building game.
• Pole Position 2010 on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 14,99 EUR
  A new racing management game in which you assemble your own F1 racing crew and try to win racing seasons.
• Port Royale 2 on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale - 7,79 EUR
  Create a trading empire in the Caribbean of the 17th century.
• Railworks on Steam – Save 40% Weekend Deal – 23,99 EUR
  A realistic train simulator in which you get to drive numerous realistic locomotives across realistically modelled routes in the UK, United States and Europe. There are also 52 different DLC packs available that add extra locomotives and locations to the game.
• Tropico 3 on Direct2Drive – Save 80% Anniversary Sale – 6,- EUR
  Become the ruler of a remote, tropical, island during the cold war. Be anything from a kind and generous leader to a ruthless tyrant.
• Tropico: Reloaded on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 4,99 EUR
  The first two games in the Tropico series of tropical rulership games.
• Wings of Prey on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal - 17,49 EUR
  Wings of Prey is a recently released arcade flight simulator in a World War 2 setting. It features over 50 missions, a wide variety of realism settings, a proper tutorial, multiplayer and more than 40 historically accurate aircraft.
  

Platform and Puzzle Games

• Three Musketeers on Impulse – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 5,84 EUR
  A third-person action platformer with a quaint cell-shaded graphical style.
• World of Goo on Green Man Gaming – Save 23% Deal – 15,66 EUR
  Take charge of an armada of goo and use it to form all sorts of weird contraptions to solve puzzles. It’s charming, humorous and challenging.

Racing

• 1C Racing Mega Pack on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 7,49 EUR
  A bundle of five decent racing games by publisher 1C. This pack contains 4×4 Hummer, A.I.M. Racing, Classic Car Racing, Death Track: Resurrection and Streets of Moscow.
• Gear Grinder on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 7,49 EUR
  Take control over a variety of monstrous trucks that can be outfitted with state of the art weaponry in this action-packed truck racing game.

Other Games and Bundles

• Amnesia: The Dark Descent on Direct2Drive – Save 10% Pre-order Deal – 12,50 EUR
  An upcoming first person survival horror game.
• Neighbours From Hell Pack on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 7,79 EUR
  Set traps for your neighbours and drive them absolutely crazy while avoiding detection in the wacky Neighbour From Hell games. A bit dated, but still charming and fun.
• Penumbra Collection on GamersGate / Direct2Drive – Save 70% Weekend Deal – 5,99 EUR
  This package includes all of the Penumbra first person horror adventure games. Very solid games if you’re into the genre.
• Poker Night at the Inventory on Steam – Save 10% Pre-order Deal – 3,59 EUR
  Take Team Fortress 2′s Heavy, Max from Sam & Max, Homestar Runner’s Strong Bad and Tychus from Penny Arcade and you get Poker Night at the Inventory! It’ll be a game about playing poker, but not quite in the way you’re used to.
• Space Rangers 2: Reboot on Impulse – Save 50% Charity Sale – 7,49 EUR
  This expansion pack for Space Rangers 2 introduces two new game modes and numerous other enhancements.
• THQ Ultimate Bundle on Impulse – Save 80% – 52,38 EUR
  This is a bundle of some of THQ’s best PC games. It includes the entire Company of Heroes series of World War 2-era real-time strategy games, along with Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War and Supreme Commander and their respective expansion packs. Proper first person shooters are also included in the form of the entire Red Faction franchise and both Full Spectrum Warrior games. The excellent Action RPG Titan Quest and its Immortal Throne expansion are also included, along with the superb free-roaming singleplayer FPS S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. The racing game Juiced 2 and zoo simulator World of Zoo round out the package.
• Uplink on Green Man Gaming – Save 50% Deal – 3,61 EUR
  In this game you assume the role of a freelance hacker. Take on jobs and upgrade your tools with the earnings as you progress through the game’s plot.

And that’s where this quarterly Budget Gaming PC article comes in. Within I assemble a reasonably priced gaming PC that can handle anything recent with relative ease. So if you’re not quite up-to-date with the latest advancements in hardware or simply want to assemble a capable gaming PC at low cost, then this is where you want to be.

Keep the following in mind while inspecting this quarter’s budget gaming PC:

• Hardware prices have been climbing slightly these past few months, so the system is a little bit more expensive than it was in the 2nd quarter despite largely unchanged hardware.
• The monitor, keyboard, mouse, headset, speakers & operating system are not included.
• Some parts of your current computer could be salvaged for the new system. The hard disk drive(s), DVD drive, computer case and power supply are often easily transplanted into new PCs.
• I presume that you can do home assembly so it’s not included in the price. If you can’t, then most computer shops offer pre-assembly for a minimal fee.
• Buying everything from a single (web) shop tends to reduce shipping costs and makes it a lot easier to find out which number to call if something should go wrong.
• See this article for an assortment of tips on hardware selection and home assembly.

Crysis: Warhead still counts as one of the most demanding PC games to date

Q3 2010 Budget Gaming System

Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3	75,- EUR
Processor	AMD Phenom II X4 955	145,- EUR
Video Card	Club3D Radeon HD5850	250,- EUR
Memory (RAM)	Kingston ValueRAM DDR3-1333 4GB	97,- EUR
Hard Disk Drive	Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB	53,- EUR
DVD-Writer	LG GH24NS50	22,- EUR
Power Supply	OCZ Fatal1ty 550Watt	62,- EUR
Computer Case	Antec Three Hundred	49,- EUR
Total		753,- EUR

Motherboard – Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3

A decent socket AM3 motherboard with 6 SATA connectors for hard disks and DVD drives. It only has a single PCI x16 2.0 slot for a video card so there’s no room for future Crossfire or SLI setups, but that’s hardly the point for a budget system. This is decent and quite inexpensive.

Processor – AMD Phenom II X4 955

This is a high performance quad core processor that should suffice for all your gaming needs. It’s an older model, but the newer Core i5 and i7 processors are not only much more expensive, but have only minimal impact on the framerate of modern games like Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Crysis: Warhead or Mafia 2. It’s a good idea to save some money here for a powerful video card that can really make a difference.

Video Card – Club3D Radeon HD5850 1GB

Now this is what we saved money for with the lower end processor. The Radeon HD5850 is a mainstream video card that can run all the latest games in high detail and it supports DirectX 11. It should suffice for any games released in the foreseeable future.

It’s possible to save a little money here and go for the Geforce GTX 460, which underperforms by about 5-20% and comes in at 50 euro less.

Memory – Kingston ValueRAM DDR3-1333 4GB

Memory (RAM) is a frequently overrated component of modern gaming PCs. It’s important to have at least 4GB, but aside from that the actual speeds matter very little. There is no discernible performance difference, in gaming and most other applications, between budget modules and the most expensive DDR3 memory modules. So I’ve gone with one of the cheapest modules from a reputable company.

Hard Disk Drive – Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB

The Western Digital Caviar Black continues to stand as one of the fastest 7200rpm hard disks on the market and comes in at ridiculously low prices. I have a 1TB version as the system disk of my current gaming PC and it’s stable and fast. The only real questions here are whether you actually need a new hard disk (you probably won’t if you’re upgrading) and whether you might want some additional space over this 500GB.

DVD-Writer – LG GH24NS50

A cheap DVD-writer with lightscribe functionality.

Power Supply – OCZ Fatal1ty 550Watt

This is a very high performance power supply with sufficient juice to run this gaming system comfortably.

Keep in mind that if you’re looking to add on a lot of external devices or hard disk drives, then a 600 Watt power supply (e.g.: OCZ ModXStream 600 Watt) might be in order.

Computer Case – Antec Three Hundred

The Antec Three Hundred computer case is cheap, has good airflow and leaves plenty of room for additional drives. Few budget cases are quite this good, but this is hardly the most important component of your gaming PC. Any case will do really, provided that it has sufficient space for an ATX format motherboard and HD5850 video card.

That’s where my weekly Discount Drone feature comes in. In Discount Drone I take a weekly look at everything that is on offer and extract the best deals for your perusal. These are formatted by genre and accompanied by short and accurate descriptions, so that you can decide whether a game might be worth having. This includes special offers on: Direct2Drive, GamersGate, Get Games, Good Old Games, Green Man Gaming, Impulse and Steam.

This is the second week of the new genre-based format that I hope brings the games to the forefront instead of the distribution platforms. This week sees some interesting offers as the summer deals continue. Some interesting newcomers are the Apogee Pack, which offers a bundle of classic first person shooters and Mount and Blade: Warband, which is an excellent medieval life simulator/RPG. And some interesting deals from last week remain active, as can be seen with Get Games’ excellent strategic offerings of Commandos Complete, King’s Bounty: Armored Princess and Space Rangers 2: Reboot amongst many others.

And there are many more games to be had this week, so head on down for the full story. And be sure to subscribe to GameDrone for weekly coverage of the best digital download offers!

Deals of the Week

• Apogee Pack on Good Old Games – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 11,78 EUR
  These are truly old games, with classic titles like Duke Nukem 3D and Rise of the Triad. These are two cheesy old shooters with one seeing a kick-ass hero tear into an alien invasion and the other a team of five operatives investigating a cult… with guns. These two are accompanied by the more modern side-scrolling platformer Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project and the even older Blake Stone FPS games. A package good for a nice nostalgic trip to the days of old, along with some solid shooting gameplay.
• Commandos Complete on Get Games - Save 50% Summer Deal - 7,49 EUR
  This package includes all Commandos games, from the excellent and ridiculously difficult squad-based strategy games of Behind Enemy Lines & Commandos 2, to the sub-par shooter Strike Force. An awesome bundle at a great price – definitely worth a look.
• King’s Bounty: Armored Princess on Get Games - Save 80% Summer Deal – 4,99 EUR
  This stand-alone expansion pack offers an even better take on King’s Bounty’s excellent turn-based strategy gameplay, with the introduction of flight, a dragon pet, new hero abilities, etc. Be sure to get this if you’re into fantasy turn-based strategy games with heavy RPG influences similar to Heroes of Might and Magic.
• Mount and Blade: Warband on Steam – Save 66% Weekend Deal – 10,20 EUR
  Take an excellent medieval life simulator with directly controlled combat, a wide open world and near endless possibilities. Then add in 64-player multiplayer, newly improved combat mechanics, enhanced graphics and animations, new factional rulership gameplay and loads of other improvements. Now you’ve got Mount & Blade: Warband, an excellent sort-of Role-playing Game that can last for hours on end… and then some more with epic medieval multiplayer clashes.
• Space Rangers 2: Reboot on Get Games - Save 85% Summer Deal - 3,24 EUR
  Space Rangers 2 improves upon the original in ever regard. It’s a hugely varied game, which makes it a tad hard to describe, but its over-the-top yet in-depth space exploration mixture makes for an awesome experience. This reboot version also includes an expansion that adds new game modes, missions, equipment, etc.

