Action

From New York to London, the end of the world takes on many looks and shapes. In Legendary, major cities get torn apart by mythological creatures released from Pandora's Box. In this latest video, the game's developers go into detail about what it takes to bring about the end of the world and why it makes for great tourist attractions.

Download the Legendary Behind-the-Scenes HD Video - Episode 4 (510 MB)
Download the Legendary Behind-the-Scenes HD Video - Episode 3 (51 MB)
Download the Legendary Behind-the-Scenes HD Video - Episode 2 (59 MB)
Download the Legendary Behind-the-Scenes HD Video - Episode 1 (141 MB)

Tank Universal captures the nostalgic feel of classic games like Battezone mixed with an art style similar to the movie TRON. Even the plot follows a TRON-like plot line. A person diagnosed with a terminal illness enters into a virtual reality, where he ends up in neon world primarily made up from simple polygons. There, he joins a rebellion group fighting against a murderous and oppressive dictatorship. In order to upset the seat of power, players must jump into a tank and start blasting away the opposition.

This patch fixes Space Siege's problem with recognizing certain DVD drives. Patch must be copied into game directory and run with the disc in drive.

Download the Space Siege DVD Recognition Fix (16 MB)

It's rumor time again and this time it involves Max Payne. The first two games in the third person action game series were developed by Remedy (with some assistance and support from 3D Realms) but the developer sold its rights to the property to Take Two Interactive (owner of the Rockstar Games brand). Since then we have heard rumors from time to time of a possible Max Payne 3.

Now 1Up.com is reporting on the latest rumor mill column in the new print issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly. Basically it claims Max Payne 3 is in development but that the dev team isn't Remedy but the same team that made Rockstar's Warriors game (that would be their Rockstar Toronto studio). With the upcoming movie due out in October a lot more people are going to be aware of the dual shooting detective. Let's hope this rumor is true.

Small game publisher Red Mile Entertainment got a huge coup when it announced some time ago that it had gotten the game rights to Sin City, the terrific crime comics from writer-artist Frank Miller. At the time the company's in-house dev studio Transmission Games was supposed to be handing the creative duties, using Epic Games' Unreal Engine 3.

Now comes word that Transmission Games is off the Sin City gig due to their work on their upcoming flying action title Heroes Over Europe. Gamespot reports that the Sin City game is now under development at an unnamed publisher but is still scheduled to be released sometime in late 2009.

We are looking forward to being all like Maverick, Ice Man and Goose (well maybe not Goose) when we get to play the upcoming near-future flying game Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. in early 2009. Now comes word that developer/publisher Ubisoft is working to get some satellite images to get that hyper-realistic look to its graphics.

Ubisoft is working with a company called GeoEye, described in a press release as "a premier provider of satellite, aerial and geospatial information" to have them provide high-resolution images taken from GeoEye's own IKONOS satellite into H.A.W.X. This should provide gamers with detailed views of a number of real life locations in the game, including Rio de Janeiro, Cape Canaveral and the Middle East. Just don't buzz the tower.

The last Rise of the Argonauts video took us aboard the Argo and showed us its inner workings. Now the developers give us some insight on the workings of something completely different. The character of Medusa is well-known in Greek mythology and has been featured in many games. This video showcases how Liquid Entertainment will make their monster stand out.

Download the Rise of the Argonauts "Medusa" Video (216 MB)
Download the Rise of the Argonauts "The Argo" Video (118 MB)

The latest Mercenaries 2 video shows shows about a minute and a half of someone playing through. Of course, plenty of bullets and explosions follow the player around, showing off the fully destructible environment. If you need a daily dose of explosives, this Mercenaries 2 video delivers.

Download the Mercenaries 2 HD Gameplay Video (98 MB)

Gallery: Mercenaries 2

The Dark Knight, The Caped Crusader, The Guy with a Cowl That Keeps His Head From Turning: Those are the many names of The Batman (OK, we did make that last one up) but fighting crime by yourself is hard, even if you happen to be rich. Traveller's Tales, the makers of the upcoming family action game Lego Batman, know that Bruce Wayne also needs his faithful butler Alfred Pennyworth to assist him.

That's why the dev team included Alfred in the game. In addition to feeding him and making sure Wayne Manor is taken care of, Alfred also means the many. many wounds Batman takes while fighting bad guys. He's also handy as a mechanic for Batman's many vehicles. We will see how Alfred is used when Lego Batman is published in September by Warner Bros. Interactive.

