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Try the first level of 'Doom' for free this week
The new Doom has launched to rave reviews, but today at E3 Bethesda announced it was looking to get even more people into the game. To that end, the first level of Doom will be available for free on Steam, Xbox One and PS4 this week only. The company said it was meant to be in the spirit of shareware demos that were so popular on the PC way back when the first Doom was popular, but this teaser is a bit more restrictive, since it'll only last for a week. Still, it's a better demo than most games offer these days.
Equip an Infinity Blade for free this week
We may be up to Infinity Blade 3 now, but you can explore the first game in Chair's smash hit series for absolutely nothing. The official Infinity Blade account tweeted this morning the swipey iOS brawler is going for free on the App Store all this week. Infinity Blade is famous for being the first to bring Unreal Engine 3 to iOS, as well as doing Infinity sales, but it's also a great game. As our five-star review put it back in 2010: "You might find games that are a more perfect fit for the platform, but in terms of recreating a console-level experience on the iPhone, you simply will not do better than Infinity Blade."
Microsoft gifting complete Killer Instinct roster to select Xbox users
Microsoft is giving away all the Killer Instinct characters to select Xbox users, effectively unlocking the game in full (minus costumes and accessories it seems). Hundreds of social media users are reporting their Christmases have come early, after they received emails from Microsoft telling them they'll get the full roster of fighters as a freebie. The Xbox One launch game is otherwise a free download with one character unlocked. The seven remaining characters are priced $5 each, and there's a $20 all-in-one bundle that unlocks all eight fighters, including two extra ones not initially available. The giveaway isn't limited to Killer Instinct, because a seemingly much smaller group of users is getting the console itself completely free. Just a few Twitter users at the time of writing, including some Microsoft MVPs, are reporting they've received a code today that entitles them to a free Xbox One - just like that. For the record, Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) are not company employees, but people who've been recognized by Microsoft for "their exceptional achievements in technical communities." Microsoft's official Xbox Support Twitter accounts have confirmed the emails for both the Killer Instinct and the Xbox One freebies are legit. We've reached out to Microsoft to confirm the specifics of what's going on, and who exactly is entitled to receive what. We're not seeing any obvious rhyme or reason to the people receiving the Killer Instinct freebies, but if you were one of the lucky ones, please let us know in the comments. If not, come give us a hug, because we'll get through this.
App Store gives away popular iOS games and apps to mark its 5th anniversary (update)
Here's a little treat on a Monday morning. A number of premium iOS apps and games have been discounted to nothing over at the App Store, including the charming and mildly addictive Tiny Wings (and Tiny Wings HD for iPad), Traktor DJ (normally $20), Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, as well as Infinity Blade II (usually $7). There's no official promotion to explain or list all the discounts, so we're left to guess that this could be a prelude to July 10th, when Apple will mark the fifth anniversary of the App Store. Cupertino has already started sending out promotional material to mark the occasion, listing the usual big statistics to show how far the App Store has come since 2008, so these freebies could well be a part of that. We've linked up a few of them after the break, but the list isn't exhaustive so please add more in the Comments section if you spot any others that merit the storage space. Happy hunting! Update: Apple has officially posted its list of free downloads for the occasion, including 5 games plus 5 utility apps. Beyond than the ones listed above, iOS users can snag Badland, Where's My Water, Barefoot World Atlas, Day One (Journal / Diary), How to Cook Everything, and Over. Click here to check them all out on iTunes.