Action

• Beat Hazard on GamersGate – Save 60% Weekend Deal – 2,79 EUR
  An arcade space shooter similar to Geometry Wars but with a neat twist: everything is based around your music. Enemy wave spawns, firing rates and visual effects are all based on the musical track you’ve selected, much like the racing tracks Audiosurf forms around your MP3s. It’s fun and intense.
• Plain Sight on GamersGate – Save 80% Weekend Deal – 1,79 EUR
  A fast-paced third-person multiplayer action game starring ninja robots. It features crazy disjointed maps that force players to jump between floating objects in space and make clever use of gravity. More importantly, the objective is to hack other ninja robots to pieces and then blow yourself up to score points. Oh, and anyone caught in the blast adds to your multiplier! Add in numerous unlockable powers, various over-the-top game modes, many different maps and high octane multiplayer and you’ve got a winner.
• Swarm Arena on Steam – Save 10% Launch Deal – 7,19 EUR
  At first glance an arcade space shooter in the vein of Geometry Wars, it soon becomes apparent that Swarm Arena is quite a different beast despite the similar looks. It’s a more tactical approach to the genre where the player gathers his ‘ammunition’ and faces less numerous but more capable opponents. The problem is that there’s so little content that it lasts for an hour or two at most and without multiplayer and more variety there’s little reason to return to it afterwards.
• Zombie Driver on GamersGate – Save 75% Weekend Deal – 2,24 EUR
  Drive in a variety of different, upgradeable cars and annihilate the local zombies with mounted flamethrowers, miniguns and more. It’s short and more than a bit repetitive, but if driving around town killing zombies sounds like your thing then you’ll probably like it.

Adventure

• Bob Came in Pieces on GamersGate – Save 60% Weekend Deal – 2,79 EUR
  Bob has crash landed on a planet and needs to find missing parts to fix his ship and escape. In this colorful puzzle-adventure game, you’ll need to rebuild Bob’s ship into different shapes and sizes in order to solve the puzzles.
• Machinarium on GamersGate – Save 66% Weekend Deal – 5,09 EUR
  An independently developed adventure game with a very unique art style. It stars a little robot who find himself trapped inside a prison of sorts and features fairly standard point-and-click gameplay mixed with very non-standard story exposition: there’s not a single word of dialogue. It’s a bit short and can be quite difficult at times, but otherwise comes highly recommended for anyone who digs point-and-click adventure games set in strange and interesting worlds.
• The Path on GamersGate – Save 60% Weekend Deal - 2,79 EUR
  A very dark and unusual horror adventure game featuring little red ridinghood. It challenges you to ignore what the game tells you and features some disturbing scenes.

First Person Shooter

• Aliens vs Predator on Get Games – Save 50% Summer Deal – 17,49 EUR
  Become a marine, alien or predator in this futuristic first person shooter. It’s a solid shooter with three enjoyable singleplayer campaigns, a very intense atmosphere and a decent, but not outstanding, three-way multiplayer component.
• Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal – 2,49 EUR
  A first person survival horror game set on an old nuclear icebreaker on the North Pole.
• NecroVisioN: Lost Company on Green Man Gaming – Save 87% Weekend Deal – 3,62 EUR
  The latest title in the NecroVisioN franchise is actually a prequel that puts you in the shoes of a German soldier fighting off hordes of monsters during World War I. A good deal if you’re into arcade first person shooters with hordes of mindless monsters to blast your way through.

Role-playing Game

• Avencast: Rise of the Mage on Steam - Save 50% Weekend Deal – 4,49 EUR
  Avencast is a mediocre hack & slash RPG with gameplay centered around wizardry and magic. There are many better games in the genre, but there are worse games to play if you’re looking to pass the time until Diablo 3, Dungeon Siege 3 or Torchlight.
• Avernum V on GamersGate – Save 60% Weekend Deal – 7,18 EUR
  This is an isometric turn-based RPG with classic party-based gameplay. It’s a large game with hundreds of quests and it’ll take quite a while to complete. But it’s a bit combat heavy for this type of game and the graphics are very basic.
• Eschalon: Book I on Impulse – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 7,49 EUR
  An isometric turn-based RPG in a large fantasy world. Its graphics are somewhat dated and it was created by a small independent studio, but it offers many dozens of hours of play time and a solid fantasy story. Worth a look if you’re into gameplay and storytelling over graphics in your RPGs.
• Eschalon: Book II on Impulse – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 9,99 EUR
  See the above, but add in much improved graphics, 60 new features and an even more expansive game. It’s mostly more of the same, but in a good and solidly improved way.
• Geneforge 5 on GamersGate – Save 60% Weekend Deal – 7,18 EUR
  Another isometric turn-based RPG game from the creators of Avernum V. It features similarly outdated graphics, but is also an expansive RPG with solid storytelling.
• Mount and Blade on Steam – Save 75% Weekend Deal – 7,50 EUR
  An independently created medieval life simulator might sound like a dull affair. But this is a game that cleverly combines a large fantasy world with interesting combat mechanics. Because the player is in full control at all times and such affairs as sword fighting and archery all come down to player skill. Add a huge amount of player freedom to do anything from trading to becoming the leader of a band of mercenaries and you’ve got a game that can entertain for hours on end.
• Numen: Contest of Heroes on Impulse – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 9,99 EUR
  This appears to be a fairly generic fantasy hack & slash RPG. But one that doesn’t seem to do anything particularly wrong. There’s only one review that I know of which gives it a solid 7 out of 10 and most Impulse users seem quite pleased with it giving it a 4 out of 5 rating. I’ve actually bought it, but still need to find the time to give it a proper look and review.
• Star Wolves on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal - 2,49 EUR
  You control a mothership and a set of pilots in their own fighter craft through an extensive singleplayer campaign. The voice-acting is very sub-par and the graphics are merely decent, but the gameplay is very addictive and fun. The universe just sucks you in after a few hours of play.
• Star Wolves 3: Civil War on Get Games - Save 75% Summer Deal – 6,25 EUR
  This game hearkens back to the original Star Wolves with similarly awesome and addictive RPG/RTS gameplay, no DRM and poor voice-acting. It’s nowhere near as buggy as Star Wolves 2 and while the interface takes a bit of getting used to it’s definitely a fun game to play.

Real-time Strategy

• Darwinia on Green Man Gaming – Save 70% Deal – 2,16 EUR
  A retro-themed indie real-time strategy game where you have to save the Darwinians from extinction as a computer virus has infiltrated their world. It only features singleplayer, but is actually quite fun to play.
• Defcon: Everybody Dies on Green Man Gaming – Save 16% Deal - 6,02 EUR
  Defcon puts players in charge of a military commander trying to turn his country into a global superpower. It’s a cold and harsh presentation of what a nuclear war would be like viewed from the perspective of those in charge. Set up defenses around major population centers, build a fleet to engage the enemy and then launch everything you have at the largest possible population centers of the enemy. With its distant global map view and cold statistics on nuke efficiency this is definitely not your average heroic real-time strategy game.
• Fate of Hellas on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 4,99 EUR
  Fate of Hellas centers around ancient Greece and offers fairly familiar RTS gameplay. It tries to change things up a little by carrying over bonuses from conquered cities, as well as introducing some unit customization by allowing you to pick up weapons from fallen enemies. But apart from that it’s just a solid RTS game with base building, melee and ranged combat, formations and siege gameplay.
• Grand Ages: Rome on Green Man Gaming – Save 70% Weekend Deal - 7,22 EUR
  A city-building real-time strategy game set in the Roman era
• Gratuitous Space Battles Complete on Impulse - Save 35% – 20,18 EUR
  An excellent indie strategy game that puts you in command of a space fleet. Design your own ships and set up your armadas before each battle, then watch as they tear into the opposing fleets. There is no direct unit control in this game, but it really doesn’t matter given the gratuitous space battles and excellent pre-battle planning systems. This package also includes all three race expansions (The Order, The Swarm and The Tribe). This should really be bought from the developer’s website instead, because it’s equally cheap and all the cash goes straight to Positech Games and thus even more such cool indie games.
• King Arthur: The Role-playing Wargame + Saxons on Steam – Save 33% Weekend Deal – 33,49 EUR
  A recent strategy game with a fantasy setting inspired by the legends of king Arthur. It’s based around a turn-based campaign map and large scale real-time strategy battles that forms a mixture similar to the Total War games. The key differences being the inclusion of heroes, magic, RPG elements and a fantasy setting. This deal also includes two DLC packs and the Saxons expansion pack.
• Men of War: Red Tide on Green Man Gaming – Save 70% Deal – 7,22 EUR
  This sequel to Men of War introduces a brand new campaign spanning 23 missions and 4 factions during World War 2. It also includes six historical battles fought in the 1941-1945 time period and more than one hundred different units.
• Napoleon: Total War on Get Games – Save 50% Summer Deal – 19,99 EUR
  The most recent game in the Total War series, which features the Napoleonic era. It’s an improved version of Empire: Total War, with slightly less features and a smaller theatre of war, but superior execution.
• XIII Century Gold Edition on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal - 6,25 EUR
  Two excellent real-time strategy games with large scale battles (thousands of soldiers) in realistic medieval conflicts. It recreates the actual conditions of numerous historical battles, taking into account both the weather and terrain. It may have the grand scale in battles of a Total War game, but it lacks the grand strategy turn-based over map gameplay as it’s more of a medieval battle simulator.

Turn-based Strategy

• Elven Legacy on Green Man Gaming – Save 70% Deal – 9,03 EUR
  In this turn-based fantasy strategy/RPG you take command of a small army of troops and scour clean maps with gameplay that’s mildly reminiscent of Heroes of Might & Magic. Interestingly the entire map is a battlefield so you always have to properly position your forces when moving, not just during combat. A solid strategy game that should be good for a fair few hours of fun, but don’t expect too much from the storytelling. Don’t bother with it until you’ve finished Heroes of Might & Magic V and King’s Bounty.
• Fantasy Wars on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal – 3,74 EUR
  Turn-based strategy gameplay in a fantasy setting. This is the prequel to Elven Legacy so the gameplay is nearly identical with constant grid-based turn-based warfare. It’s actually a lot of fun to play despite the low production values.
• Flotilla on GamersGate – Save 66% Weekend Deal – 3,05 EUR
  This indie-game involves randomly generated universes that you get to explore with your own space fleet. It includes turn-based tactical combat, exploration of a randomly populated universe, stylish 3D graphics, ship upgrades, splitscreen co-op, skirmish mode, etc. Definitely a game worth having.
• King’s Bounty: The Legend on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal – 2,49 EUR
  An excellent fantasy turn-based strategy game with RPG influences that’s similar, but superior, to Heroes of Might & Magic. This is about as good as the genre gets and you definitely don’t want to miss out on it at this price.
• UFO: Aftershock on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal - 2,49 EUR
  Humanity has fled from Earth after it became uninhabitable, but now they’re trying to reconquer it from the unknown lifeforms that have taken up resources. Naturally you’re placed in charge in this small-scale tactical strategy game.
• UFO: Afterlight on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal - 3,74 EUR
  Afterlight places the focus on a small human colony on Mars that has to thrive in the face of constant alien invasions. It’s a much better game than Aftershock and a solid mixture of global strategy and small-scale tactical combat.
• World War 2: Time of Wrath on Impulse - Save 75% – 6,75 EUR
  A decent turn-based grand strategy game set in World War 2.

Simulator

• Air Aces: Pacific on Impulse - Save 35% – 29,90 EUR
  An arcade flight simulator set in the Pacific arena of World War 2 with variable reality-mode setting for different flight experiences.

