With bonus Space Giraffe offer, too!
It’s been a long time in development but Gridrunner Revolution has finally been made available for download.  The high-speed, pleasantly mad shooter has a legacy spanning 27 years and counting, and time has treated its evolution very well.  The graphics are much nicer, and the gameplay better developed, but the classic arcade action is as intense as it’s ever been.

The basic premise is pretty simple- move with the mouse, the ship auto-fires, and when sheep power-ups are collected the ship adds more guns.  There are gravity wells around the single-screen playfield, and creating loops of bullets around them increases the score for everything.  The Revolution of the title comes from being able to rotate the ship a full 360 degrees, meaning not only can the entire screen be covered in firepower but you can more precisely position yourself for prettier bullet arcs, which directly increase the scoring potential.  Playing for the sake of blasting everything in sight is fun, and making complex bullet patterns is pretty.  It’s eye-candy mayhem at its finest.

Sweetening the deal is an early-bird buyer promotion.  Gridrunner Revolution is $20 by itself, or $25 with the excellent Space Giraffe.  Either way it’s an excellent application of the gaming budget.

Croteam’s been busy lately.

It’s almost time for the 10-year anniversary of one of the most pure shooting action series ever, and there’s no better way to celebrate than to retool the originals to modern graphic standards.  Majesco and CDV Software announced today that they’ve got a remake of Serious Sam: The First Encounter coming to XBLA this summer, with the nearly meaningless title of Serious Sam HD.

Serious Sam HD will relaunch the Serious Sam series using Croteam’s new Serious Engine 3, making it look, in technical terms, awful purty.  Other than that this is looking to be a straight port, although that could be subject to change due to the scarcity of information outside of “this game exists” that’s been released so far.  The only solid detail is the four-player co-op multiplayer.

Serious Sam HD hits at an unspecified point this summer for XBLA and later this fall for PC.  It seems that Serious Sam: The Second Encounter will be getting an upgrade as well relatively soon-ish after that, although details on its release are still sketchy.

One thing worth clarifying, though, is the development path.  CDV is co-publishing the PC version and Majesco the XBLA one, both in conjunction with Devolver Digital, and Croteam is developing the game in-house.  So if you don’t love Serious Sam HD you’re disappointing a whole lot of people who only care about the well-deserved revival of the most monster-filled and adrenaline-pumping arcade FPS ever made.

DLC coming to the PS3 plus more packs on the way.

Bethesda have raised their computer skill beyond a hundred and cracked the code, allowing the downloadable content greatly enjoyed by Xbox 360 and PC players to appear on the Playstation 3 via PSN.   Operation: Anchorage will be released for PS3 in late June, followed by the release of The Pitt and Broken Steel in four to six weeks each.

Plus two new DLC packs coming to all three platforms:
*         Point Lookout – Explore a massive new swampland area filled with new quests and content
*         Mothership Zeta – The aliens have returned, and they’re pissed. Experience an alien abduction first hand and find out if you’re tough enough to survive.

Point Lookout will be available in late June for Xbox 360 and PC. Cost will be 800 points or $9.99.  It’ll be available on PS3 after the first three DLCs have been released.  Mothership Zeta is scheduled for release in late July for Xbox 360 and PC. Cost will be 800 points or $9.99.   It’ll be available on PS3 after Point Lookout.

Fallout 3 Game Add-on Pack #1 includes The Pitt and Operation: Anchorage on a disc and will be available for Xbox 360 and PC on May 26.  The Fallout 3 Game Add-on Pack #2 includes Broken Steel and Point Lookout on a disc and will be available for Xbox 360 and PC in August.  Retail versions of the game add-on packs for PS3 are not possible and the DLC will only be available for download online via PlayStation Network.

A Fallout 3 Game of the Year edition will be available in October. It will include the original game plus all five add-ons for $59.99 for Xbox 360 and PS3, and $49.99 for PC.

And a mystery Croteam title, too.

Once upon a time first person shooters were defined by bodycount.  Doom, Heretic, Descent, Rise of the Triad, and a whole host of also-rans substituted overwhelming enemy counts for AI, primarily due to the technology of the time.  Eventually, though, FPSes became less about arcade blasting and more about tactical or military action, backed up by a heavy online focus.  Every few years, however, Croteam releases a new Serious Sam to remind us what pure, unfiltered ass-kicking is all about.

Four years since the somewhat disappointing Serious Sam 2, Croteam has announced they’re finally getting to work on the fourth game (the first Serious Sam was divided in half) in the series.  They’re in the process of landing a publisher, so no details have been revealed yet, but work has been started and that’s good enough for the moment.  Hopefully the new game will return to the amusingly gruesome style of the original games rather than the forced and unfunny cartoonish style of Serious Sam 2.

Croteam’s update also mentions a second mystery project.  This isn’t the military title Gamecock showed a few screens of at last year’s E3, due to that being canceled when the contract with the  publisher fell apart, but rather an all-new game of some sort.  Details are still a good way off for both titles, but it’s great to see Croteam getting back up to speed.

Let the blood-sucking begin.

Stardock Games has been rolling out the carpet for their upcoming realtime strategy/action title Demigod with a series of trailers, each highlighting one of the game’s playable character classes.  Several hours ago the third video in this series, this time dedicated to the Vampire Lord class, was revealed.  The video is narrated by Brad Wardell, Executive Producer of Demigod at Stardock Games, and is certainly worth a watch.  In addition to some cool abilities, the video does a great job of demonstrating how a typical match might play out.

If you’re in my boat and missed out on the closed beta, I invite you to take solace in this new bit of official media.

Demigod promises to be a unique mix of action and strategy with roleplaying mechanics sprinkled lightly throughout.  The game is being developed by Gas Powered Games, including some of the key talent behind realtime strategy heavyweights like Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander.  It’s scheduled to release on April 14th in North America and has the potential to be a great new medium for competitive team-based gameplay.