Crispy Gamer News

Stardock announced this week Elemental: War of Magic, a role-playing strategy scheduled for the first quarter of 2010. The game will apparently retail for $49.95 with a public beta starting next Spring. Elemental: War of Magic will include no on-disk DRM and will be available for re-download and updates through the Impulse digital distribution platform regardless of wherever it is purchased.

So what is this new game? Elemental: War of Magic is a strategy RPG set in a world filled with magic and ancient lore. As the ruler of your kingdom, you must expand your empire through a combination of magical power, military might, diplomatic skill, technological advancement and bold adventuring. Your worlds will be of your choosing, or players are free to create their own.

Using Stardock’s ImpulseReactor, the game will also feature multiplayer modes include traditional skirmish modes as well as a persistent universe mode. Additionally, integrated modding support allows players to submit maps, items, creatures, races, technologies, spells, buildings, environments and much more from right within the game.

Learn more by visiting www.elementalgame.com.

One of the reasons that I have a soft spot for Stardock is because the company consistently gives back to the community whenever it can. If you need a fresh example of this then you need look no further than The Political Machine Express, a free version of the company’s political strategy game for the PC, Political Machine 2008.

Available now, The Political Machine Express is a free version of the company’s political simulation, The Political Machine 2008. The free strategy game puts players in the role of the campaign manager of either John McCain or Barack Obama in a quest to win the White House. The game has been updated to feature vice presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin as well.

Players play on the electoral map of the United States with the goal to gain the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the election. Players get 21 weeks to make speeches, raise money, buy advertisements, hire political operatives, and appear on cable TV shows. Political Machine Express also includes a print shop which allows players to create their own bobble heads, campaign pins and bumper stickers and print them out on their home printer.

The Political Machine Express is based on Stardock’s hit new strategy game, The Political Machine 2008 which is available at most retail outlets or online for $19.95. Visit

If you want to be one of the first to grab the enhanced version The Witcher without having to physically leave your home, then you’ll be wanting to head over to Stardock’s digital distribution platform to get a special pre-order discount price. The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, an improved edition of CD Projekt RED’s adult themed RPG, is now available for the discounted pre-order on Stardock’s Impulse. The title launches in North America on September 16, the 10 percent discount applies until 11:59 p.m. CDT on September 15.

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition includes two new adventures, more than 200 new animations, faster loading times and a better English localization. The game is also offer some bonuses including two music CDs, making-of videos, an official game guide and a map of The Witcher’s world.

Find out more at www.impulsedriven.com.

Stardock has released Tilted Mill’s Children of the Nile: Alexandria, an addition to the Children of the Nile: Enhanced Edition PC game, for $5.99 on Stardock’s digital download platform Impulse. In Alexandria, players take on the role of the new Pharaohs of Egypt, in a three-scenario mini-campaign set during and after the final stages of Alexander the Great’s career. Naturally, this new content requires Children of the Nile: Enhanced Edition to run.

Score it by visiting www.impulsedriven.com or by loading up Impulse if you already have it installed.

Stardock’s PC strategy game, Sins of a Solar Empire, will feature several micro-expansions over the next year. The first expansion pack, Sins of a Solar Empire: Entrenchment is currently in development and will be released late 2008 for $9.95 via Stardock’s Impulse digital distribution platform.

Entrenchment promises to bring a Starbase defense platform for each race (extremely powerful and armored bases housing a variety of weapons and other upgrades capable of defending an entire planet), turret upgrades for each race to make them more powerful (not only stronger than the current versions, but also upgradable with long-range weapons), mine fields and a Subspace Inhibitor platform that will slow enemy ships within its range.

Ironclad has two additional micro-expansions in development as well - one of which adds new diplomacy features to the game and another that will add new technologies and ships. The expansions are being developed to prevent fracturing of the multiplayer community. If both players have a given expansion pack installed, the features are available, but if one does not, the expansion pack features are disabled for that particular game.

The expansions will be available digitally from Stardock on the Sins website as well as via Impulse, Stardock’s next-generation digital distribution platform.

Stardock wants gamers to have some rights when it comes to gaming on the PC, so in that spirit, it has announced Gamer’s Bill of Rights - ten things gamers have the right to expect from game makers. Brad Wardell, president of Stardock wants to offer some common sense standards that serve the needs of gamers:

“As an industry, we need to begin setting some basic, common sense standards that reward PC gamers for purchasing our games,” stated Brad Wardell, president and CEO of Stardock Corporation. “The console market effectively already has something like this in that its games have to go through the platform maker such as Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony. But on the PC, publishers can release games that are scarcely completed, poorly supported, and full of intrusive copy protection and then be stuck on it.”

The Bill of Rights is on display in Stardock’s booth (1142) at the Penny Arcade Expo this week - along with its latest games and its digital distribution platform, Impulse. Those rights are revealed below after the break.

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Stardock announced today that phase two of its digital download platform, Impulse, has begun and all updates, new games and software applications will soon be live. Phase two of Impulse sees new games from 2k (Civilizations III, Shattered Union, Sid Meier’s Pirates! and Sid Meier’s Railroads!) and Tilted Mill’s Children of the Nile enhanced edition added into the platform’s catalog.

New software applications include a host of Corel applications like WordPerfect Office X4, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4, and Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 as well as software applications from Genie Soft, Iolo, and AVG Internet Security and Anti-Virus & Anti-Spyware software.

The new version of Impulse also features a new user interface and a major new set of developer features called ImpulseReactor. Stardock’s recent release, The Political Machine 2008 will be the first game to utilize features of ImpulseReactor, and the upcoming Demigod will incorporate the features which consist of a match-making feature, cloud computing, rankings, achievements, multiplayer, NAT negotiation, and more. Phase two of Impulse also adds the ability for users to install and update third-party freeware programs that are available via Impulse. This makes the transfer of the catalogue of programs installed on a user’s machine simple from machine to machine as it’s all centrally located on Impulse.

Learn more at www.impulsedriven.com.