Platform and Puzzle Games

• And Yet It Moves on GamersGate – Save 66% Weekend Deal – 3,59 EUR
  A puzzle-platformer indie game with a very unique visual style similar to paper mache.
• Braid on GamersGate – Save 60% Weekend Deal – 3,59 EUR
  An excellent puzzle-platformer that present colorful environments and some very challenging puzzles that require time manipulation to solve. It’s highly original, challenging and fun.
• Osmos on GamersGate – Save 60% Weekend Deal - 3,19 EUR
  An arcade-puzzle game in which your objective is to grow by absorbing other motes.
• Puzzle Dimension on Steam – Save 33% Launch Deal – 6,69 EUR
  This new puzzle game lets players assume the role of a large stone ball that needs to roll and jump around a large variety of crumbling environments. Naturally these environments become increasingly complex and challenging to maneuvre as one wrong turn can mean failure and a reset. With achievements, leaderboards, a whopping 100 puzzles and decent production values this is a solid puzzle game.
• Saira on GamersGate – Save 60% Weekend Deal – 3,59 EUR
  An independently developed 2D platform game that stands out due to its beautiful scenarios, tough puzzles and smart design.
• Trine on Green Man Gaming – Save 70% Deal – 6,02 EUR
  A great indie platform game featuring singleplayer and local (same computer) co-op modes. Read my first impressions for an indication of what the game plays like and why you should get it.
• World of Goo on GamersGate – Save 66% Weekend Deal – 6,79 EUR
  Take charge of an armada of goo and use it to form all sorts of weird contraptions to solve puzzles. It’s charming, humorous and challenging.

Other Games and Bundles

• A Kingdom for Keflings on GamersGate – Save 66% Weekend Deal – 6,79 EUR
  In this colorful city-building game you assume control over an avatar who can explore a fantasy world, go on quests, build up a village and help its inhabitants in gathering resources and improving their settlement. It also includes 4-player multiplayer.
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent on Direct2Drive – Save 10% Pre-order Deal – 12,50 EUR
  An upcoming first person survival horror game.
• Space Rangers on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal – 2,49 EUR
  This is a difficult game to describe. It’s part RPG, part RTS, part Sim. You’re a space pilot and you can do whatever you want: trade, fight, follow the storyline, accept missions, become a pirate, etc. However it also features strategic ground battles and all sorts of quirky encounters. It’s a very unusual game in the way that the King’s Bounty games are over-the-top weird… and like those games, Space Rangers is one game you can’t afford to miss out on.
• THQ Ultimate Bundle on Impulse – Save 80% – 65,49 EUR
  This is a bundle of some of THQ’s best PC games. It includes the entire Company of Heroes series of World War 2-era real-time strategy games, along with Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War and Supreme Commander and their respective expansion packs. Proper first person shooters are also included in the form of the entire Red Faction franchise and both Full Spectrum Warrior games. The excellent Action RPG Titan Quest and its Immortal Throne expansion are also included, along with the superb free-roaming singleplayer FPS S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. The racing game Juiced 2 and zoo simulator World of Zoo round out the package.
• Uplink on Green Man Gaming – Save 70% Deal – 2,16 EUR
  In this game you assume the role of a freelance hacker. Take on jobs and upgrade your tools with the earnings as you progress through the game’s plot.

On monday Stardock unlocked a pre-release version of Elemental on Impulse. This was a day early in response to stores breaking the street date. As a result the day 1 patch Stardock had been preparing arrived too late. Soon after pre-release, PC Gamer editor Tom Francis issued a warning that gamers avoid Elemental for now. At first glance a fair warning for a buggy product, albeit one that saw massive improvements a mere few hours later with two large patches.

The story soon got picked up by other websites, exaggerated and spun out of control. But the launch day patch(es) actually did fix a vast majority of the issues present in the pre-release version of Elemental. And now that I’ve given it a go myself, I’m left wondering why PC Gamer haven’t rescinded their pre-review warning yet.

I’ve played several hours of Elemental by now, most of which in the campaign. I’d feared to run into countless bugs both major and minor, but that hasn’t been the case at all. I’ve seen a small graphical anomaly and stumbled across a bug where the game turns into a slideshow when certain advanced graphics features are enabled. That definitely needs fixing, but is also easily avoided because those features are disabled by default.

Aside from the above I haven’t stumbled across any bugs, the game has never crashed and I’ve only encountered a few minor gameplay issues. The same appears to be true for a lot players, but some do suffer from performance issues and rare crashes. But that’s hardly the horror story that Tom Francis’s warning and the subsequent exaggerations imply.

Now Tom Francis probably did this with good intent upon seeing the terrible state of the pre-release version. It’s unbelievable how much the game has changed since that version, but the unlikelyhood of such a change doesn’t really excuse the case of double standards that went into issuing this warning in the first place. It’s the first time PC Gamer ever issued such a pre-review warning and they do so for a niche game like Elemental?

Oh look, it's an artifact! Must be one of those supposed game breaking bugs.

I actually think the concept of a pre-release warning for games that are released in a truly unplayable state might be a good idea. I’ve purchased such games in the past and later wished someone would’ve warned me off, as I’m sure many of you have. I can recall Star Wars: Battlefront, which was a buggy mess with shit for netcode and an atrocious server browser that made selecting a server a challenge in and of itself.

And games like ArmA, Gothic 3 or S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl certainly would’ve warranted similar warnings based on their states at launch. These were all games riddled with game-breaking bugs, performance issues and crashes. Surely a few oaths have been uttered over the state of those games, but no one in the gaming press ever warned people not to buy it before the very first review was out.

The fact is that Elemental: War of Magic doesn’t even fit amongst those titles. The current version suffers from only a handful of bugs, most of which are minor. And it’s entirely playable for most players. It’s more comparable to the likes of Empire: Total War and Neverwinter Nights 2. Games that suffered from issues and bugs at launch, but nothing that really stood in the way of actually playing and enjoying the game.

There's something deeply satisfying about seeing your cities grow... and your enemies

That’s not to say that Elemental: War of Magic is just fine and everyone should go out and get it. It does suffer from a lot of minor bugs and other issues. Most problematic of all is the lack of a proper tutorial, which the campaign was supposed to provide. It doesn’t really explain much and leaves far too much up to the player, so newcomers have to resort to the in-game help functionality, video tutorials and user tutorials. That’s not good design.

That singleplayer campaign is underwhelming with no voicework, a generic story and poor writing. It may not be the focus of this game which centers around custom games, but it doesn’t add any value in its current form. Also disappointing is the AI, which is fairly strong early on, but eventually fizzles out, at which point the game becomes a cakewalk. The tactical combat also leaves something to be desired, but fortunately auto-resolve is handled very well by the computer.

And multiplayer functionality is temporarily disabled until a patch early next week. There are also a few game systems like tactical combat and diplomacy that leave things to be desired, but none of that really warrants a “don’t buy” alert that’s never been issued before. There’s no reason to hold Elemental: War of Magic to different standards than any other game.

Is Elemental worth buying then?

I haven’t regretted my pre-ordering the game yet, but I don’t think it’s quite worth a full price purchase at this point. I may disagree with Tom Francis’ method and timing, but his message is inherently correct. Elemental: War of Magic is buggy and still needs quite a bit of work to live up to the potential that’s undeniably there.

So at this point I’d recommend waiting for the upcoming demo before making a decision.

The necromancer was easily one of the most popular professions in the original Guild Wars games and judging by the showing at gamescom it looks to be no different in Guild Wars 2. Necromancers promise to be extremely durable casters who use buffs, debuffs and minions to wreak havoc with their enemies. But their main distinguishing feature is death shroud, which makes them take spirit form and gain a new skill bar with powerful abilities.

Necromancers may seem a lot like their predecessors in Guild Wars, but a lot has changed under the hood. I’d go so far as to name it the profession that has changed the most when compared to its Guild Wars variant of the ones that have been announced thus far. So be sure to take a look below as I delve into the information that’s been revealed thus far, both by ArenaNet and their gamescom 2010 demo!

Necromancer

• The necromancer profession is very recognizable for players of the original game. It’s still a buff, debuff and minion oriented profession, but a lot of the underlying mechanics have changed.
• Necromancers can carry an axe, dagger or scepter in the main hand. The off hand can be used for a dagger, focus or warhorn. Their only possible two-handed weapon is the staff.
• All weapon sets have skills that can gain life force for the necromancer.
• Necromancers fit in the light profession category. This means they can wear the same armor as other light professions such as the elementalist.
• Human necromancers have to pick a mask (trickster demon, skull or ghostly wraith) during character creation. This might also be true for other races.

It seems as if mask selection might be a profession-wide biography choice

Death Shroud

• This is the necromancer’s defining ability, similar to adrenaline for warriors, attunements for elementalists and pets for rangers.
• A green life force bar above the left skill bar builds up as the necromancer attacks and kills enemies. Some skills also feed life force to this bar.
• Death Shroud is activated through an icon next to this life force bar. When activated death shroud rapidly drains the life force bar and drastically alters the way the necromancer plays. The screen also turns darker while an eery green glow emerges around the edges and the Necromancer is transformed into a dark shadow.
• In death shroud a small skill bar similar to downed state for other classes replaces the regular skills. This bar contains 4 special abilities, including one that drains lifeforce from nearby enemies and a special minion that only remains active for the duration of death shroud.
• Necromancers actually leave their body behind when entering death shroud, so upon exiting death shroud they’re sucked back to their original location.
• Death Shroud also functions as the necromancer’s downed state.

These little buggers look freaky!

Skills

• Necromancers have several different minion summoning skills. These skills turn into a secondary mode after summoning and can then be used to destroy the minion(s) in return for some sort of benefit such as a health boost. Contrary to Guild Wars there is no corpse requirement for summoning minions and they do not lose health over time.
• Wells are now persistent area-of-effect buffs (e.g.: health regeneration) or debuffs. They’re spawned at the necromancer’s location. Only one well skill can be active at any time.
• Marks can be placed in a target area and are triggered manually (use the same skill) or after a period of time. An example involves a mark that damages nearby enemies while healing nearby allies.
• Necromancers can also use certain skills to instill fear in their opponents. This condition forces characters to run away from the caster and is removable.
• Doom is a skill that instills fear in a single target.
• Bone Minions summons three small minions. Its secondary usage is Putrid Explosion which explodes these minions for both damage and a disease condition to nearby targets.
• Grasping Dead is a targeted skill, which summons skeletal hands from the ground to deal damage in a straight line.
• Locust Swarm summons a swarm of locusts around the necromancer which deals damage to nearby enemies. It may have life-draining capabilities, but that’s not confirmed.
• Life Siphon sucks health from a target enemy into the necromancer.
• Ghost Armor improves a necromancer’s armor and adds life force whenever (s)he takes damage.
• An early necromancer elite skill transforms the character into a plague cloud for a short time.
• Take a look at the article on the Guild Wars 2 website for videos and screenshots of some of these skills.

Should you have missed out on the wealth of Guild Wars 2 information that’s been made public already, then you may wish to read up on the design manifesto, combat system and elementalist profession, the warrior profession and traits system #1 & #2, the ranger profession #1 & #2 & #3, dynamic events system #1 & #2, the personal story system, player personalities, death and healing, dialogue, leveling, non-combat activities #1 and #2 and activities and travel in Tyria. Also take a look at my coverage of the gamescom 2010 demo #1 and #2 with gameplay footage and a lot of new information.

Stay tuned to GameDrone for constant updates on Guild Wars 2, but also be sure to keep an eye on the on the official Guild Wars 2 website and ArenaNet company blog for the latest information and media!

But much more importantly for us eager fans who didn’t travel down to Germany, this also resulted in a torrent of new gameplay information and countless gameplay videos all over the internet. I’ve tried to distill some order in this flood of new information and extracted the new and interesting bits for an enormous list of all things new and cool in Guild Wars 2 since gamescom 2010.

Read on for an organized list of a majority of the new information that was revealed at this year’s gamescom. I may have missed a few things, but most of the important stuff is there and that’s already a lot. And I’ve even included links to some particularly interesting videos and the excellent Guild Wars 2 Guru forum topic that includes links to practically all Guild Wars 2 related content resulting from gamescom including dozens of gameplay videos and video interviews.

