Game Downloads

Monday is July 7 or 7/7, which has long been Bungie Day. This year you can expect a new, free map — Cold Storage, a revamp of the original Halo’s “Chill Out” level — and free gamerpics and a theme that will only be available on Monday. Bungie’s also trying to get the total number of kills in campaign mode up to seven million, so if you want to contribute, hop on Halo 3 and blast away some Covenant and Flood. But that’s not all:

Mark your calendars for September 2 (for those in North America) or September 5 (Europe) if you’re a fan of Viva Pinata like me, because those dates have been confirmed as the release of Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. Over 30 new pinatas, co-op and new gameplay modes are the headliner features for the game, which I already know will be embarassing to buy at the store just like its predecessor. It’s times like this I’m thankful to be an Amazon Prime member.

Most of the attention Blizzard has been getting recently is because of Diablo III (and rightfully so, in my humble opinion), so you may have missed the latest news regarding Wrath of the Lich King. If you’re interested in participating the game’s beta, you can now head to the account management section of the WoW site and opt-in to have a chance at being selected as a beta tester when the time comes.

Crysis Warhead Teaser TrailerInstantly upon reading comments from Cevat Yerli, the CEO of Crysis developer Crytek, I thought of something Stardock said back in March: that piracy is not the main issue facing PC games. Yerli seems to disagree, though. In a new interview discussing Crysis Warhead, Yerli said that while the developer made a profit on Crysis and the “real expectations” were met, piracy in PC gaming is very, very bad — to the point where, for every copy of a game that is sold, 20 copies are pirated.

With the beta out of the way, Day of Defeat: Source has officially introduced its set of new Steamworks features this week. The Palermo update adds 51 achievements, player avatars, Steam Community integration, updated graphical effects, and a new freeze cam. There’s also a new map, Palermo, which is a remixed version of a user-created map (dod_salerno).

First, the less exciting and disappointing news — Criterion announced yesterday that it’s had to delay the Codename: Cagney update for Burnout Paradise on Xbox 360 by four days, meaning it’ll now be released on July 14. PlayStation 3 owners in the USA, Europe and Japan, on the other hand, should be happy to know that the update has been approved by Sony and will be releasing on-time on July 10.