Decompress with The Unarchiver
When I was asked to review The Unarchiver 2.7, a free decompression utility from Dag Ågren/WAHa, I thought "Who needs this program, when Mac OS X opens most common archive formats?" I quickly found out that thousands of people rely on The Unarchiver to do tasks that lie beyond the scope of built-in Archive Utility.app found in OS X. First I spoke to a loyal user, Barry Porter, an Apple Consultants Network member from Delray Beach, Fla. He said, "I use it everyday. It's great. I haven't found an archive it can't open. I use it because the built-in program is very limited in what it can create and open. You never need to open the program, it just works in the background unarchiving stuff." That's a glowing recommendation, so I put The Unarchiver to my own test. Back in the old days, it was common practice to archive files by compressing them so that they fit on a floppy disk or CD. If you happen to have saved those files onto a hard drive socked away for safekeeping, today you are hard-pressed to open those files. The Unarchiver can decompress many file types, so rejoice, because you can actually open DiskDoubler, Compact Pro and PackIt files now. I dug up some seriously old files to test The Unarchiver. I found some .sit files from 1994 and The Unarchiver opened them. Oh joy! Anyone need an Macintosh FTP list from 1995? (Curiously though, my search for files created before 1999 found over 1000 files created in 1969. I'm pretty sure that's not right! Must be a backup from a crashed drive... but I digress...) If you use more current formats and various download sites, you may encounter RAR or Tar files. No problem for The Unarchiver there either. If you find bugs or have a problem, Dag Ågren maintains an old-school support board on which you can ask questions. Also included is support for over 29 languages and DOS and Windows formats. To install, you only need to download it from the App Store. The program runs in the background. When you double-click on the application, all you see is the Preferences window. The only time you have to interact with the program is to give it permission to write to a folder, if you want to extract an archive into the same folder in which it lives. If you're curious and want to know exactly how many different archive formats exist, first look at The Unarchiver Supported formats page. Second, take a gander at Wikipedia's "List of archive formats." This handy page explains all of the file extensions used on various platforms for archived and compressed formats. In short, if you need to open archives of any flavor, you can't go wrong installing The Unarchiver. If you like it, you can donate to help Dag Ågren's development efforts for other programs too. Requirements: OS X 10.6.0 or later
The Daily Grind: If all MMOs were completely free, would it change your gaming habits?
With the free-to-play revolution (or plague, depending on your point of view), MMO gamers now have so many more options for inexpensive play than ever before. But that's never good enough for us; we always want more, more, more! So let's take F2P to an extreme and tackle this hypothetical: Suppose every current MMO was completely free -- no box price, no subscription, no microtransactions, nada. Would the freedom from any sort of financial consideration change what games you play and how you play them, or would you pretty much be doing what you're doing now? Personally, I can't see it radically changing my gaming lifestyle. I play what I want to right now, as either subs or microtransactions are affordable enough to keep down to just a few bucks a month at most. But maybe that's just me. What about you? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
RIM's giving away PlayBooks to enterprise customers, might start begging soon
It slashed prices, promised the moon on a stick for next year's OS upgrade and now Research in Motion has resorted to just giving the beleaguered BlackBerry PlayBook away. Purchase a copy of BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5 between now and the end of the year and you'll bag a free 16GB tablet. The offer is open to everyone in the United States and Canada -- except Quebec -- who want the only tablet that's packing the full BlackBerry experience (sans email, messaging, calendar...).