Also be sure to check back later today for the official reveal of the Necromancer profession. Stay tuned to GameDrone for that and more regular updates on Guild Wars 2. Also keep an eye on the on the official Guild Wars 2 website and ArenaNet company blog for the latest information and media.

Character Creation (Human)

• The game starts with character creation where the first choice is race, in this demo charr (45-50) or human (1-10).
• After picking a race it goes into gender and then class (warrior, elementalist, ranger or necromancer in the demo).
• Ordinarily it then heads into adjusting the character’s looks, but that’s disabled in the demo and replaced by a few default looks to pick from.
• Then the biography is up, which starts with picking a class-specific item that the character identifies with.
• Elementalists choose a circlet they wear on their head, which demonstrates their elemental preference for Air, Water, Fire or Earth.
• Necromancers choose a mask that symbolizes either a trickster demon, a skull or a ghostly wraith.
• Rangers choose which pet they’d like to start with.
• Warriors choose a headgear.
• Personality choice is next and offers the options of charm, dignity or ferocity.
• Background involves choosing between a street rat, commoner or nobility. This also impacts the clothing that the character wears.
• A greatest regret needs to be picked and the options are: never joined the circus, never searched for true parents or never recovered dead sister’s body.
• The final biography question involves picking a god to worship. These 6 are Balthazar, Dwayna, Grenth, Melandru, Lyssa and Kormir. The latter being a nice touch for the fans.
• It ends with an overview of the character’s biography that needs to be signed with the character’s name.
• The name must be between 3 and 19 characters and spaces are allowed. This is very similar to Guild Wars.

Progression and Gear

• New characters start with a heal skill and 2 weapons skills. More skill slots are unlocked as the character levels up.
• Characters already know a few weapon skills for each weapon they can use, but more weapon skills can be bought at skill trainers.
• Attributes can be changed on the fly in Guild Wars 2, much like in the original game.
• Players can reach up to level 80, but experience scaling cuts out at level 30. This means it takes as much experience to level from 31 to 32 as it does from 71 to 72. It does scale in the beginning to offer a more exciting and fast-paced start, while slowly ramping up to require a little more effort.
• Guild Wars 2 should be interesting and fun to play right from the start, not only after hitting the level cap. They seem to be on the right track with epic battles and huge boss encounters right at the very beginning. Shown at gamescom were a huge earth elemental at level 1, a massive swamp behemoth at level 15 and an enormous dragon lieutenant at level 45.
• Leveling up results in an explosion around the player that simultaneously damages nearby opponents, knocks them down and heals the player back to full health.
• Armor is shared by all professions within a certain category. Elementalists and necromancers are both light professions, so they can wear the same armor.
• There are armors that look better on certain professions than others.
• There will not be any form of item durability in Guild Wars 2.
• Equipment will have more impact than in the original game in terms of statistics. It’s likely that this will not negatively affect the competitive PvP mode since that mode requires the creation of a PvP specific character and ArenaNet can simply limit the equipment selection.
• Players start with a basic set of dye colors and can unlock more as they progress through the game. This removes the expensive dye bottles from the original. Also removed is dye mixing, which has been replaced with a much greater variety of base colors. All armor pieces have three ‘dye slots’ that correspond to specific portions of that piece of armor. Seen in action here. Note that that’s not the starter dye kit and there will be even more dyes in the final game.

Skills

• Skills are purchased from skill trainers, earned as quest rewards or found as loot in the form of skill books.
• Skills are tied in to levels like in most MMORPGs. This means that skills can only be learned at specific levels, but players can purchase future skills in advance and have them converted to skill books in their inventory, similar to Aion. Skills purchased for the player’s current level are automatically learned.
• Elite skills apparently have a recharge time of 720 seconds, but are insanely powerful. Elementalists can turn into tornados, rangers can send their pets into a frenzy and necromancers can turn into plague clouds, for example.
• Racial skills are intended to add flavor, but ArenaNet is taking special care to prevent these from making certain classes more powerful. Racial skills will not make charr warriors more capable than asura warriors, for example. There are roughly 10 racial skills per race and these are exclusive to the right skillbar with its slottable heal, utility and elite skills.
• A two-handed weapon takes up all five weapon skills, whereas two single-handed weapons provide 3 and 2 skills respectively in the left skillbar.
• The loadout of the five skills in the right skillbar can be altered any time the character is out of combat. This can even be done in between mobs.
• Skill templates will almost certainly make a return, but it looks like they won’t be implemented in the launch version. This method of saving and sharing skill loadouts will likely return in some form in a post-launch update.

Human Gameplay

• The demo starts with a cutscene that introduces the state of the world and the human race. Neither is faring very well.
• It then loads into the village of Shaemoor which functions as the tutorial area for human characters.
• Centaurs are attacking the village and a character comes running up and tells you to rally the survivors in a nearby inn.
• Logan Thackeray joins in the fray and summons players to defend the local keep. This starts with defending it from waves of centaurs, but then moves into a boss fight against a centaur shaman. He runs away, but only to lure the humans into a trap. He summons an enormous earth elemental.
• The earth elemental is flinging spells at players while centaurs attack as well. Meanwhile the players need to destroy the hands stabilizing this elemental creature. When destabilized the elemental explodes and this leads into another cutscene.
• After the cutscene the player is in an inn outside of Divinity’s Reach. This is where the world opens up to the player.
• A scout is stationed just outside the inn and informs the player of possible activities in the outlying farmlands. The scout actually opens up your map and highlights each area as he talks about it. There will be more such scouts in other regions of the world.
• Dynamic events are occurring left and right in the farmsteads. A watermelon farm suffers from a rabbit infestation, so players need to pick these up and bring them to the farmer before all the watermelons are destroyed. Success results in experience, gold, karma and the farmer selling watermelons to players which provide a temporary buff.
• Some of the other events nearby include bandits torching bales of hay, a giant worm infestation, cows needing feeding and plants needing watering. The water buckets can also be used on other players.
• The home instance in Divinity’s Reach includes a local tavern. Humans with a commoner background find a rival and his gang, which quickly results in a bar brawl. This area takes up roughly 1/8th of the city.

Charr Gameplay

• This part of the demo takes place in the Ascalonian regions controlled by the charr and covers levels 45-50. It focuses primarily on showcasing dynamic events.
• A dynamic event involves a fight against the Shatterer. This is not an elder dragon, but a smaller and less powerful dragon lieutenant. It still towers over the players.
• It takes dozens of players to overcome the Shatterer and there are multiple ways to contribute. Some players fight the dragon directly, but others hold off its minions, revive allies, free allies from crystal prisons, or man siege weaponry located on a nearby ridge.
• These siege weapons can be destroyed by the dragon’s minions. That will then spawn another event where materials are brought in from a nearby outpost in order to repair the siege weapons.

Gameplay

• Combat is dynamic and involves a lot of movement. Some skills actually move the player in a direction and many others have knockback and knock down effects that can actually send players flying. This mobility is also illustrated in the extensive strafing and dodging that occurs in the live demos. It’s possible to dodge many ranged attacks or targetted spells by rolling out of their way, for example. This is done by double-tapping movement keys.
• Battles are interactive in a way not really seen before. The Shatterer in the charr demo can actually freeze players in crystals and drain their life force, but these characters can be freed by other players. Similarly the regular Oakheart monsters can root characters in place, but these roots are attackable objects and players can be freed from them.
• There seems to be no standard auto-attack. Instead players right click a skill for the auto-attack slot which then becomes their auto-attack.
• Players are not automatically put in range of opponents when casting spells. So a ranged attack can fall short of the target if they’re out of range.
• An indicator above the heads of hostile targets seems to indicate whether they can be damaged. It greys out when they’re out of range or invulnerable and turns red when they’re close enough to attack.
• There are a lot of different ways to earn experience. This includes participating in dynamic events, dungeons and completing personal story missions. The activities pointed out by local scouts also provide experience rewards, as well as generally reviving other players and killing mobs.
• Any player who participates in killing a monster gains loot and experience. There is no competition for mobs or loot even when you’re not in a party.
• There is no skill requirement for reviving other players, pets and NPCs. This can be done by any player without the need for special skills.
• There are benefits to partying in Guild Wars 2, which mainly come in the form of communication. This includes health and location indicators for each party member, drawing and pinging on the mini-map and of course the fan favorite target calling feature makes a return as well.
• Parties will be limited to 5 players.
• Players of different levels can play together with a sidekick system. A level 50 players can boost a new players up to their level and go through high level content, but it’s also possible for the new players to reduce the other player’s level and to then go adventuring in lower level zones.
• No hard mode in Guild Wars 2. Players looking for a challenge can fight monsters above their level or enter areas above their level.
• Instanced dungeons are specifically designed to offer a great challenge beyond regular world encounters. There will be different modes to these dungeons to make them repeatable without getting overly repetitive. None of these were actually shown in action at gamescom.
• Energy is handled completely differently from the original game. It now regenerates slowly outside of combat and potions can be used to speed up this process. These potions have cooldowns which are short out of combat and quite long during combat. Energy potions are also cheap and regularly drop from mobs.
• There are no health potions!
• There will be a lot of emotes in Guild Wars 2 and they’re trying to tie in voice acting to emotes. So player characters will actually talk when using specific emotes.
• If a player interacts with an object in the world, like a bucket or a plant, then it disappears for them. It does not disappear for any other player, so all players can use the same objects and resource nodes without respawn timers or anything.

PvP

• It will be possible to ignore PvE content altogether and play exclusively in World vs World or the hardcore PvP mode.
• World vs World is a three way server vs server vs server battle with huge numbers of players. This is designed to be open to players of all levels with varying objectives.
• In World vs World a large castle siege may be going on, but simultaneously a smaller group of players can assault a nearby copper mine and a solo player might attack a caravan that’s sending resources from that copper mine.
• PvE and PvP skills will be balanced separately.
• The World vs World open PvP mode will likely use the PvE version of skills, because the PvE character is used in this PvP mode. So characters participate with their regular level, equipment and skill set and can even gain experience in World vs World PvP.

This should bring back some memories for Guild Wars Beta Weekend Event players!

Dynamic Events

• What’s great about events is that there’s no need to talk to NPCs before joining in. If bandits are attacking a farmer then you can jump right to the rescue. The objectives will automatically pop up and the game will track your success to determine your experience, loot and karma reward.
• Some events require a large group of people to succeed. The Shadow Behemoth (swamp boss) in the human demo and the Shatterer (dragon) in the charr demo are such events.
• These boss events also scale according to player counts. So the Shatterer event will become more difficult as more players join in.
• Boss encounters have different triggers, so some are timer-based while others only appear towards the end of an event chain.
• Event chains can span large chunks of a map and several different events. Some can even go through as much as 20 events.
• All players receive loot, experience and karma when participating in a dynamic event. A rare item drop will be shared by all solid participants.
• Karma is a sort of secondary type of money that can be used to buy items and buffs from specific NPCs. This is tied in heavily with dynamic events.
• There are different levels of success in events. Gold level appears to be the highest, followed by Silver.
• It seems as if these success levels determine the amount of experience, karma and loot the player earns for their event participation. The level of the event also plays a part in this.
• Dynamic events have a persistent influence on the game world. If centaurs manage to take control over an outpost, then they’ll remain in control until they’re ousted by players in another event.
• They’re currently estimating 1500 dynamic events in the final version.

