Amazon

• Square Enix Ultimate Collection: $7.49 Contains:
  • Just Cause 2
  • Kane and Lynch 2
  • Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
  • Supreme Commander 2
  • Tomb Raider: Underworld
  • Final Fantasy XI: Ultimate Collection Abyssea Edition: $7.99
• Hitman Triple Threat Pack (Steam)- $6.99 contains:
  • Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
  • Hitman: Codename 4
  • Hitman: Blood Money

• Syndicate: $29.99
• Medal of Honor: $4.99
• Final Fantasy XIV -$7.99
• Battlestations Midway: $4.99 (Steam)
• Battlestations Pacific: $4.99 (Steam)
• Scary Girl: $4.99 (Steam)
• Order of War: $4.99 (Steam)
• Last Remnant: $14.99 (Steam)
• The Sims 3: Generations (PC/Mac): $13.59
• The Sims 3: Pets (PC/Mac): $13.59
• The Sims 3: Fast Lane Stuff (PC Only): $6.79
• The Sims 3: Late Night (PC/Mac): $10.19
• The Sims 3: Deluxe (PC only): $16.99
• The Sims 3: Pirates and Nobles (PC/Mac): $10.19
• The Sims 3: Master Suite Stuff Pack (PC/Mac): $6.79
• The Sims Medieval (PC/Mac): $10.19
• The Sims 3: Outdoor living stuff pack (PC/Mac): $6.79
• The Sims 3: Ambitions (PC only): $10.19
• The Sims 3: High End Loft Stuff (PC/Mac): $6.79
• The Sims 3: Town Life Stuff (PC/Mac): $6.79
• SimCity 4 Deluxe: $4.99
• MySims: $4.99
• The Sims 3 Showtime (PC/Mac): $19.99
• The Sims 3 Showtime Katie Perry Edition (PC/Mac): $29.99
• Cities XL 2012: $9.99
• Divinity II Dragon Knight Saga (DRM Free Version OR Steam Version): $5.99
• Yesterday: $14.99
• Blood Bowl Legendary Edition: $9.99
• Wargame European Escalation: $23.99
• BioShock (Steam or Non-Steam Version): $4.99
• BioShock 2 (Steam or Non-Steam Version): $4.99
• Bioshock Dual Pack (Steam or Non-Steam Version): $7.49
• Sid Meiers Civilization IV: The Complete Edition: $7.49
• The Stronghold Collection: $4.99
• Mafia II (Steam): $7.49
• Metro 2033 (Steam): $4.99
• Arma 2: $9.99
• Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead: $9.99
• Arma 2: Combined OPS: $14.99
• Crazy Machines 1: The Wacky Contraptions Game (PC/Mac): $4.99
• Black Mirror 2: 3.98
• Black Mirror 3: $4.99
• Crazy Machines Elements: $4.99
• Gray Matter: $4.99
• STORM Frontline Nation: $4.99
• Crazy Machines 2 Complete: $9.99

 Green Man Gaming

• Homefront – $14.30 (70% off)
• Save 25% off Ghost Recon Future Soldier with coupon code GHOST-RECON-INTEL

Steam

• Daily Deal
  • Take On Helicopters – $24.99 (50% off)
• Midweek Madness
  • Dear Esther – $4.99 (50% off)
  • Plants vs. Zombies GOTY – $2.49 (75% off)
• Ubisoft Publisher Weekend
  • All Ubisoft Games – 33% off through 5/20
  • Tom Clancy Ghost Recon Complete Pack- $7.49 (75% off)
    • Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter – $2.49
    • Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 – $2.49
    • Ghost Recon – $2.49
    • Ghost Recon Desert Siege – $1.24
    • Ghost Recon Island Thunder- $1.24

• Ghost Recon Future Soldier – $49.99 (pre-order)

Bes sure to follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our RSS feed to make sure you never miss a deal!

So, I got a few kills, earned a few bucks and finally bought body armor!  Since that day I have never looked back.  1.6 wore off and I tried out Condition Zero.  That wore off and then I moved onto Source.  Now the time has come once again to move on in my live, for this year CS:GO will be released!