RAGE and RAGE HD for iOS now free for a week
As a result of receiving over 100,000 Facebook "likes," iD Software is giving away its first-person iOS shooters RAGE and RAGE HD for free until next Wednesday, August 24. Both games are universal apps with RAGE HD offering enhanced graphics for Retina displays and the iPad. The games have you role-play as a contestant on a post-apocolpytic TV game show whose goal is to waste angry mutants. RAGE is fun, though unfortunately "on rails," meaning you can't wander around and explore the 3D environments freely. Instead, the games dictate your movements through the levels. But hey, you can't argue with free, right? Click the links above to grab the games from the App Store now. But be warned, they'll take up a fair amount of space. RAGE is a 540 MB download, while RAGE HD clocks in at 747 MB. [via Phone Arena]
Champions Online gains profits and players as a free-to-play [Updated]
Since Champions Online's relaunch as a free-to-play title a little less than a month ago, any player who has logged into the game has undoubtedly noticed the sheer number of folks running around Millennium City and environs. There are spandex-clad super-people everywhere you look, and groups are significantly easier to get. These are all good things for MMO players! Today we're also treated to the first official word on the success of the relaunch from Cryptic Studios and Atari, which both declare that the move to free-to-play has been -- as we suspected -- a huge success. To celebrate, they're offering all players, both subscribed and free-to-play, a thank-you gift for helping to make the game's reboot so great! The present offered is a free experience-boosting item that can be picked up from the Champions Online C-Store for at least the next little while. While the companies have not released any specific subscriber or traffic numbers, they have noted that unique logins, concurrent users, and revenue totals have increased by "over 1,000 percent" since Champions Online went free-to-play. As John Needham, CEO of Cryptic Studios, stated in the release: "We're extremely proud of what the Champions team has accomplished with the Free for All launch. It's a pleasure to thank our fans and welcome new ones with this gift." As for how long the gift will be around and whether it is one per account or one per character is currently anyone's guess as the item does not appear to be in the C-Store as of this writing. The gift appears to be a one-hour, 20% experience boost that you can acquire once per account. They also appear to be tradable! [Update: We've updated this post as the gift is now available in the C-Store, and we've also added the most recent trailer behind the cut. Enjoy! And guys... remember to keep the comments clean and on track with our CoC!]
Google partners with Verizon for free 3G data allowance with every Chrome OS netbook
There you go, folks. Google says it wants you always connected, now it's helping you do it. 100MB of free Verizon data, each month for 24 months, will be yours as a complimentary extra when buying a Chrome OS netbook. $9.99 will give you unlimited access for a single day and there are no contracts to fiddle with. Obviously, and sadly, this is a US-only hookup. If nothing else, this announcement provides some neat context to the joint net neutrality policy that Google and Verizon dished out back in August.
EQ2 handing out free armbands in celebration
Everybody likes free stuff, right? There's always something irresistible about a little freebie, something that makes people do crazy, crazy things to snag it. Well, in the case of EverQuest 2, all you have to do is log on sometime during May 12-14 to claim your very own Rose Quartz Inlaid Gold Armbands. Whew, that's a mouthful! The armband is a cosmetic item only that fits in the shoulder slot, and cannot be traded. It normally sells on the Station Marketplace, but SOE has waved the cost for a few days in celebration of Sentinel's Fate's success. You can grab yours by typing /marketplace in EverQuest 2, or by clicking on the Marketplace tab. Some players have wondered if the armbands were beholden to that one look. As one forum poster asked, "Do they come in any other color than pink?" The response was quick: "Yes, they also come in light red."
First Club Nintendo North America details unexpectedly awesome [update]
Last month, Nintendo revealed that Club Nintendo, Japan and Europe's ace consumer rewards program, would launch in North America. Weeks of silence followed, but now Cammie Dunaway has started talking up the service. Here are five crucial facts she divulged to MTV Multiplayer: Club Nintendo in North America is still on schedule to launch before the end of 2008. It will be more like the Japanese program than the European, in that there will be more physical products than digital. As is the case in Europe, you gain points (known as gold coins in North America) by purchasing a product and entering a code on the Club Nintendo site, and can reap further points by completing surveys on the product you bought. In Europe, it's worth mentioning that these are hardly time-consuming: just five or six questions with tickboxes. Unlike in Europe, you can gain points for indicating an interest in purchasing before buying. Noice! Some items from the Japanese service will make it to North America (Yay! And also: please include this). If you'll excuse us, we're now going to randomly hit our keyboard in a fit of wild, unabated excitement. YAKJFDAIWOQBHKJGFEDRYUVBEIUQ[Update: A clarification: the service will be coming to North America as a whole! Apologies for the geographical confusion!] Want to see Club Nintendo's greatest gifts to Japan and Europe? OF COURSE YOU DO. So go here.
