Game Downloads

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.

If you’ve played Bad Company for any amount of time, you’ve likely come across any number of issues in the multiplayer mode. (The single-player and its atrocious AI is an entire story in and of itself; don’t get me started on that.) The development team at DICE is committed to addressing the issues, starting with the release of the classic Battlefield game mode, Conquest. The mode (and altered versions of the game’s maps to go along with it) is currently undergoing testing and certification, which is a good sign we won’t have to wait too much longer to see it.