Personal Story

• Two different types of cutscenes are used to progress the story. The first demonstrates beautifully animated artwork with narration, like the introduction. The second is full character models appearing in screen and talking to the player with artwork in the background. These cutscenes can be skipped.
• Only parts of the personal story will be instanced, while other objectives will be out in the open, persistent, world.
• Decisions made during the personal story will branch into different directions.
• Some character you meet during your personal story can actually move into your home instance.
• The home instance is currently intended as a reflection of player choices and the characters they meet during their personal story. But ArenaNet is interested in adding in some form of more directly controlled player housing in the future, sort of like in Lord of the Rings Online, so that might be implemented at a later date if they can get it up to a high quality standard.
• The dialogue for NPCs in your home instance will change depending on your progress.

Elementalist

• Elementalists have an effect surrounding their hands which indicates their current elemental attunement. Fire will result in flaming hands, for example.
• An elite elementalist skill turns the user into a tornado. There are similar skills for other classes, so Necromancers can turn into floating plague clouds, for example.

Rangers

• Rangers with a short bow can fire while moving and some of their skills are also usable while moving.
• Each race has different starting pets. The charr have devourers, while humans can choose between a moa and a bear. Of course many more pets can be tamed later on.
• Tameable underwater pets include the offensively oriented shark, defensively oriented armorfish and the supportive jellyfish.
• There will be some form of pet storage in addition to the three that can be used by the player at any time.
• A small pet control interface is located above the left skill bar. This includes a health bar, pet skill bar and icon to go into advanced pet control.
• The pet panel allows for changing the pets name, viewing their statistics, changing their skill loadout and viewing their attributes.
• Rangers are also capable melee combatants. They can use swords and actually deal a fair amount of damage with their sword skills.

Interface

• Current objectives are displayed in the top right. These include both personal story objectives (green) and those for nearby dynamic events (orange).
• NPCs tied in to currently active personal story events have green icons floating over their heads.
• The minimap in the bottom right also points out currently active objectives with arrows indicating the correct destination.
• An experience bar spans the width of the screen and is located below the skill bar.
• The skill bar is divided into two parts, with the left part containing weapon skills and the right containing customizable skills.
• The right bar starts with a heal skill, then three utility skills and ends with an elite skill slot.
• Separating these two skill bars is a large red orb that indicates the character’s current health.
• Above the left skill bar is a class-specific attribute. Warriors have adrenaline bars, Elementalists have elemental attunement, Rangers have their pet skill bar and Necromancers have a death shroud bar.
• An icon to the left of the skill bar is used to drop currently equipped environmental objects.
• Above the right skill bar is the energy bar and to the right of that is an energy potion icon.
• Selected enemies pop up in the top center with an icon, name, health bar and current skill activity.
• Selected characters get colored highlights indicating their status. Friendly NPCs are green, hostile centaurs are red, etc.
• This context sensitivite interface also extends to the use key (F) which changes function when near a corpse, NPC, usable item, etc. Tooltips indicate the current function.
• The screen gains a red outline if the character starts to get low on health.
• More such tooltips function as the actual tutorial elements in the early gameplay segments.
• NPC dialogue occurs in two different ways: chat bubbles similar to Guild Wars or full-on dialogue screens with a 3D NPC head shot and various dialogue options.
• All of this dialogue is also voiced, including the chat bubbles.
• The map zooms out of the game world into a local area map and then up into a world map. The effect is similar to Supreme Commander’s zoom function.
• In the beginning most of the map is covered in a sort of fog of war, this goes away as you explore the areas. This is pretty much identical to Guild Wars.
• The inventory is based on bags, like in Guild Wars. Characters start with a single 20 slot bag, but can carry up to 5 bags.
• The character pane shows the character, currently equipped items, current personality indicators and attributes.
• Tabs on the character pane lead in to personal story, achievements and traits.
• There is much more variety in character equipment. The main armor is head, shoulders, body, bracers, legs and feet. There are additional smaller slots which appear to be trinkets of some sort, possibly jewelry.
• There are two weapon sets for each character which can be altered on the character pane and switched between on the fly.
• Keyboard controls are quite similar to Guild Wars. C targets the closest hostile, Tab cycles through them, I opens the inventory, etc.

Game World and Lore

• Areas seem to be built around event hot spots similar to the quest hot spots of regular MMORPGs. But these are obviously dynamic in nature.
• Most of the game world seems to be open without any portals or loading screens between regions.
• Loading screens will be presented as players travel between certain areas and from instanced into open world portions and vice versa.
• Instance boundaries and other transition areas are indicated by swirling portals identical to those in Guild Wars.
• While traveling through the world players will unlock waypoints. These can be used for fast travel via the map.
• Environments in Guild Wars 2 are wide open and have a huge sense of scale. In certain areas it’s possible to climb walls, mountains or buildings to get a great top-down view of the surrounding land. This is very different from the very restricted world design of the original game.
• There will be throwbacks to the original game. Recognizable monsters and areas will make a return, such as the Temple of the Ages.
• The town of Beetletun is now a lot larger than it used to be with a massive wall surrounding it and a mansion rising up above the rest of the town.
• That mansion will be the site of one of the dungeons in Guild Wars 2.
• The different races aren’t stricly separated. There are charr, norn, sylvari and asuran NPCs to be found in Divinity’s Reach, for example.

General

• There are clothing physics in Guild Wars 2, so clothing reacts properly to character’s movements. A charr tail or a weapon does not stick through capes and the like!
• Characters also walk realistically on each surface. Their feet are actually placed on stairs, rather than floating above them. When walking uphill they lean forward a bit and look to be walking uphill. This is mere perception and does not influence movement speed.
• Run speeds change dependant on whether weapons are drawn or put away. Charr actually go on four legs after putting weapons away, but humans also gain a movement buff by holstering weapons.
• Another interesting detail is that the character’s head turns to look at whichever object or character the player selects.
• The plan to provide rewards for achievements in the Hall of Monuments (Guild Wars: Eye of the North) is still a go. But no specifics at this time.
• There will be closed and open beta tests for Guild Wars 2. Much like the final release date, there’s no timeframe on these yet.
• Guild Wars 2 is very much a work-in-progress. There are no guarantees that everything will stay the same leading up to release.
• There is 3D support in Guild Wars 2. This was also demonstrated at gamescom.
• Guild Wars 2 will be financed through both expansion packs (not chapters) and micro-transactions. The contents of the in-game store will be entirely optional.
• Apparently Guild Wars (all of its chapters) has now sold more than 6 million copies.

Videos and More Information

The above may seem like a very in-depth look at all the new information that came out of gamescom 2010 and certainly took a long time to compile. But it’s really only scratching the surface of what’s out there. I may actually update this with even more information later today.

The good guys and girls over at Guild Wars 2 Guru have teamed up to get all the available information and videos compiled into one giant thread on their forums. So visit that link for tons of gameplay footage, analysis and further information. I also covered some charr gameplay last week, so you can look into that as well. And the Necromancer class should see an official reveal later today so stay tuned for that!

ArenaNet received a lot of praise for their gamescom presentation and Guild Wars 2 was easily the main attraction of the show. It deservedly won the award for Best Online Game of Show, as it turned out to be the most talked about game even in the face of heavy competition from the likes of BioShock: Infinite, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and especially The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings.

If you’d like to know more about some of those other games shown at this year’s gamescom, then I’ve got impressions, trailers and gameplay footage up here and here.

Should you have missed out on the wealth of Guild Wars 2 information that’s been made public already, then you may wish to read up on the design manifesto, combat system and elementalist profession, the warrior profession and traits system #1 & #2, the ranger profession #1 & #2 & #3, dynamic events system #1 & #2, the personal story system, player personalities, death and healing, dialogue, leveling, non-combat activities #1 and #2 and activities and travel in Tyria.

It also resulted in a lot of new game trailers and actual gameplay footage for some very promising upcoming games. So I’ve scoured the web for the most interesting gamescom footage and have embedded it below. Some of this includes excellent gameplay footage of Guild Wars 2 and The Witcher 2, but also featured are interesting trailers for Rift: Planes of Telara, Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online and more.

All of this footage is accompanied by brief introductions to each game or evaluations of the footage shown. I go into some detail as to the limitations of the newly launched free version of EverQuest 2, for example. So read on for some of the most interesting stories of gamescom 2010 and be sure to also take a look at last week’s coverage of pre-gamescom announcements and trailers.

End of Nations

Petroglyph shows off some in-game footage of a 30 player PvP match in their upcoming MMORTS End of Nations. It isn’t much of a looker and the units seem fairly standard for the RTS genre with mostly just tanks and jeeps, but it does seem like it’ll have interesting gameplay. This gameplay seems remniscent of Shattered Galaxy (an old MMORTS game) with several control points on each map that need to be taken over to assure victory.

But it is slightly disappointing to see practically no unit variety in this trailer. The two teams have near identical unit compositions and there doesn’t seem much potential for intricate strategies with widely varied compositions meshing together into a stronger whole. Hopefully this is merely because it’s an early build and there are some different units yet to be revealed, but for now it looks very basic. Some form of superpowers do seem to add a little variety to the mix.

It does look like it has some potential so I’ll see about finding some more information and writing up a proper preview sometime soon. For now the world domination PvP element sounds good in theory, but requires much more varied army compositions in practice. Hopefully Petroglyph can pull it off.

EverQuest 2: Extended Edition

Sony Online Entertainment have decided to make EverQuest 2 available free of charge in similar fashion to Turbine’s Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online. An accompanying trailer was shown at this year’s gamescom in order to get people excited for it and point them to the currently ongoing public beta test.

This free to play version does come with some limitations. Only 4 out of 19 races and 8 out of 24 classes are available for free accounts. It also restricts crafting levels, equipment grades, spell tiers, bag slots, coin limit, in-game mail, bank slots, chat and guild functionality. But it’s entirely free to play and does contain a lot of content available in the vast world of EverQuest 2 with its many quests and interesting locations.

It’s definitely worth a look now that the beta has gone public and is available for free to everyone who wants to give it a go. But Turbine is turning its popular fantasy MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online into a partial free to play game as well next month and that certainly does seem more likely to attract players. LotRO is more accessible, attractive and popular so it’ll be tough for SOE to properly market this free version of EQ 2.

F.E.A.R. 3

A short collection of gameplay segments of both Fettel and Point Man gameplay was shown at gamescom. They’re exploring a ruined village which shows off some of the ways in which this game departs from its predecessors. Most notably it seems to add a lot of new guns like dual-wield machine pistols and powerful shotguns, as well as a lot of new horrific enemies. There seemed to be only two returning enemies from F.E.A.R. 2 with the rest all being new additions, such as zombie-like villagers and a freaky monsters with an unhealthily large mouth.

It seems like it will be a decent shooter, but I can’t help but wonder whether it’ll pack the same punch as its predecessors. F.E.A.R. 3 will be a co-op game that has Fettel and Point Man working together. Fettel is a ghost and can possess people and use other psychic powers, which is a nice touch. The problem with this approach is that F.E.A.R. has been a horror shooter franchise and horror usually doesn’t work in a crowd. With two people I fear that the horror moments will simply turn into comedic moments, as is often the case with horror movies.

The graphics in this video are of poor quality, but this may be a console version which would explain why it looks worse than F.E.A.R. 2 on PC. It appears to be the same engine, with actually some similar character models, so I’d imagine the PC version would look no better or worse than the previous game. As a result it’ll likely look a bit dated when it’s released later this year.

Guild Wars 2

This game was the talk of the show as its first ever playable gameplay demo attracted tons of attention and praise. I’m not going to talk too much about it here, but suffice it to say that a segment of the starting area of the humans and a late area of the charr were included. ArenaNet demonstrated an incomplete version of their character creation and also showed some personal story elements and dynamic events.