I have been playing the beta quite a bit the past few months and get goosebumps just writing about it now.  GO and the whole Counter Strike franchise do so many things right it is hard not to love them, like the love of a fat man and a snickerdoodle.

Here is why GO will be a game I will fall back on for years and years to come, while at the same time uninstalling newer First Person Shooters after only a few months.

• Mods – you know there coming and you know they will be epic.  Getting tired of looking at some lame hostie, why not put them in a clown drab?
• Continued support and updates – Valve is king of this.  They will (as they have been for 10+ years) stick behind GO, why?  Because they love gamers!  And Mr. Gabe loves all of us more than we could possible love him back.
• Cheap – We don’t know how much GO will sell for when released, but consider this.  It will be released on the PSN and XBLA as well as the PC.  And there is no real single-player experience expected, so I’m thinking we’re gonna be seeing GO in the $20-30 price range on release.  And not too long after that much, much cheaper (Steam Holiday Sales anyone?)
• Gameplay – Since 1.6 Counter Strike had this on lock-down.  Gameplay is tight and is what makes CS the epic franchise it is today.
• Free Maps/Updates – No slew of $15 map packs.  If Valve stays in tradition (Source, LFD (1,2) Portal 2) we’ll be getting a lot of free updates for years to come.  GO will not be abandoned like so many other FPS are in this day and age.

When there are Publishers churning out the same game year after year and charging $60 a pop, GO will offer just as much fun (if not more) than those other titles, be much cheaper and the community will not die off after a year.  Because Valve does gamers a sold each time they release a game, I can honestly tip my hat to them and what they have done for the industry.

Here’s to a year of GO and many hundreds of hours wasted on Counter Strike this year!

You might say this is nothing new since McFarland Toys has made all kinds of adult only toys for years, but I disagree because many of those are based on movies, music, and other things that appeal to adults.  Plus those tended to be on the mature side with blood, villains, and other things that might go bump in the night.

For Guild Wars 2 and Borderlands 2 the toys seem to be marketed toward adults only.  In fact the Charr toy from Guild Wars 2 is listed on the site as not only NOT a toy but also not suitable for children under 15 despite the fact that it is plush.  The Borderlands 2 ClapTrap does not have any kind of statement like that but considering how violent the game is the 4-inch figure can’t really be intended for children.

This rather makes you wonder what else is on the horizon with gaming toys designed with adults in mind.

Amazon

• Save 75% on all Serious Sam Games
• Purchases before May 19th earn $1.50 credit towards Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter – Legend of the Beast DLC Pack

GameStop

• Orcs Must Die! – $3.74 (Activates on Steam)
• Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition – $19.99

GOG

• ArmA: Gold Edition – $3.99

Green Man Gaming

• Birthday Sale
  • ArmA II Operation Arrowhead – $14.94
  • Saints Row The Third – $17.97 (use coupon code SPACE-SAINT-GIFTS for extra 15% off)
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II – $10.94
  • Warhammer 40000: Space Marine – $19.99 (use coupon code SPACE-SAINT-GIFTS for extra 15% off)

Steam

• Daily Deal
  • CID the Dummy – $1.24
• Midweek Madness
• • Dear Esther – $4.99
  • Plants vs. Zombies GOTY – $2.49
• Pre-order Deals
• • Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City – $44.99
  • Alan Wake’s American Nightmare – $13.49

Bundles

• Indie Royale Bundle- $.4.47 (current minimum at press time)
  • OSMOS
  • B.U.T.T.O.N.
  • The Shivah
  • Blueberry Garden

Bes sure to follow us on Twitter and subscribe to our RSS feed to make sure you never miss a deal!

