Crispy Gamer News

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Where I live, a foot and a half of snow punctuated by snow drifts driven by 40 MPH winds tells me that Santa is on his way. I just hope I don’t freeze to death before I hear those sleigh bells. Here’s today’s news:

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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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Fun Fact: Christian Bale, tough guy caped crusader in The Dark Knight and humanity’s last hope in the upcoming Terminator Salvation, played the dancing and prancing newspaper boy, Jack ‘Cowboy’ Kelly in the 1992 musical Newsies. Kind of puts his tough guy persona into question… Here’s all today’s lesser stories..

Remains of the Day
CD Projekt co-founders, Michal Kicinski and Marcin Iwinski, have been named Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of the Year and will represent Poland in the world’s final competition in Monte Carlo next June. “Entrepreneur of the Year” is an international initiative promoting the best entrepreneurs around the world, with more than 10,000 candidates each year. The contest has been organized annually since 1986 and over 30 countries participate. In the United States, where the competition was born, the Ernst & Young awards are often referred to as the business Oscars.

CD Projekt earned this honor by being the largest games distributor in Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, with more than 135million PLN (approx. $43 million) in annual revenue. But to the rest of the world, the company is know best for its excellent action RPG, The Witcher. The company also recently launched the classic DRM-free games site, Good Old Games.

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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.

If you pre-ordered the zombie-riffic first-person shooter, Left 4 Dead from Steam, then you can start pre-loading the game to get ready for its official release on Nov. 18. Personally I am vying for the Xbox 360 version of the game, but I’m sure the PC version is just as awesome.

Those that order the game before it officially launches can get a 10 percent discount on Steam (Xbox 360 users can get the same discount at participating retailers nationwide). Get downloading now and be prepared for some seriously insane zombie action.

Also worth noting today is an incredible bargain from Steam: the Valve Complete Pack. This incredible package offers a ton of Valve’s games for a low, low price of around $99. The package includes Left 4 Dead as well as various Hal-Life and Half-Life2  products, Team Fortress 2 and lots more. A full list after the break.

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If you don’t mind using Steam and feel that the PC is the best gaming system in the universe, then you may be pleased to hear that Konami’s Silent Hill: Homecoming is now available via Valve’s digital distribution platform. The horror survival game is available for immediate download and instant play for $44.99.

Silent Hill: Homecoming drags players kicking and screaming into the history of Silent Hill, revealing some of the evil that surrounds Toluca Lake. The story follows Alex Shepherd, who returns to his hometown of Shepherd’s Glen to investigate the disappearance of his brother. As he searches for answers, Alex discovers eerie occurrences that make it difficult to find the truth and maintain his grip on reality.

You can get in on the adventure by visiting store.steampowered.com.

PC owners who decide to check out the demo of Valve’s upcoming zombie game, Left 4 Dead, will be getting something extra in their download. Yesterday, Valve announced the demo will be the first to include its new Steam Cloud extension, a set of services for Steam that stores application data online and allows user experiences to be consistent from any PC.

Steam Cloud support will ship with Valve’s Left 4 Dead demo later this week and the full game on November 18th. In this first release, the information stored and accessible through the Steam Cloud will include keyboard, mouse, and gamepad configurations, as well as multiplayer settings such as spraypaint images. When a player logs into Steam from another PC, these settings will be brought down from the Cloud and automatically used in the game. Any configuration changes on this second machine are then synced to the Cloud for future sessions.
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