Battlefield 3 gamers, prepare to fire up more fun with the Back to Karkand expansion pack! Below is the launch trailer, featuring the classic Battlefield map Sharqi Peninsula, now powered-up by the Frostbite 2 engine. If you purchased the Battlefield 3: Limited Edition, you can download Back to Karkand at no extra charge. Back to Karkand is also available for $14.99 (PS3, PC) or 1200 Microsoft Points for the Xbox 360. For more details on Battlefield 3, visit the official website at www.battlefield.com.
An alien invasion is about to drop in A World of Keflings. Game developer NinjaBee has announced the ”It Came From Outer Space” downloadable content will be available from Xbox LIVE “in the coming weeks.” The exact date and price has not been announced. Get your Xbox Avatar and Keflings ready for the new alien-themed kingdom, which will surely make for plenty of more enjoyment in the game.
“Aliens have crash-landed in the Kefling world and you and the Keflings need to use your mad building skills to get them home,” said Mike Nielsen, lead designer on the DLC. “You’ll be building giant robots, crazy alien structures, and even robotic Keflings all in the name of repairing their mother ship. There’s plenty of new stuff to explore – a new kingdom, new characters, new resources, new buildings… It’s pretty substantial.”
Sounds like fun! Keep a lookout for the ”It Came From Outer Space” downloadable content. And if you have yet to play A World of Keflings, now would be a great time to jump on it (read our review here). See more details at www.ninjabee.com.
TopWare Interactive and game developer Reality Pump have released some great looking new screens from the upcoming Two Worlds II downloadable content, Pirates of the Flying Fortress. See the latest screens from Pirates of the Flying Fortress below, or here in fullscreen.
From TopWare Interactive:
“Reality Pump has really pulled out all of the stops with Pirates of the Flying Fortress. Revamping the engine, adding tons of new changes including dialogue animations and all new voice over talent, as well as the goodies that come naturally with an expansion like equipment and environments, a plethora of side quests and a main story arc that will shake even the most veteran of gamers to their core.”
See more details on the official Pirates of the Flying Fortress website at potff.twoworlds2.com. Read a previous post here for more details on what you can expect from what is looking to be a great expansion for Two Worlds II.
Kalypso Media is on the show floor this year showing a few of its upcoming titles to the press. One of those is Tropico 4, the next entry into the city management series. Famous for its humor and ability to run your island any way you want, the series is back and is bigger in every way but simpler in a few others.
First of all, the engine has been totally revamped for greater usability and size. The size of your island paradise can now max out at about four times the size of anything you could create in Tropico 3. With this greater scale comes a ton of new buildings and things to do. Some fan favorites have been added including a fire station and new “minister” positions. This allows you to choose one of your citizens to be the head of eduction, or military, etc. This allows you more control on how things are run in the background when you are arresting everyone in sight.
The challenge editor has also been made simpler. In the previous Tropico games, the editor was a lot more programming heavy and less user friendly than the developers would have liked. In Tropico 4, the challenges are easier to make and still can be uploaded to Kalypso’s servers for sharing with your friends and the rest of the world.
The other cool addition to Tropico 4 is the interactive disasters. Volcanos, droughts, tornadoes and all kinds of horrible things can strike the island. How you deal with these dynamic situations can impair or help grow your economy.
With the growth of social media, Haemimont Games has decided to add Facebook and Twitter integration into the game. Directly accessing these options and sharing screenshots will only help to give the player a leg up against their friends.
Another topic we discussed was post release support. Honestly, the developers were surprised at how well that game was received and did not support the game as much as they wished. This time around, there will be a ton of free updates and DLC after the game is released sometime in August of this year for both Xbox 360 and PC. A budget price, $49.99 for Xbox 360 and $39.99 on PC help out your pocket while still being top notch.
For more details on the changes and how to learn about your El Presidente, head on over to www.WorldofTropico.com
Shown only behind closed doors, the console version of The Witcher 2 is in its very early stages of development. I was shown a pre-alpha version of the game by Tomasz Gop of polish developer CD Projekt RED. Virtually unchanged from the PC version, the team plans on adapting the game to fit consoles instead of just porting it. Because the game sold over 400,000 copies in its first week on PC alone, the team is excited to bring such a rich experience to a greater audience of players. We did talk about a possible PS3 version of the game, but they said they would love to just not right now.
So what has changed? Not much, but that’s a good thing. The game still looks gorgeous even in the early state and all of the DLC that will be released for the PC version will make it into the Xbox 360. They also did state that if DLC was not free, it would be on the scale of an expansion. That being said, there have been two patches to the game on PC and over 10 pieces of DLC. There was little news on things coming soon, but they did say that at Gamescom there will be plenty more to announce.
For more information and details on the PC version, head on over to TheWitcher.com