Many people thought it was odd that in addition to releasing a full-fledged retail sequel to Bionic Commando, developer GRIN and publisher Capcom would also release a full downloadable 3D remake of the original game under the name Bionic Commando Rearmed. However it appears that Capcom seems pleased with the sales numbers for the game's first week.

According to a note on the Bionic Commando web site, the game's producer Ben Judd stated that Bionic Commando Rearmed has sold 130,000 copies in its first seven days. Judd exclaims, "That may not seem impressive compared to package titles that sell in the millions but compared to other digital titles that is a friggin JUGGERNAUT!." He also states that the sales reaction lets the game industry know that consumers, " are tired of meta-emulated crap. We want the titles of yesteryear to be paid the proper respect. We want them done right. And if the price is right, we'll buy."

There was no breakdown of what the game sold on each respective platform (PC, Xbox 360 and PS3). Capcom almost certainly would have sold more than 130,000 copies if they made the PC port available via Steam. As we reported earlier this month, Capcom and Steam's owner Valve could not come to terms on making the game available on that outlet.

The latest blood-soaked trailer for Project Origin runs through a patchwork of cinematic and action sequences. Not much new is revealed, but the trailer, which features up-close flashes of monsters and bodies exploding from heavy gunfire, should be watched in the dark.

Download the Project Origin GC08 HD Trailer (32 MB)

The Saints of Saints Row 2 declare war on yet another organized crime family. This one, called the Ronin, are obviously inspired by the Japanese Yakuza, and fight using both swords and guns. The Saints will certainly have a very diverse group of enemies who want to wipe them out.

Download the Saints Row 2 "Ronin Gang" Trailer (106 MB)

When it comes to game engine programming there are few that can match id Software's John Carmack and at Intel's recent developers forum he took the stage at a keynote address to talk about how their id Tech 5 engine will use multi-threading for their upcoming action game Rage.

As reported by bit-tech.net, Carmack stated that using multi-threading, all of the rendering for Rage is offloaded onto just one processor core using id Tech 5. A separate thread handles other jobs such as "running analysis over what's being rendered, managing the streaming of information from DVDs and hard drives, decompressing all of it, transcoding the formats that are useful for GPUs, and so on." Other threads can handle features like collision detection and AI.

Sega's upcoming game line-up includes Alpha Protocol, the upcoming near-future spy action-RPG from developer Obsidian Entertainment. The game, which is a bit of a departure for Obsidian (they developed Neverwinter Nights 2 and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2) will deal with a rookie agent battling bad guys from across the globe.

For Games Convention, Sega released some new screenshots showing off some action-packed scenes from Alpha Protocol as well as its use of the Unreal Engine 3 tech. Look for the game to come out of the cold and into retail stores for the PC and other platforms in early 2009.

Pandemic Studios and Electronic Arts are getting ready to release the long awaited open world action game Mercenaries 2 but PC owners will have to wait a few extra days to blow up buildings, set fire to tankers and hijack tanks. While the console versions are all due for release August 31, the PC version is now due for release on September 4.

Along with the new release date comes the game's PC system requirements. An Internet connection is required for Mercenaries 2.(presumably to register the game online).

Minimum Configuration for Windows Vista PCs
Service Pack: Windows Vista - SP1
Processor: Pentium 4 with hyperthreading / AMD Athlon 64 X2
Memory : 2 GB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT / ATI Radeon ATI X1600
Video RAM: 256MB
Shader model: 3.0
Media: 8x Dual layer DVD-Rom
Hard Drive: 10 gigs install + save data
Sound: DX 9.0c compatible

Minimum Configuration for Windows XP PCs
Service Pack: Windows XP - SP3
Processor: Pentium 4 with hyperthreading / AMD Athlon X2
Memory : 1 GB
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT / ATI Radeon ATI X1600
Video RAM: 256MB
Shader model: 3.0
Media: 8x Dual layer DVD-Rom
Hard Drive: 10 gigs install + save data
Sound: DX 9.0c compatible

Suggested Configuration
OS: Windows XP - SP3 or Windows Vista - SP1
Processor: Pentium Core 2 Duo 2.66 GHz / AMD X2 4600+ 2.4 GHz
Memory : 2.0 GB dual channel DDR RAM
GPU: Nvidia GeForce 8600 / ATI Radeon HD2600
Video RAM: 512MB
Shader model: 3.0
Media: 8x Dual layer DVD-Rom
Hard Drive: 10 gigs install + save data
Sound: DX 9.0c compatible