Champions Online free play weekend

To celebrate Halloween Cryptic Studios will be offering a free weekend of its super hero powered MMO, Champions Online. From Friday, October 30th, until Monday, November 2nd, anyone that wants to can play Champions Online for free and check out all the changes to the game, including new missions, new powers and the free Blood Moon content update.

Players that have walked away from Champions Online and haven’t played a character since September 24th, you will still have a free Retcon remaining, which resets a character’s power purchases. Also new to the game is the Celestial powerset which adds a new play style to the game; healer. Celestial powers change based on the target selected, so if you target a friend you give them much needed aid and if you target a foe you deal dimensional damage.

Finally, Champions Online is offering the new Halloween-themed content: Blood Moon. Play as a werewolf or a hunter during the Bite event, join four friends in an all-out struggle for survival in the Zombie Apocalypse PvP map or die during that event and become a super powered Zombie.

Find out more at www.champions-online.com.

Good Old Games Halloween specials

Good Old Games is celebrating Halloween with a sale featuring 3 creepy classics at rock bottom prices this weekend. The games include ObsCure ($9.99), Personal Nightmare ($5.99) and Waxworks ($5.99). But if you aren’t into all the spooky stuff, then you might want to check out Divine Divinity from Larian Studios for the low, low price of just $5.99.

You can check out all these deals - DRM free and ready for play on Windows XP and Vista - by visiting www.gog.com/en.

Fort Zombie dated for Halloween

Kerberos Studios and publish Paradox Interactive announced today that their action-RPG title, Fort Zombie, will be released on Halloween through various digital distribution platforms. In the game you play as a survivor of a Zombie apocalypse who must find shelter, create a makeshift fortress from an abandoned structure and stay alive. You’ll have to scrounge for supplies and weapons, recruit other survivors and wait out this pox on humanity.. or die trying.

Fort Zombie will be available on October 30, for purchase exclusively through all major digital distribution channels for the low suggested retail price of $9.99 and €9.99. For more information, visit www.fortzombie.com. You can get a taste of what this game is all about by visiting youtube.com.

Some Halloween treats at deviantART

We like to argue about whether or not games are art (see the article from David Thomas where he bluntly and emphatically declares that games are not art in his appropriately titled article Games Are Not Art), but while we may never come to a consensus on that here’s something that - there’s absolutely no doubt - is in fact art: pumpkins carved with some of our favorite video games and video game characters.

Carved and photographed for the deviantART crowd, user ceemde has created some masterful Halloween creations featuring Sam & Max, Crusader: No Remorse, Plants vs. Zombies (my favorite of the bunch), Shadow of the Colossus and Pipboy from Fallout. Beautiful.

Check out all these wonderful creations out at deviantART. Thanks to Game Culture for the tip.

Pet Sematary game hits iPhone, iPod Touch

Gah! I don’t want to be buried in a pet cemetary! Paramount Digital Entertainment has released Pet Sematary for the iPhone and iPod touch, a top-down, tap-to-kill arcade game inspired by the classic horror film based on the Stephen King novel of the same name. In Pet Sematary, a grief-stricken father buries his son in an ancient animal burial ground, where it is said everything laid to rest there will come back to life. But the burial ground is for animals only and humans buried there that come back tend to be insane and violent. Players in Pet Sematary take on the role of a lone hero, perched on the rooftops to stay safe and shoot down undead animals by tapping them one to four times as they race across the screen to feast on innocent townspeople.

Taking advantage of the touch screen, players will eliminate zombie children, dogs, cats and birds by tapping them one to four times as they dart down the streets. Players will also need to pay close attention to friend or foe, as health is diminished if innocents are accidentally killed or when an undead creature escapes or eats a townsperson.

Pet Sematary also includes built-in social networking features that allow players to post their high scores directly to their Facebook pages. Pet Sematary for iPhone and iPod touch is now available at the Apple App Store for $0.99. To purchase the game, visit itunes.

Free Realms celebrates Halloween in style

Feel like dancing like that awful show on ABC? Well Sony Online Entertainment is hosting what it calls the Biggest Virtual Halloween Dance Party ever in its free to play MMO for all ages, Free Realms.

Everyone is encouraged to log on to Free Realms at 4pm PDT - 6pm PDT (11pm - 1am UTC) this Wednesday, October 21st to show off their new Halloween costumes and get down to with the “Chiller” Boom box dance. Scheduled to be certified by the Guinness Book of World Records, this celebration will be offset by well-known dance moves and a notable tune that promises for a thrilling good time.

If you’re interested in getting involved, check out www.FreeRealms.com for all the dirty little details. SOe will also introduce 14 new Halloween quests, spooky mini-games, trick-or-treating, 2 new trading card game Quest Packs and more than 35 costumes for pets and players.

Warhammer Online Daemon Moon Rising event

Mythic Entertainment’s Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning will host a special live event called Daemon Moon Rising, for a limited time during the 2009 Halloween season (or part of Oct. if you like). Daemon Moon Rising, will run in-game from October 23rd through November 2nd, and will feature the Daemon Mask event quest, a new Daemonball Rally Public Quest, a special Realm vs. Realm scenario, and treats both fair and foul. Someone will get some rocks, just like Charlie Brown.

Other rewards available to event participant include the Fiendfang with bonus to healing, damage, renown, and XP; the Face of the Unborn mask; the Meatcleaver’s mask; the Face-Eater’s mask; the arcane Malleus Daemonarium; and special talisman components imbued with the might of Chaos itself.

To learn more about the Daemon Moon Rising Live Event, please visit: www.warhammeronline.com.