As of now, there are:

• 48 Cars
• 5 Bikes
• 10 Heli’s
• 1 Plane
• 25 Boats
• 9 Train models

Cars

• apc
• bobsleigh
• benson
• biff
• bobcat
• boxville
• buccaneer
• burrito
• brzbus
• casco
• cadge
• car_brzhatchplc
• car_brzsedanplc
• car_brzhatchjnk
• car_brzsedanjnk
• carga
• cavalcade
• cognoscenti
• cs2000
• chavos
• dukes
• dune
• feroci
• forklift
• futo
• furzen
• fxt
• gant
• hauler
• minivan
• infernus
• patriot
• phantom
• prairie
• police
• rancher
• rhino
• schafter
• seinove
• skimobile
• taxi
• vanpony
• willard
• winky
• trash
• railmu
• flatty
• snowplough

Bikes

• enduro
• jz125
• z75
• faggio2
• spike

Helicopters

• autogiro
• bchopper
• annihilator
• bentham
• maverick
• hind
• napalm
• scamp
• heli_vcpf
• heli_tfe

Planes

• cuban800

Boats

• squalo
• bassboy
• chika
• fisher
• fishboat_a
• fishboat_b
• fishboat_c
• fishboat_d,
• marquis
• reefer
• tropic
• gunboat
• sabs_boat
• small_gb2
• dinghy
• p_mi_botfsh
• whaler
• woody
• woody2
• sporto
• tinny
• tug
• contbo
• smug
• edsboat

Trains

• cablecar
• chairlift
• subway_lo
• subway_hi
• train_carg
• trainf_carg
• trainr_carg
• train_int
• lighty

Links:

• Full post release: http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=510202

• http://n4g.com/news/998780/grand-theft-auto-v-vehicles-list-released-by-hacker/
• http://digg.com/news/gaming/grand_theft_auto_v_vehicles_list_released_by_hacker

A Game of Thrones is a pure 3rd person roleplaying game set in the mythical world of Westeros as created by George R. R. Martin’s in his epic series of novels “A Song of Ice and Fire”.

Of course, most of us are obsessed with the HBO series of the same name… HODOR!

The review are in and the consensus is that it’s a fun game but falls short in many ways, especially being severely overshadowed by releasing the same day as Diablo III (there’s no excuse for that level of marketing stupidity).

Heres a snippet from the developers, Cyanide Studios:

http://www.cyanide-studio.com/games/got/

A Game of Thrones (AGOT), the roleplaying game, brings you into a grown-up adventure parallel to the original piece. You will take part into a whole new story full of plots. We didn’t planned on a time shift to put our story back or forward in the original timeline. On the contrary, we adapted our story to the original events so that the player could meet the main characters of the saga in these new chapters.

This whole new adventure will offer to alternatively play two brand new characters: Allester, the red priest and Mors, the night watchman. They will be brought into the vile plots of the noble houses. Will you be able to see clear through the game of thrones ? Beware though, since in this game, one wins or dies.

Here are a few review quotes:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/05/15/game-of-thrones-review

While Game of Thrones boasts some expertly crafted story beats, complete with moments that will enthrall and shock you, the monotone delivery from poorly voiced characters, constant bugs you’ll wrestle against, and muddy textures that plague the majority of the game will make most not continue through to the end.

Realistically, you’ll more likely stop after the fifteenth loading screen appears only to trigger another dryly executed piece of this messy 30 hour long RPG. That’s a shame as the tale told about Mors Westford and Alester Sarwyck has twists and turns that would utterly entertain and surprise were it not surrounded by such mediocrity on all sides.

http://kotaku.com…

What if I don’t read or watch Game of Thrones? Will I still like this game?

What? No. You won’t. There is nothing for you here if you aren’t already familiar with the books and the lore.

If you’re just a gamer who wants a fun dark fantasy role playing game, you should either play The Witcher 2 or Diablo III. Or hell, Dragon Age: Origins, which plays a like a much, much more interesting and polished version of the Game of Thrones game.

