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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.

On today's MacMonday, we're going seriously old school, to the tune of 1993, when Ambrosia Software sold their first game, Maelstrom. Just as it's easy to dismiss last MacMonday's Big Kahuna Reef 2: Chain Reaction as a Bejeweled clone, Maelstrom takes as its source the classic coin-op Asteroids.

Yet the differences between the two titles are vast indeed, going beyond the color palette and updated graphics. We'll go into detail and examine why Maelstrom is just as addictive and playable today as it was 15 years ago.

While the game industry is beginning to understand that they can sell high profile games any time of the year the truth is that the time period between the first of September and the first week of December remains the biggest time of the year for new games to be released. 2008 seems to be no exception to this rule as PC gamers have a ton of new and promising titles to choose from this year.

So which games are we most looking forward to playing this fall? Well it so happens that we have created a feature gallery that has our picks for the PC game titles we most want to play in the next few months. That list include a long awaited MMO, a new expansion pack to the biggest MMO, an alternate history RTS game, a number of great looking first person shooters, a post-apocalyse RPG and a title that some are already declaring "the greatest game ever made." (in fact you can get a clue as to one of the games on our list from this custom case mode we saw at QuakeCon).

Our list of games is ordered by their scheduled release dates. Keep in mind while checking our picks that release dates can and do change at the last minute. Our picks represent the best info on these dates at the time of the posting of this article but if any changes are announced afterward we will report on them on the news site.

Click on the image above to continue reading "Most Anticipated Fall 2008 PC Games"

We first heard about Stormrise last month and got to see it in action at E3 shortly afterwards. Now Sega has released some new screenshots for the upcoming sci-fi RTS game that's being made by The Creative Assembly in a departure from their Total War series of titles.

While this game is being designed with consoles in mind rather than the PC, the development team is still hedging their bets and bringing Stormrise to the PC platform as well. They know that no matter how good the game might be on consoles, the RTS genre is still mainly a PC genre and will continue to do so for some time to come. Meanwhile Stormrise will be released by Sega in early 2009.

Codemasters has been hyping up its military shooter Operation Flashpoint 2 for a little while now and at Games Convention this week they released some new and impressive looking images meant to promote the game. There's a lot of detail in the shots which suggests a highly realistic look at military battles.

Unfortunately, Codemasters's shots for the game are somewhat suspect due to the fact that it's unclear where they are in-game engine shots or CGI renders using the game's models. However if the game really does turn out to look as good as these shots it will zoom up to the top of our lists when it is released in 2009.

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.

Atari stayed busy at this week's Games Convention as they showed off their upcoming titles. One of their big fall releases is Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir. Atari released some new screenshots from the game that is once again being developed by Obsidian Entertainment

In case you are not familiar with the title. Storm of Zehir is set to feature items like a non-linear enviroment to explore, party creation, an economic system that you can influence while playing and more. The big question? Will Atari release a third full game in the series at some point? Only time will tell.

Atari's fall 2008 release schedule includes a number of PC games including The Witcher: Enhanced Edition. The new version of CD Projekt's acclaimed fantasy RPG will have new single player content, enhanced graphics, more extensive and better English voice and script work and the game's editing tools.

Atari sent over some new sceeenshots this week of the Enhanced Edition of The Witcher. If you haven't bought the original game it will be released to stores this September, but if you have the original game CD Project will release a patch with all of the new content and improvements that the Enhanced Edition has.

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

Cyberlore's fantasy-sim game Majesty became a cult hit among PC gamers when it was released in 2000. The developer had plans for a full fledged sequel but the company was forced to lay off the majority of its staff in 2005 (it now makes so called "serious games" under the name Minerva Software). So many were happy to hear several months ago that Paradox Interactive had bought the game's rights and would publish Majesty 2.

For Games Convention this week, Paradox released some new screenshots of the game showing ome apparent action sequenes of men battling skeleton creatures. Developed by 1C:Ino-Co, Paradox states that the game should have the same kind of humor and charm the original game did. Majesty 2 is due for release in 2009.

We are just a few days away from the retail release of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky, the upcoming prequel to GSC Gameworld's PC exclusive post-apocalyptic shooter. For Games Convention the title's publisher Deep Silver released some last minute new screenshots to the game showing off more of its graphical goodness.

While the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R game took years to complete it was a relatively short development span for Clear Sky. It was first announced just over a year ago and now the game is due for release worldwide on September 5 with support for both DirectX9 and DirectX10 graphics modes. Will the final version live up to our pretty high expectations? We won't be waiting for much longer.

Earlier today we reported that Funcom had announced plans for a commercial expansion pack for their fantasy MMO Age of Conan. The developer also announced plans for free content for current subscribers to the game and we now have some screenshots that show off what they have planned.

Along with the free content screenshots, Funcom also released some visuals from the upcoming DirectX10 graphics upgrade, along with some comparison screenshots from the DirectX9 version. Volumetic fog, HDR, specular reflections and other features will be added to the game with the DirectX10 version is released. So far there's no word on when the new content or the graphics upgrade will be available for download.

While other web sites are already calling Spore the greatest game ever made, will Spore have zombies that are ready to eat your brains? We think not. Thankfully Turtle Rock Studios and Valve will be bringing that experience to the PC this fall with their long awaited co-op themed shooter Left 4 Dead.

New screenshots from the Games Convention were released this week, showing off more zombie action from the title along with new looks at the human character models that Valve first revealed last month at E3. Valve has always been good with giving extra content for all their games for the PC platform and we expect after Left 4 Dead's release we will get a steady stream of new levels, modes and other content via Steam.

While Volition is working hard to finish their open world action game Saints Row 2 another team at the developer is working on Red Faction: Guerrilla, the next game in the sci-fi action game series that celebrates blowing stuff up real good. The game's publisher THQ sent out some new Games Convention screenshots of the title

While there are a couple of action scenes in this new screenshot batch, the majority of shots show off static views of the game's Martian environments. In this future, Mars has been terraformed (think the end of Total Recall) but you still will be able to destroy a ton of buildings and levels. We still have a while before we get our hands on this game; Red Faction Guerrilla is due for release in early 2009.

Codemasters has a pretty good game line-up in the next several months and one of them is Rise of the Argonauts, the upcoming action-RPG from developer Liquid Entertainment. For Games Convention, Codemasters sent out a large batch of new screenshots for the Greek myth themed game.

Scheduled for release this fall, Rise of the Argonauts gives Liquid's own version of the mythical journey of Jason and the Argonauts as they travel to distant lands and fight creatures like the Cyclops, the Medusa and others. This will apparently be a mature-rated game; the title's web site has an age gate. So if there isn't a lot of blood shed we will be very dissapointed.