GameTrailers have a 9-part series of gameplay videos up with full commentary and high quality audio. They’re not exactly top-notch quality, but it properly demonstrates a large portion of the human segment of the gamescom demo. It’s a lot of footage, but it’s definitely worth a look. Set it to continuous play to have the videos play in order and check back here tomorrow for a much more expansive look at all the new Guild Wars 2 information revealed at gamescom.

Portal 2

Valve mostly demonstrated the same gameplay segments shown at this year’s E3, which reintroduced the broken down Aperture Science facility and some new gameplay elements in Portal 2. It’s largely still the same first person puzzle-platformer, but it introduces some interesting new elements to the mix. Repulsion Gel makes surfaces bouncy, Redirection Cubes can divert laser beams, some plates can launch things into the air, etc.

But all of that’s been seen before and thus wasn’t all that exciting. Much more interesting is the new co-op trailer which may not feature actual in-game footage, but does illustrate Valve’s intentions for 2-player co-op. The co-op is entirely separate from singleplayer and involves two robots going through Aperture Science Portal courses with their Portal guns. Actual teamwork is required to complete many of these challenges, as demonstrated in the following video.

Rift: Planes of Telara

Trion Worlds offers a new trailer that introduces the guardians faction for their upcoming fantasy MMORPG. It’s mostly a collection of short in-game shots that illustrate some impressive environments and highly detailed graphics. The visual style seems something of a mixture between realistic (Age of Conan) and stylized (World of WarCraft). It actually looks a bit similar in design to TERA or a more subdued Aion.

There was also an actual playable demo running at gamescom and Trion conducted several live demos. There’s not a lot of footage of these demos, but what I managed to find does look promising. Rift: Planes of Telara offers familiar MMORPG gameplay, but allows players to change their characters into any class combination they desire pretty much on the fly. It also features dynamic content that’s somewhat similar to Guild Wars 2 with staged world events that have a genuine impact on the surroundings.

It’s not quite as impressive as Guild Wars 2, but R certainly seems to be one of the most promising upcoming fantasy MMORPGs.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

CDProjekt Red had a small but impressive showing at gamescom. One which they publicly announced in the form of a sweet preview trailer that I’ve embedded below.

The preview trailer shows just how far The Witcher 2 has come since the leaked alpha footage. There’s an incredible amount of detail on both characters and the environment to an extent that far surpasses the likes of even Dragon Age 2. But far more impressive still is a shot that demonstrates a huge city that’s promised to be fully explorable. Geralt will no longer be hemmed in by knee height fences in artificially restricted zones!

More interesting still is GameTrailers’ 7-part gameplay demo that shows The Witcher 2 in action. The production values are astounding already, despite developers warning that it’s very incomplete still. And with seemless background loading they promise to have only 4 loading screens throughout the entire campaign! There’s a lot more to talk about here that I’ll try to cover properly in a full-on preview soon.

Take a look at that GameTrailers footage for now and marvel at how good it looks.

The Imperium of Man seems to offer quite a variety of play styles in DMO

Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online

THQ and Vigil introduce the least surprising but most highly anticipated playable race for Dark Millennium Online. The Imperium of Man is the most popular race in the franchise and has become practically synonymous with Warhammer 40,000 by now. It would’ve been nothing short of blasphemy had this race not been playable, so it’s good to see a trailer that confirms it as a playable race.

There are some surprises even in this announcement however, as it seems the Imperium of Man will include more than mere Space Marines. The Imperial Guard and Tech Priests also appear to be playable ‘classes’, which seems to indicate that there’s likely to be quite a lot of class and race variety in the game. The trailer also illustrates what looks to be several vehicular gameplay segments with bikes and tanks, which would be a very welcome feature indeed.

But these are the creators of Mafia (2002) and they seem to know exactly what makes a good mob game. This may be a mere 20 to 30 minute demo that presents a mission already shown in gameplay videos, but it does include every aspect of Mafia 2 gameplay. So it’s an ideal demo to test the waters and see whether Mafia 2 has the potential to live up to its predecessor.

The demo starts with the protagonist, Vito, standing in his home and the phone ringing. Pick up the phone and he’ll be called in to join his buddies Henry and Joe for a hit on the other side of town. At that point it’s possible to explore a portion of the city within a 10 minute time limit, or head on over to Henry and Joe to actually get that mission underway.

Vito’s home is a good indicator for the rest of the city. Aside from answering the phone he can also use the toilet, grab a sandwhich from the fridge, tune the radio in on different stations, and so on. There’s an attention to detail here that’s lacking in most other games, but the developers haven’t gone overboard. There are just enough interactive and autonomous elements to sell the feeling that it’s a living, breathing, city.

This is augmented by Vito’s ability to climb over obstacles, steal cars and enter certain buildings. The in-game map highlights numerous interesting locations like bars, diners, gas stations and mechanics. And all around people go about their daily business, talk to one another, buy newspapers, drive to work and generally make Empire Bay feel like a genuine American city in the 1950s.

Beautiful graphics round out the picture with highly detailed characters and environments framed by a huge draw distance. Realistic physics again betray an incredible attention to detail as clothing moves as it should, vehicles have realistic damage models, explosions litter the surroundings with debris and bullets smash holes in walls. This makes for some intense shootouts in the distillery portion of the demo mission with breaking bottles and wood as tommy gun fire is exchanged.

Why not open the fridge and grab a cold one?

Contrary to expectations, the third person perspective adds a lot of atmosphere to the game and fits perfectly. There is the occassional awkward angle, but the close-up camera provides visual feedback that simply wouldn’t be there in first person. For instance, when explosions rock the distillery, Vito is nearly knocked over and crouches down to maintain his balance.

The cover system is a similarly pleasant surprise. It’s a definite improvement over Mafia’s slightly clunky gunfights, as Vito runs smoothly from cover to cover and fires guns that behave and sound as they should. Pistols, tommy guns, shotguns and even a MG42 are presented in the demo and they’re all very deadly weapons. A few bullet suffice to kill anyone, including Vito, and characters respond realistically to damage. A headshot is an instant kill, a leg shot may cripple an opponent and a crotch shot is so painful that they’ll go down instantly.

If Vito gets hit then staying in cover will automatically recover some of his health, but the remainder has to be regenerated through eating or drinking. It seems like a great mixture between medkits and full regeneration, but it does become problematic in that there’s no actual health indicator. So it’s impossible to gauge exactly where Vito’s total health is at.

The driving mechanics are fairly similar to the original game in that it’s a semi-realistic affair. It’s another instance of attention to detail, where every car has its own unique handling properties, but not too much so. There’s no clutch control, for example, but the handbrake can be used for cutting corners at high speeds. Vito can store these cars in a garage next to his house, or simply steal whichever car strikes his fancy.

Always shoot the fuel tank!

The mission presented in the demo won’t be presented in the same way in the full game, but does seem very promising for its potential. Upon arriving at the distillery the game automatically cuts into a cutscene with solid dialogue and then cuts out straight into a gunfight. These seemless cutscenes are par for the course during this demo and make for a very engaging game that presents its story in a compelling way.

It seems as if 2K Czech has retained the original’s varied and intense gameplay sequences. This demo includes a shootout behind a mounted MG42, a running gunfight through a multi-story building, a swift escape from that building as it comes crashing down and a high octane car chase as the police arrives on the scene. And it all happens in just 15 minutes.

The draw distance is vast, but details pop in only at close range

But while the demo might have had me place a pre-order the moment it ended, that does not mean Mafia 2 is flawless. At maximum detail it still suffers from pop-in while driving and becomes a surprisingly demanding game. It also includes an option for anti-aliasing, but this is an on and off switch that’s limited to 2x AA, which is barely anything.

Mafia 2 also promises to be an extremely demanding game when turned up to maximum detail, to the point where even Crysis is far more manageable. When PhysX effects are set to high it becomes unplayable even on a Geforce 8800GTX, which up until now has always been sufficient to play any modern game comfortably in maximum detail. It does become very playable and stable after turning off these PhysX effects however.

Saving cannot be done manually and there are no checkpoint indications so its impossible to gauge exactly when the last autosave occured. It’s an archaic and unfriendly system that can easily result in large segments of lost gameplay if emergencies (food, bio break, sleep, burglars, air raids) pop up during play. It also makes it impossible to determine when its save to stop the game, because there’s been no indication of when the last save was made.

And I don’t particularly mind the inclusion of 50 collectible nude pictures spread around the city in Playboy magazines, which I suppose adds some authentic flavor, but some game critics will. The Witcher already received a great deal of, unwarranted, criticism for its handful of sex cards, which were at least drawn tastefully and somewhat related to the game experience. Mafia 2′s pictures are included just for kicks and are liable to get a fair few American and British critics raging about the horrors of nudity in a game that includes copious amounts of blood and violence.

We'll have to wait for the full game to know how Vito gets out of this one ...

The Mafia 2 demo oozes Mafia from every pore and if its any indicator of the quality of the full game, then Mafia 2 may well surpass the original and be a big contender for the Game of the Year title. It’s certainly one to watch and with my pre-order set to unlock on the very day of release, the 27th of August, you can be sure it’ll see some coverage on GameDrone!

So I’ll see you in a few weeks for a review of the full game. Until then, grab the demo over here and get to shooting!

Prince of Persia is Ubisoft’s attempt to reboot their popular platformer franchise in order to appeal to a wider audience. The stilted and punishing platforming segments of the previous trilogy has been removed in favor of smooth acrobatics and very forgiving gameplay. And even the combat has been revamped to see less generic mob-bashing and more engaging fights against powerful and imposing creatures.

But the most obvious departure from previous games in the franchise is the introduction of a sidekick, Elika. This ‘princess’ aids the new Prince in his adventure as they both set out to rid Elika’s lands of the corruption caused by an escaped evil known as Ahriman. And she’s far more than just a random AI-driven hanger-on, as the Prince is regularly forced to rely on Elika in both acrobatics and combat.

The cell-shaded graphics and captivating background music support this adventure beautifully and arm the game with a decidedly charming look and feel. It’s certainly not the most technically advanced game of its time, but the epic scale of the environments and the beautiful sprawling vistas of healed regions combine to form a game that’s truly pleasing to the eye.

No moment makes this more abundantly clear than when Elika first heals an area of Ahriman’s corruption. The surrounding land undergoes a transformation from bleak and downtrodden to colorful and green. And this transformation also opens up new paths through the environment, which are needed in order to advance to different areas and to collect light seeds.

These light seeds are used to purchase special powers for Elika, which in turn unlock new regions. These powers are activated by reaching specific touch stones in the environment and include flying through the area while dodging obstacles or making magical leaps towards other parts of the level. It’s a welcome touch that further drives home how much these two have to rely on each other, but the collection of these light seeds gets very repetitive. More than 500 such light seeds are required in order to reach the final chapters of the game.

There is an immense contrast between corrupted and healed regions in Prince of Persia

The combination of Elika and the Prince makes for some very wild acrobatic sequences that are surprisingly easy to control. Only a handful of buttons are required to play the game and this results in simple acrobatics that flow more smoothly than ever seen before in a platform game. This allows more time for admiring the spectacular acrobatic sequences and impressive world design, but does remove some of the challenge.

That may have been a worthwhile trade to make had Ubisoft Montreal not taken things one step too far by making it impossible to die. Should the Prince fall to his doom then Elika is there to save him from certain death and magically transport him back to the last stable platform. The same is true in combat, where Elika interjects herself whenever the Prince is about to receive a mortal blow.