Links:

• http://www.gameofthrones-rpg.com/
• http://www.gameofthrones-thegame.com

• http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/tpvul/a_game_of_thrones_video_game_released/
• http://digg.com/news/gaming/a_game_of_thrones_video_game_released
• http://n4g.com/news/998772/a-game-of-thrones-video-game-released/

While ArenaNet was tweeting some issues and answers, most of it was on the GW2 forums, which are now unavailable.  Some people said they had no issues at all, just some lag, while others had all kinds of problems.  I have to admit I was one of the lucky ones without issues but that could have been because I didn’t get to play until the last hour.

Some things complaints and compliments (tweeted):  were

• Can’t go 3 minutes without being booted
• After I was through the whole login problems almost everything ran perfectly fine!
• Wonderful Stress(free) test night! SMOOTH as silk and WAY better than the BWE !

From the looks of this, things got better as the stress test went on.

ArenaNet responded with:

• If you are stuck at 95% – logging out and back in should fix the problem. If that doesn’t work try restarting the client.
• If you have login/zoning/black screen/etc problems: Are you playing on EU servers or US servers? Let us know!
• If you get error 9: Double check if you have pre-purchased the game. Only people who pre-purchased have access.
• The stress test is the same build as BWE1. We are testing backend stuff.
• Every issue you have at the moment is helping us to make the game better, you are all helping!
• How are we all doing? Seems like more of you are able to play now?

And the final thought: All the issues you reported were helpful for our server team – thank you all for participating in today’s Stress Test!

Still can’t wait for this game to be released, but I supposed the next (unannounced) beta weekend will suffice.

I’m going to become your new best friend, and your wallet’s worst enemy. As PC Gamers, we know the advantages that digital distribution has over physical retail, and the deep discounts that web stores offer to gamers. It’s easy, convenient, and allows you to get into the game immediately!

Each day, I’ll be rounding up the best deals for full game downloads, DLC packs, demos, and free trials from a variety of online marketplaces. You won’t need to spend all day waiting for updates, emails, tweets, or Google alerts – you’ll find the best discounts and hottest deals on PC games here on Airborne Gamer.

The scope of games covered will be unlimited – I’ll be hunting for games for gamers of all types, including AAA titles, indie packs or standalone games, casual titles, retro games, and even games for your Android or iOS device! The only thing I won’t be focusing on are flash games for web browsers, and social games for Facebook (this is a Zynga-free zone!)

If you have the inside scoop on a great deal or sale – be sure to send it my way! I’m on Twitter and Steam, or you can leave a comment on each post.

Happy gaming!!

There are Diablo Launch events going on globally, a youtube online live launch event and  people lined up waiting for midnight to get their hands on this history making game.

Diablo III is just the third chapter of a gaming franchise that started a genre at the dawn of the internet as we know it.

Let’s take a look back:

Diablo

(point-and-click action RPG | Blizzard North | Blizzard Entertainment)

It’s December 31, 1996 and a company called Blizzard just released a PC game that has graphics and gameplay never before seen.  Diablo started the hack-and-slash or point-and-click action roleplaying genre that we have so many clones of today.

No stranger to roleplaying games, we selected our character classes (only 3 to choose from, Warrior, Rogue and Sorcerer) and we chose our names.

There was a town, there were dungeons, there were monsters to kill, and there was loot to grab.  It has such a simple formula and that was the genius of it.  It was pure spontaneous and casual entertainment, with some jaw dropping graphics (at the time, now they look 8-bit to our photo-realistic spoiled eyes).

I remember the first addiction inducing sessions, going through chest after chest, shooting fireballs at anything that moves… and being rewarded with a blue colored item that was magically enhanced.  I remember joy at finding that rare gold-colored unique artifacts.  That’s all it took for a generation of gamers suckling on the teat of ID’s Quake, released earlier that year, to be addicted.

Of course, there was also multiplayer.  It’s been two years since the Internet came into our lives and many of us in college were now connected to broadband, for the first time have internet speeds screaming competition by removing lag from the online experience.  There were also lots of people still on slow ass dial up modems with so much lag, all you had to do was a simple dance to dodge their fireballs (the fireball dance)…

…and we capitalized on it.  Connecting to random servers found by the newly created Battle.Net service, we came in and stalked other players and killed them without hesitation.  Thus was born the griefer.  There is no greater adrenaline rush than beating the virtual living crap out of a real person on the internet and taking ALL of their stuff while they cursed you out in a chat box… and back then there were no rules no protection from anyone… it was the wild west of online gaming and we were the outlaws beating everyone we could find.

