There's a zombie on your lawn
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Just a very quick late night post to tell you that Steam has another sale on at http://store.steampowered.com
At the time of writing they are flogging Grand Theft Auto IV for only £4.99 which is a bit of a bargain if you have a PC that can handle it.
Keep that page bookmarked too as the offers are changing every day.
It’s not often that Microsoft gives you the opportunity to earn cold, hard gamerscore for nowt. But if you don’t mind installing the Games for Windows LIVE client from http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-us/live/Pages/livejoin.aspx you can also get Tinker for absolutely nothing which includes 200 points worth of achievements.
Tinker is an isometric 3D style puzzle game which you’ve probably seem a hundred clones of previously but it’s polished, good fun and worth a download.
By the way, the system requirements for Tinker imply that it needs a 3GHz processor and a Geforce 6600/ATI 1300 graphics card… My own system is substantially below that specification and it runs fine!
Because it certainly seems like it. For example:
Not bad eh!
Well, the Modern Warfare 2 release didn’t go too badly eh! Launch party in London’s Leicester Square and it sold 1.23 million copies on the first day in the UK alone (according to gamesindustry.biz).
I wasn’t planning on buying it but I couldn’t walk past it in Morrisons when it was priced at only £25.99. (So much for the £55 everyone was expecting to pay!)
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get it online at all tonight. I’m hoping this is just a temporary glitch and Infinity Ward haven’t underestimated the amount of people trying to get online. (Surely they’d have to be completely stupid if that were the case though?)
More good news for those of us stuck in the UK and still gaming in a recession. The price of Crash Commando is being reduced for a couple of weeks on the Playstation Store.
I vaguely recall playing the demo when it was first released but it might be worth a second look now.
Here’s the official announcement from Sony:
From August 27, 2009 until September 10, 2009, Crash Commando will be reduced to half price, dropping from £7.99 to £3.99. If you’ve not grabbed the chance to blast your friends into oblivion, then there’s never been a better time to set your sights on the PSN game and arm yourself with its goodness.
It’s one of the most frustrating games I’ve played recently (admittedly I’m rubbish at it!) but if you own it and are up for more punishment, you’ll be pleased to hear that the Pure Time Trials downloadable content pack is now free for Mirror’s Edge on the Playstation 3.
It’s not advertised too well though so you’ll have to search through the Playstation Store for it.
(Unfortunately it still costs on XBox Live. Then again, XBox owners are probably used to paying through the nose for everything by now :p)
To celebrate its anniversary Super Stardust HD is on offer on the Playstation Store for £1.59 (1.99 euros). You shouldn’t need any convincing to snap it up at this price as it’s one of the best shooters on the Playstation 3. Be quick though, the deal ends soon!
In other news (always wanted to say that!), DICE and EA’s free online cartoon-style first person shooter – Battlefield Heroes, has finally come out of beta. I’ve had a quick blast on it and it’s well worth a download. You will need real money if you want to customise your character to any extent but, so far, it seems perfectly possible to play the game and not need to spend a penny.
Just get to http://www.battlefieldheroes.com/ and sign up.
A bit of advice: Make sure you register an account and log into your account BEFORE you click the “Play Now” button and launch the Battlefield Heroes updater. (Initially I didn’t log in and ended up getting annoying “Build not found” errors whenever I tried to play the game. Very frustrating for an hour or so until I googled the solution!)
Sony unexpectedly announced the availablity of Final Fantasy VII on the US Playstation Store during E3.
Then, like an internet “Mexican Wave”, European users started demanding it too… AND… We’ve got it just a day after the US release (today)!
No one will know if it was planned to come out in Europe in the same week or whether SCEE were listening and rushed to get it to us early. The Playstation Store update was about a couple of hours later than usual tonight so it’s a possibility.
You can download it from the PS Store for £7.99/9.99 euros (1.3GB download) which is very reasonable considering it’ll cost you much more than that to get hold of pre-owned FFVII discs from eBay.
Small request: Please consider giving Metal Gear Solid the same treatment and we’ll all be even happier! 
UPDATE 05/06/2009: I must have read someone’s mind! Konami has JUST confirmed Metal Gear Solid is going to be released on the US Playstation Store on 18th June. Hopefully it will hit Europe at the same time.
When you’ve been a train man as long as I have, you see a lot of people meeting, parting, joy, sadness… After a while, it doesn’t even get to you anymore. I wonder how long it’s been… There’s an invisible rail between me and the passengers. I could never live their lives. I’m just a train man plain and simple. It’s easier that way. That’s not to say that the crossing gate of my heart doesn’t hurt now and again. Back during the war, I remember there was a lot of painful scenes then. But, that’s a story for another day.
Train man, Sector 7, Final Fantasy VII
Sony are giving away Rag Doll Kung Fu: Fists of Plastic for free! The catch is that it’s only on the US Playstation Store (The UK Store is still selling it for £7.99).
Fortunately it’s easy for UK Playstation owners to make themselves a US PSN login. There are a few guides to this on the internets already but as a brief guide you just need to create a new user on your PS3 and then go to register a new Playstation Network account. When you are prompted for your region make sure to select America. The only slightly tricky part is when you are asked for an address and zip code… I found that Beverly Hills 90210 works well!
As an additional bonus you’ll find a lot of PS3 and PSP demos on the US store which haven’t made it to Europe yet (…even though the full games have been out for months in many cases! PixelJunk Racers for example.)
But hurry… The free Rag Doll Kung Fu offer is only open until Thursday 21st May!