But combat remains interesting nonetheless as it differs greatly from the previous trilogy. Prince of Persia involves intense one-on-one fights with a number of different attack moves used to blast through the opponent’s defenses. The wrong move will have the AI quickly take advantage of your mistake, while correct moves can be chained into powerful combo attacks that combine the Prince’s martial expertise with Elika’s magical prowess.

And the enemies are also interesting as they use very different techniques to challenge the player. One opponent can’t be harmed by ordinary attacks for example, but has to be pushed into obstacles that then collapse in on the hulking behemoth. Another fight involves a fast and cunning swordsman who is a definite match for the Prince in power and agility. This all makes Prince of Persia’s combat a welcome improvement over the previous games, but one that’s severely hampered by the impossibility of failure.

The Prince often relies more on Elika than the other way around

Storytelling may never have been a strong point of the series, but this iteration holds up surprisingly well in that regard. Its basic premise may be fairly generic, but Prince of Persia comes with some interesting plot twists towards the end and Elika forms a truly interesting and appealing character. Ubisoft Montreal should also be applauded for offerings evil minions that have actual stories and personalities.

But none of that praise can be reserved for the Prince, who is a singularly annoying character that regularly made me wish that dieing was an option. It would have been immeassurably satisfying to see that arrogant one-liner factory plummit to his doom, over and over again. To make matters worse, it often seems as if the Prince is far more reliant on Elika than the other way around, which doesn’t quite sit well when the Prince is the actual playable character.

Most of the exposition occurs during cutscenes or combat, but these combat sequences are frequently interrupted by standard combat phrases from Elika and the Prince. The subtitles aren’t of any help either, because combat phrases replace those as well. Fortunately it’s also possible to chat up Elika whenever you’re not hopping around the terrain or disposing of bad guys. And she also offers some additional exposition on the background of the world, Elika and the demons you’re facing.

Anyone would make a face like that if they had to deal with this 'Prince'

Despite the simplistic gameplay and impossibility of death, Prince of Persia still offers well over a dozen hours of gameplay at bare minimum. Elika’s regularly unlocked powers ensure that the acrobatics don’t get too repetitive towards the end, while combat remains interesting because each encounter is different from the next. But repetition does manage to seep in with the inane collection of light seeds and constant running back and forth between areas already covered.

The result is a game that embraces the experience it has to offer and presents it in the most accessible manner possible. After looking past this overly simplistic approach to the genre it’s a truly entertaining and at times stunning game. But those looking for more of a game than an experience will be left disappointed.

Note: an epilogue was added to the game in DLC form, but was never released on the PC and almost certainly never will be.

That’s where my weekly Discount Drone feature comes in. In Discount Drone I take a weekly look at everything that is on offer and extract the best deals for your perusal. These are formatted by genre and accompanied by short and accurate descriptions, so that you can decide whether the game is worth it. I currently check for these special offers on Direct2Drive, GamersGate, Get Games, Good Old Games, Green Man Gaming, Impulse and Steam.

This week sees some major changes as I’ve added Green Man Gaming to the mix and reformatted Discount Drone to be sorted by genre rather than service. This should make it easier to find games that you might like. The best deals aren’t quite so different from last week however, as Get Games’ summer deals remain online. This makes for some excellent strategy offerings like Commandos Complete, King’s Bounty, Armored Princess, Space Rangers and Space Rangers 2. GamersGate backs that up this week with two excellent strategy game bundles in RTS/RPG hybrid Spellforce Universe and the siege warfare oriented Stronghold Collection.

There are a lot more excellent games on offer this week, so be sure to look below for the full story. Also subscribe to GameDrone for weekly coverage of the best digital download discounts!

Deals of the Week

• Commandos Complete in Get Games - Save 50% Summer Deal - 7,49 EUR
  This package includes all Commandos games, from the excellent and ridiculously difficult squad-based strategy games of Behind Enemy Lines & Commandos 2, to the sub-par shooter Strike Force. An awesome bundle at a great price – definitely worth a look.
• King’s Bounty: Armored Princess on Get Games - Save 80% Summer Deal – 4,99 EUR
  This stand-alone expansion pack offers an even better take on King’s Bounty’s excellent turn-based strategy gameplay, with the introduction of flight, a dragon pet, new hero abilities, etc. Be sure to get this if you’re into fantasy turn-based strategy games with heavy RPG influences similar to Heroes of Might and Magic. The deal for The Legend is better this weekend, but at this price there is no reason not to get Armored Princess right along with it.
• Painkiller: Black Edition on Good Old Games – Save 40% gamescom Deal – 4,68 EUR
  Go all-guns-blazing in this excellent fast-paced first person shooter with a grim mythical setting that puts you in the role of a demonic ass kicking mercenary. Crazy weapons, crazy enemies, crazy powers and a crazily fast pace make for one heck of a ride. And multiplayer offers solid competitive arena-based hardcore FPS play that’s unfortunately quite empty nowadays due to the free excellence that is Quake Live. This Black Edition also includes the Battle Out of Hell expansion pack, which was the last decent Painkiller game.
• Space Rangers 2: Reboot on Get Games - Save 85% Summer Deal - 3,24 EUR
  Space Rangers 2 improves upon the original in ever regard. It’s a hugely varied game, which makes it a tad hard to describe, but its over-the-top yet in-depth space exploration mixture makes for an awesome experience. This reboot version also includes an expansion that adds new game modes, missions, equipment, etc.
• Spellforce Universe on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal - 9,97 EUR
  Spellforce Universe contains every game ever released in the Spellforce franchise. These are excellent mixtures of RTS and RPG gameplay with some very engaging singleplayer campaigns. The real highlight definitely is in the Spellforce 2 games, but the older Spellforce games are also well worth playing. This bundle contains 5 games in all and is good for hundreds of hours of entertainment. So this is one heck of a deal.
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Weekend Bundle on Steam – Save 75% Weekend Deal – 7,50 EUR
  This bundle includes the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and its direct sequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat. These are the two best games in this franchise of semi-realistic, open-world, first person shooters set in the Zone surrounding the exploded nuclear reactor in Chernobyl. An area that has been faithfully recreated in the game. But a more recent explosion amongst the ruins has resulted in strange anomalies and extreme mutations in the local fauna, making the Zone both an interesting and dangerous place to explore.
• Star Wolves 3: Civil War on Get Games - Save 75% Summer Deal – 6,25 EUR
  This game hearkens back to the original Star Wolves with similarly awesome and addictive RPG/RTS gameplay, no DRM and poor voice-acting. It’s nowhere near as buggy as Star Wolves 2 and while the interface takes a bit of getting used to it’s definitely a fun game to play.
• Stronghold Collection on GamersGate – Save 75% Weekend Deal - 7,48 EUR
  The Stronghold series offers an interesting take on the real-time strategy genre. The five games included in this package all involve building a stronghold and then defending it while keeping it operational. These games are also known for their excellent depiction of medieval siege warfare.

Action

• Foreign Legion: Buckets of Blood on Steam – Save 50% - 2,49 EUR
  This is a cartoonish third person shooter with great lego-like character design, a lot of blood and satisfying gunplay. I wrote a positive review about it back when it was released, but complained about the lack of content. That’s no longer an issue now that the game has seen the introduction of a wealth of additional content including 5 new maps, new weapons and even customizable outfits. It’s also dirt cheap and actually a blast to play.
• Global Agenda on Steam - Save 25% Patch Deal – 22,49 EUR
  Global Agenda is a persistent online third person shooter with solid gameplay. It includes MMORPG-style character creation, player classes and player progressions with lots of levels and equipment. The actual gameplay mostly comes down to small-scale PvE engagements and up to 10 vs 10 PvP skirmishes. It has seen a lot of patches lately which have added a lot of new content and handled additional gameplay issues. The game no longer requires a monthly fee which makes this deal a lot more attractive.
• Resident Evil 5 on Impulse - Save 50% Weekend Deal – 18,99 EUR
  Hunt zombies in the desert in this excellent third person shooter.
• Trine on Green Man Gaming – Save 84% Weekend Deal – 5,43 EUR
  A great indie platform game featuring singleplayer and local (same computer) co-op modes. Read my first impressions for an indication of what the game plays like and why you should get it. They’ve recently added a free new map in an update.

First Person Shooter

• Aliens vs Predator on Get Games – Save 50% Summer Deal – 17,49 EUR
  Become a marine, alien or predator in this futuristic first person shooter. It’s a solid shooter with three enjoyable singleplayer campaigns, a very intense atmosphere and a decent, but not outstanding, three-way multiplayer component.
• Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal – 2,49 EUR
  A first person survival horror game set on an old nuclear icebreaker on the North Pole.
• NecroVisioN: Lost Company on Green Man Gaming – Save 92% Weekend Deal – 3,62 EUR
  The latest title in the NecroVisioN franchise is actually a prequel that puts you in the shoes of a German soldier fighting off hordes of monsters during World War I. A good deal if you’re into arcade first person shooters with hordes of mindless monsters to blast your way through.
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter – Save 50% Weekend Deal - 4,99 EUR
  A decent tactical shooter. It falls in the love it or hate it category, so try before you buy. Still a very good deal if you like tactical shooters with semi-realistic gameplay.
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 4,99 EUR
  A decent follow-up to Advanced Warfighter, but it suffers from a similarly weak story and horrible AI problems. Also features ads in-game. Supposedly still a decent tactical shooter, but be prepared to deal with shitty teammates.

Role-playing Game

• Avencast: Rise of the Mage on Steam - Save 50% Weekend Deal – 4,49 EUR
  Avencast is a mediocre hack & slash RPG with gameplay centered around wizardry and magic. There are many better games in the genre, but there are worse games to play if you’re looking to pass the time until Diablo 3, Dungeon Siege 3 or Torchlight.
• Gothic 2 Gold Edition on Good Old Games – Save 40% gamescom Deal – 4,49 EUR
  An open world RPG with great gameplay, but sub-par voice acting and graphics.
• Star Wolves on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal - 2,49 EUR
  You control a mothership and a set of pilots in their own fighter craft through an extensive singleplayer campaign. The voice-acting is very sub-par and the graphics are merely decent, but the gameplay is very addictive and fun. The universe just sucks you in after a few hours of play.
• The Guild Gold Edition on Good Old Games – Save 40% gamescom Deal - 4,49 EUR
  A medieval life simulator with a heavy focus on economy and politics. The interface and combat are sub-par, but otherwise it’s a fairly solid game if you think you’d enjoy crafting the greatest medieval dynasty with shrewd play.