Security in Diablo was an afterthought, so it was inevitable that the hackers would come and patch their games to create any weapons they could dream of… any skill level they desired… virutally boundless health and mana.   Enter the town-killer.

The town was a safe area.  It was a place you can heal up, gear up, and talk smack to other players without threat.  Not so with the hackers, they patched their game so they could shoot fiery death at unsuspecting noobs selling their newly found loot.  They never new what hit them… just a black screen and death.  Of course, if you didn’t hack your game, you couldn’t even defend yourself, so it became a hacker arms race in order to stay competitive.

It was glorious.

Diablo: Hellfire

(Synergistic Software | Sierra On-Line)

In Novemer 1997, Sierrra On-Line produced an expansion pack developed by a company called Synergistic Software.  They also re-released Diablo bundeled with the expansion in 1998.

The expansion was focused on single-player and unplayable on Battle.Net but doesn’t interfere with you playing the original game there.

The expansion added:

• a Monk class
• two new dungeons
• new weapons, armor and items
• New shrines and monsters
• a new “Jog” mode in town

Diablo II

(Blizzard North | Blizzard Entertainment | Sierra Entertainment)

Fast forward to the year 2000.  Most of the original players are out of college and have jobs, wives, some bills, and less free time.  But we also have Diablo II.

It delivered everything that was promised.  It was a more polished version of they same ground breaking game play as the original.  New character classes, new items, new dungeons, and new story lines.

The big zinger was multiplayer.  Battle.Net was now a very mature service that connected people all over the world with the ease of a few clicks.  Spells were more powerful in groups (parties), a specialized ladder system kept you competing, and the “Closed” realm which ensured that only characters stored on Battle.Net servers could play… hackers weaped…

…briefly because out came the bots which was the beginning of online “gold” farming as we know it today.  The abundance of valuable weapons and items devalued them on the multiplayer market… which led to another arms race between Blizzard’s game patches versus hackers cheat patches.

Blizzard lost.

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction

(Blizzard North | Blizzard Entertainment | Sierra Entertainment)

This was an official in-house expansion, released June 2001,  that brought in new items, new classes, and a new act to the story.

One major upgrade was the ability to play in 800×600 resolution, previously it was only playable at 640×480 (yes… this is how we used to play games).

Diablo III

Fast forward to… today, May 15th 2012.  It’s been over 11 years since the last Diablo game, so we have over a decade of technology improvements in both hardware, software,  display technology, and online tech under our belts.

Diablo III is a stunningly gorgeous game.  It is the pinnacle of what we come to expect in a game in the second decade of the 21st century.
Here is a feature spec of what we’ll find:

• Blizzard’s in-house physics engine
• Destructible environments with in-game damage effects
• A custom 3D game-engine
• Battle.Net gameplay
• Enhanced quest system
• Random level generator
• Random encounter generator
• Class specific quests
• Health Orbs dropped by slain monsters
• Skill runes that enhance skills (completely changing the game-play of each skill)
• Multiplayer auction house (both gold and real-money types)
• Hardcore mode (one life)
• Artisan NPCs who create stuff for you based on the loot you have

“As we’re counting down the days until we’re ready to announce a release date for Diablo III, we’ve come to realize that the PvP game and systems aren’t yet living up to our standards,” he said. Blizzard said the PvP patch will add multiple Arena maps with themed locations and layouts, PvP-centric achievements, and a quick and easy matchmaking system. “We’ll also be adding a personal progression system that will reward you for successfully bashing in the other team’s skulls,” Wilson added.

Diablo III is trully an Epic game that has a lot of history to live up to.

Links:

• http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/toiyg/a_brief_history_of_diablo/