The Best of Big Download: July 19 - 25

We are just one more day away from StarCraft II's launch. That means you can expect to see a ton of StarCraft related features and contests planned for Big Download starting tomorrow. In the meantime, check out what we have been writing about for the past seven days.

Exclusive features

• Team Fortress 2 Engineer Achievements: Check out part five, part six and part seven of our series looking at the new achievements for the Engineer class in TF2.

• Freeware Friday: Our look at free PC games checks out the new Valve top down shooter Alien Swarm.

Downloads

• ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead demo: Try out a portion of the recent shooter expansion pack.

• Making History 2 demo: Download this playable slice of the recent strategy game.

• Razor2: Hidden Skies demo: It's a small part of the recent arcade shooter title.

• Dragon Age Origins 1.04 patch: Update your copy of BioWare's RPG to the latest version

• Singularity 1.01 patch: This patch for the recent first person shooter solves a texture streaming issue.

• Darkspore teaser trailer: It's the first glimpse of the new Maxis action-RPG based on Spore.

• StarCraft 2 Ghosts of the Past trailer: Check out some cool cut scenes from Blizzard's upcoming RTS game.

• Kingdoms of Amular: Reckoning teaser trailer: It's the first glimpse of Big Huge Games' fantasy RPG.

News

• Alien Swarm released by Valve as free game
  

• 38 Studios' Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning announced for fall 2011 release

• Darkspore officially announced; due out in February 2011
  

• Emergency 2012 coming in October

• Exclusive: Upcoming Mass Effect novel from author William C Dietz revealed

• ArmA II British Armed Forces DLC announced for August 26 release

• Impulse and GamersGate still not selling PC games with Steamworks

• Impulse and GamersGate heads dispute NPD's PC game download study

• Rumor: Irrational Games to reveal next game August 11?