Crispy Gamer News

I may be a sinner, but at least I never made the Baby Jesus cry. 

- Fable 2 lead designer, Richard Ham, has left the Lionhead building, on the hunt for greener pastures at Splash Damage, according to Develop. There he will take on the role of creative director. Splash Damage is best known for creating Activision’s Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. Ham will begin work on an as-of-yet unannounced title for Splash Damage. If he was looking for a change of pace from working on such games as The Movies and Fable 2, he’s picked the right studio to join.

- NCsoft Entertainment is the latest publisher to step away from the Entertainment Software Association. In published reports the MMO maker and operator said that it was not leaving the trade group because of financial reasons and that it may return into the sheltering arms of the ESA at a later date.

- Two new titles will hit Xbox Live Arcade this Wednesday: Namco Bandai Games’ PowerUp Forever and Q Entertainment’s Meteos Wars (800 MS Points each). Powerup Forever is an action shooter with “endless levels that extend for infinity,” while Meteos Wars is a puzzler where players arrange colored blocks to ignite and demolish falling Meteos on 20 different planets. Clear your dance cards, kids.

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Good Old Games has inked an agreement with Epic Games that will bring several titles in the Unreal series to GOG.com. Under the agreement, Unreal Gold (including the Return to Napali expansion pack), Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition, Unreal II: The Awakening Special Edition and Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor’s Choice Edition will soon be added to the GOG.com games catalogue. As with the rest of the site’s catalog, all the Unreal titles will be completely DRM-free, compatible with modern operating systems, offer bonus materials and sold at unreal prices. Get it? Unreal prices? Never mind.

The first games, available now, include Unreal Gold and Unreal Tournament: GotY Edition. More titles, as well as announcements of additional publishers and new site features, will appear in the coming weeks. Get your fill of these and other classic games, by visiting gog.com.

Sega announced that Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009 is now available via STEAM. The latest game in the popular soccer club management game features a brand new 3D Match Engine, which can now be viewed in full 3D - you’ll be able to view players from multiple camera angles on the pitch and rewind or fast-forward to key plays.

With this customizable view you can also choose the information you would like to see during the match, be it the latest scores or player performance stats for the match. The game has been updated for the new 2008/09 soccer season with all the latest league, club and player data, as well. Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009 features over 5,000 playable clubs from over 50 countries, and around 350,000 players and staff from around the world, drawn from the Sports Interactive database.

Head on over to steampowered.com for more details.

It’s DRM-free, subscription-based and now open to the public. Good Old Games, or GOG.Com, has opened its beta phase to the public, offering a taste of its classic library of games. In addition to opening up the flood gates to the general public, GOG has added new games from two publishers this week: Strategy First and Pluto Games. Strategy First will deliver Sacred Gold, Jagged Alliance, Disciples Gold and more to GOG.com, while the Pluto 13 deal delivers Piranha Bytes’ acclaimed RPG, Gothic.

Strategy First games will begin appearing in the GOG.com games catalogue with the release of Disciples: Sacred Lands Gold Edition on October 28, the same day that will see the launch of Piranha Bytes’ Gothic. More titles, as well as announcements of additional publishers, will follow in the coming weeks.

Sign up for the site at gog.com.

I’m in the tank for Hinterland - I love this game even though it can be an absolutely humiliating and brutal experience. My only caveat? I bought it via Steam. Luckily, for those that have not yet drank the kool-aid, there is an additional option to buy it elsewhere. If you are looking for some other place besides Steam to purchase Titled Mill’s Hinterland, then you may be happy to hear that Stardock’s Impulse now offers the Strategy RPOG for purchase ($19.99 USD) and download.

In case you didn’t read Troy S. Goodfellow’s excellent review, Hinterland is an action-RPG where you take on the role of a hero who must run and maintain a town, fending off raiders, building structures and hiring and firing a variety of professionals and heroes - all while dealing with the whims of a king who rewards or punishes you based on your success with a variety of quests.

Find out more by visiting Impulse. Be sure to check out my Hinterland Video after the jump (from the Crispy Community site) to get a look at what this game is all about.

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Slight Update: I erroneously reported that Mega Man 9 was “available now” when it is in fact not available yet. The game will go live sometime today. Original story below:

PlayStation 3 owners waiting for Capcom’s Mega Man 9 better get their wallets out because it is now available on the PlayStation Store. Available for $9.99, the game is identical to the WiiWare release that hit the Wii earlier this week. The Blue Bomber returns to his roots in this 9th adventure of the original storyline. This brand new adventure offers stylized 8-bit graphics and mechanics along with a familiar level of difficulty that makes it feel like a true Mega Man game.

Get your copy by logging onto the PlayStation Store now. Check out the video after the jump to get a taste of the PSN version:

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Update: Valve Software’s Doug Lombardi has shot down speculation that that the company would be purchased by Google, calling the Inquirer report a mix of fiction and rumor. I can’t say that I’m surprised.

Original Story:
According to a report on the tech-focused web site the Inquirer, Valve is going to be bought by Google “any second.” Why would Google buy out Valve? for its digital distribution platform, the report hypothesizes. Yes the target of the acquisition would be Steam, Valve’s platform that in recent years has expanded beyond its own properties to allow publishers of shapes and sizes to sell their properties directly to Steam users.

A short time ago Valve had said that it would consider being acquired if the atmosphere was right. Meanwhile, Google has been pounding away at content distribution platform called Google Content Distribution, which is currently in beta. This is where Steam and Valve fit into the puzzle.

We’ll have more on this story as it develops, but at this time the story remains unconfirmed.

Sources:

- Kotaku
- The Inquirer