Real-time Strategy

• Blood Bowl: Dark Elves Edition on GamersGate – Save 50% Weekend Deal – 14,97 EUR
  A mixture of Warhammer and American Football produces a surprisingly fun, but complex, strategy game. It has two game modes with a real-time strategy variant for fast-paced, bloody, action and a turn-based strategy variant that faithfully recreates the board game.
• Company of Heroes Gold Edition on GamersGate – Save 60% Weekend Deal – 5,98 EUR
  This package contains both Company of Heroes and its Opposing Fronts expansion pack for the best World War 2-themed real-time strategy experience that money can buy. Relic has crafted a much more agressive from of real-time strategy gameplay with its Company of Heroes franchise and these are the two best games in the series. The stand-alone expansion pack Tales of Valor is not included.
• Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor on GamersGate – Save 60% Weekend Deal – 11,98 EUR
  Tales of Valor offers three short campaigns that each focus on a very small number of units. In this it departs from the limited base-building and small armies of previous Company of Heroes games. And the game suffers for it. It does introduce a few interesting new game modes, maps and units on the multiplayer front however.
• Darwinia on Green Man Gaming – Save 70% Weekend Deal – 2,16 EUR
  A retro-themed indie real-time strategy game where you have to save the Darwinians from extinction as a computer virus has infiltrated their world. It only features singleplayer, but is actually quite fun to play.
• Defcon: Everybody Dies on Green Man Gaming – Save 70% Weekend Deal - 7,22 EUR
  Defcon puts players in charge of a military commander trying to turn his country into a global superpower. It’s a cold and harsh presentation of what a nuclear war would be like viewed from the perspective of those in charge. Set up defenses around major population centers, build a fleet to engage the enemy and then launch everything you have at the largest possible population centers of the enemy. With its distant global map view and cold statistics on nuke efficiency this is definitely not your average heroic real-time strategy game.
• Faces of War on GamersGate - Save 70% – 1,49 EUR
  Small scale real-time strategy gameplay with heavy unit micromanagement similar to Soldiers: Heroes of World War 2. Also similarly difficult, but with an even more impressive graphics engine.
• Grand Ages: Rome on GamersGate – Save 75% Weekend Deal - 4,99 EUR
  A city-building real-time strategy game set in the Roman era.
• Gratuitous Space Battles Complete on Impulse - Save 35% – 20,18 EUR
  An excellent indie strategy game that puts you in command of a space fleet. Design your own ships and set up your armadas before each battle, then watch as they tear into the opposing fleets. There is no direct unit control in this game, but it really doesn’t matter given the gratuitous space battles and excellent pre-battle planning systems. This package also includes all three race expansions (The Order, The Swarm and The Tribe). It should be noted that the package comes in at similar price at the official website, which is of course more supportive of the developer.
• Hearts of Iron 3 on GamersGate - Save 70% Weekend Deal – 8,98 EUR
  Arguably the best game in this excellent series of World War 2-era grand strategy games. Take command of any nation and change the course of history as you battle through both World War 2 and World War 3.
• Heroes of Annihilated Empires on GamersGate – Save
  This curious fantasy-themed real-time strategy game involves colorful and vast landscapes, large-scale battles with up to 64.000 units and a mixture of RPG and RTS elements to drive the narrative forward. It doesn’t excel in any respect, but it’s a decent real-time strategy game nonetheless.
• King Arthur: The Role-playing Wargame on GamersGate - Save 66% Weekend Deal – 13,59 EUR
  This fairly recent strategy game is set in a fantastical version of the time of King Arthur. Features strategy gameplay that is very similar to the Total War franchise, with a turn-based overmap and massive real-time battles.
• Men of War on GamersGate - Save 80% Weekend Deal – 2,59 EUR
  A highly realistic take on tactical real-time strategy gameplay in a World War 2 setting. Units have their own inventories and you can take direct control over units. Similar to the excellent Soldiers: Heroes of World War 2, but at slightly larger scale. It’s also similarly difficult (insane) and features similarly excellent co-op multiplayer. Definitely worth a look.
• Men of War: Red Tide on GamersGate – Save 80% Weekend Deal – 4,39 EUR
  This sequel to Men of War introduces a brand new campaign spanning 23 missions and 4 factions during World War 2. It also includes six historical battles fought in the 1941-1945 time period and more than one hundred different units.
• Napoleon: Total War on Get Games – Save 50% Summer Deal – 19,99 EUR
  The most recent game in the Total War series, which features the Napoleonic era. It’s an improved version of Empire: Total War, with slightly less features and a smaller theatre of war, but superior execution.
• Star Ruler on Direct2Drive – Save 20% Pre-order Deal – 14,95 EUR
  This is an upcoming 4X space strategy game that involves enormous, procedurally generated, galaxies with decent 3D graphics. It includes extensive modding and multiplayer support, going as far as allowing for easy interface customization. Star Ruler’s most distinguishing feature is the sheer variability in gameplay experiences, with randomly generated galaxies, two different types of tech advancement, ship customization, various difficulty levels, and so on. Scheduled to be released on August 21st!
• Total Annihilation on GamersGate – Save 66% Weekend Deal – 3,39 EUR
  An old real-time strategy game that features futuristic warfare at an enormous scale. This is the predecessor of Supreme Commander and offers somewhat similar time-consuming matches that can see some astoundingly huge battles taking place. It actually includes over 50 singleplayer missions and 150 different units.
• XIII Century Gold Edition on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal - 6,25 EUR
  Two excellent real-time strategy games with large scale battles (thousands of soldiers) in realistic medieval conflicts. It recreates the actual conditions of numerous historical battles, taking into account both the weather and terrain. It may have the grand scale in battles of a Total War game, but it lacks the grand strategy turn-based over map gameplay as it’s more of a medieval battle simulator.

Turn-based Strategy

• Civilization IV Complete Edition on GamersGate – Save 75% Weekend Deal – 9,98 EUR
  Civilization IV represents the pinnacle of a franchise of turn-based civilization management games and can’t be missed by any self-respecting PC gamer. This complete edition includes all the expansion packs, but not the Civilization IV: Colonization stand-alone game.
• Elven Legacy on Green Man Gaming – Save 70% Weekend Deal – 9,03 EUR
  In this turn-based fantasy strategy/RPG you take command of a small army of troops and scour clean maps with gameplay that’s mildly reminiscent of Heroes of Might & Magic. Interestingly the entire map is a battlefield so you always have to properly position your forces when moving, not just during combat. A solid strategy game that should be good for a fair few hours of fun, but don’t expect too much from the storytelling. Don’t bother with it until you’ve finished Heroes of Might & Magic V and King’s Bounty.
• Europa Universalis 3 Complete on GamersGate – Save 75% Weekend Deal – 6,98 EUR
  A turn-based grand strategy game that lets you lead a nation from the 15th to 19th century. Aside from basic singleplayer it also includes a co-op multiplayer component. This package also includes the first two expansion packs which add interesting new features such as a religion and enhanced trading systems.
• Fantasy Wars on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal – 3,74 EUR
  Turn-based strategy gameplay in a fantasy setting. This is the prequel to Elven Legacy so the gameplay is nearly identical with constant grid-based turn-based warfare. It’s actually a lot of fun to play despite the low production values.
• Future Wars on GamersGate – Save 66% Weekend Deal – 3,39 EUR
  This is a futuristic turn-based strategy game similar to Advance Wars and the Battle Isle series. It features colorful 3D graphics and relatively straightforward turn-based strategy gameplay, but adds some unique gameplay modes (e.g.: AI vs AI) and extensive modding capabilities to the mix.
• King’s Bounty: The Legend on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal – 2,49 EUR
  An excellent fantasy turn-based strategy game with RPG influences that’s similar, but superior, to Heroes of Might & Magic. This is about as good as the genre gets and you definitely don’t want to miss out on it at this price.
• Sword of the Stars Complete Collection on GamersGate – Save 30% Weekend Deal – 20,96 EUR
  Sword of the Stars is an innovative 4X space strategy game that involves turn-based space empire management and real-time tactical battles. The most crucial innovation comes in the form of randomized tech trees, so that no two games will ever be exactly the same. Despite this randomization it’s actually the most accessible 4X strategy game ever made and the included expansions and DLC introduce a lot of additional features that truly push it to the top of the genre. An excellent game that’s well worth a look. Includes all expansion packs.
• UFO: Aftershock on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal - 2,49 EUR
  Humanity has fled from Earth after it became uninhabitable, but now they’re trying to reconquer it from the unknown lifeforms that have taken up resources. Naturally you’re placed in charge in this small-scale tactical strategy game.
• UFO: Afterlight on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal - 3,74 EUR
  Afterlight places the focus on a small human colony on Mars that has to thrive in the face of constant alien invasions. It’s a much better game than Aftershock and a solid mixture of global strategy and small-scale tactical combat.
• UFO Extraterrestrials Gold on GamersGate – Save 66% Weekend Deal – 6,44 EUR
  Build and improve a space colony while fighting off alien incursions with a squad of marines. It features small-scale turn-based tactical engagements whenever aliens are encountered, but the rest of the game involves base-building and researching technologies.
• World War 2: Time of Wrath on Impulse - Save 40% – 16,19 EUR
  A decent turn-based grand strategy game set in World War 2.
• Worms Reloaded on Steam - Save 10% Pre-order Deal – 17,99 EUR
  It’s an all new 2D Worms game set to release in August, a decade after the excellent Worms: Armaggedon. It’s essentially a turn-based warfare game with small squads of worms that is absolutely hilarous in single- and multiplayer alike. This new version includes up-to-date 2D graphics, four player multiplayer, achievements, leaderboards, a map editor, etc. It looks set to be a great new entry in a long dead franchise and comes with Steam integration!

Simulator

• Air Aces: Pacific on Impulse - Save 35% – 29,90 EUR
  An arcade flight simulator set in the Pacific arena of World War 2 with variable reality-mode setting for different flight experiences.
• City Life 2008 on GamersGate – Save 66% Weekend Deal - 3,39 EUR
  A city management simulator similar to the old SimCity series, but much more recent and with stellar 3D graphics.

Other Games and Bundles

• Amnesia: The Dark Descent on Direct2Drive – Save 10% Pre-order Deal – 12,50 EUR
  An upcoming first person survival horror game.
• Space Rangers on Get Games – Save 75% Summer Deal – 2,49 EUR
  This is a difficult game to describe. It’s part RPG, part RTS, part Sim. You’re a space pilot and you can do whatever you want: trade, fight, follow the storyline, accept missions, become a pirate, etc. However it also features strategic ground battles and all sorts of quirky encounters. It’s a very unusual game in the way that the King’s Bounty games are over-the-top weird… and like those games, Space Rangers is one game you can’t afford to miss out on.
• Street Fighter IV on Impulse - Save 50% Weekend Deal – 18,99 EUR
  There are few fighting games on the PC, which makes this recent entry into the popular Street Fighter series a welcome sight. It combines highly stylized graphics with solid fighting gameplay that doesn’t differ much from previous Street Fighter games. There’s definitely some fun to be had with this game, but it suffers from the same flaws all fighting games have: it’s utterly inaccessible for newcomers and it features a ridiculously over-powered final boss.
• THQ Complete Collection on GamersGate – Save 50% – 49,99 EUR
  It’s not an actual complete collection of all THQ PC games, but this package does include some great games. The entire Company of Heroes series of World War 2-era real-time strategy games and the excellent Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War and all of it’s expansion packs make for a great RTS bundle. Also included is the excellent action RPG of Titan Quest and it’s Immortal Throne expansion pack. The entire Red Faction series is also included, along with the excellent free-roaming singleplayer FPS S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, racing game Juiced 2, mediocre multiplayer FPS Frontlines: Fuel of War, mediocre action game Saints Row 2 and mediocre zoo-simulator World of Zoo.
• THQ Ultimate Bundle on Impulse – Save 80% – 65,49 EUR
  This is a bundle of some of THQ’s best PC games. It includes the entire Company of Heroes series of World War 2-era real-time strategy games, along with Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War and Supreme Commander and their respective expansion packs. Proper first person shooters are also included in the form of the entire Red Faction franchise and both Full Spectrum Warrior games. The excellent Action RPG Titan Quest and its Immortal Throne expansion are also included, along with the superb free-roaming singleplayer FPS S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. The racing game Juiced 2 and zoo simulator World of Zoo round out the package.
• Uplink on Green Man Gaming – Save 70% Weekend Deal – 2,16 EUR
  In this game you assume the role of a freelance hacker. Take on jobs and upgrade your tools with the earnings as you progress through the game’s plot.