ASUS Eee PC given away with T-Mobile mobile broadband package
We're calling this right now: ASUS' Eee PC is the new MP3 player. But only in the context of giveaways. Anywho, just days after RBC announced that it would dish out free subnotes if prospective customers joined in, PowerUp Mobile is now offering a similar deal for UKers who sign up for T-Mobile's Web n Walk mobile broadband package. In short, folks comfortable with inking their name on a two-year contract at £35 per month will net a free USB modem and a Eee PC 2GB Surf. Better hurry -- the deal expires on June 15th.
Canadian bank hands out free Eee PCs
It used to be if you signed up for a new checking account, a bank might throw off a toaster, alarm clock, or in extreme modern cases, a 1GB iPod shuffle. Well times, they are a'changing, and boy do we wish we lived in Canada right now. Up north, RBC Royal Bank is offering a free ASUS Eee PC when you switch to their checking account service. That's right, you get an actual computer after completing the move (and dealing with a lot of red tape). Sure, it's only the 7-inch, 2GB version, but it still runs Xandros way better than this solar calculator we got from our bank.[Thanks, Matt]
British magazine giving away free Wii Wheel
Here's something: despite our initial skepticism, we actually really like the Wii Wheel -- in fact, it's all we use now for Mario Kart Wii. The only downside? At $10 per wheel (or £7 in the UK), buying enough for four-player matches can get kind of pricey.So the way we see it, you have two choices: Go with one of our totally awesome (and totally free) homemade Wii Wheels (the option we'd recommend) or: Pick up the latest issue of NGamer, which comes with the above "free" wheel packed in. It's not technically free, obviously, because you'll have to pony up the £4.99 for the magazine, which optimistically suggests that the free gift is worth £7, meaning somebody in NGamer's accounting department may well be clearing their desk later this month. Incidentally, while NGamer is a UK publication, some of my U.S-based colleagues think they may have spotted copies in Barnes & Noble, so keep your eyes peeled and you too might save hundreds of cents.Update: Corrected U.S. price.%Gallery-20778%%Gallery-19823%[Via Go Nintendo]
Confirmed: our future lies on the Canary Islands
As if picture-perfect beaches, low taxes and fifty weeks of sunshine a year weren't already good enough reasons to emigrate to the Canary Islands (linked for Americans ... I kid!), then we just found the absolute clincher: a bank in the region that is giving away Wiis ... for free!Of course, when we say "for free," what we actually mean is "in the form of a €300 loan (with 0% interest) that must be paid back within six months, providing you like the idea of keeping your house." That does mean you'll be paying an extra €50 on top of the usual price of a Wii in Europe, but we suppose the fact you don't have to cough up for six months makes things all better, or at least it does until Dad has to go to jail.Oh, and what is this fabulous promotion called? Why, it's the CrediWii. Ugh, they're not even trying now.[Via NeoGAF]
Random Spyro toys invade Wendy's kids meals
Go on, admit it. You're with friends here. When fast food chains run video game promotions, including game-related toys with their child-sized value meals, you order an extra meal for yourself just to get the toy. Or perhaps you're more brazen, buying the toy outright to add to your collection. It's perfectly fine to admit you have a problem. We won't judge.If so, you'll be happy to know that Wendy's is hitching its Kids' Meals onto the coattails of Krome Studios and Amaze Entertainment's The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night, offering a set of five toys based on the latest in the miniature dragon's trilogy of games. The trinkets run the usual gamut of weirdness, including a Spyro-themed game of checkers and a Spyro keychain, which simply pushes the notion of "toy" beyond all measure of credulity. As pack-in freebies go, these fall well below that of the competition, however random seems to be a running theme with Wendy's these days. To sweeten the deal, each Kids' Meal also includes a $5 off GameStop coupon for any version of The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night, though given the painful experience it was to play the last game this is simply not enough to make us go through the drive thru.
Mystery Wii toys coming to Wendy's kids meals
Man, we can't wait for ... whatever the hell these Wendy's Wii toys are. Seriously, we have no idea what these toys are supposed to be or do, except for the limited information what we can glean from the picture over at the Wendy's Kids meal site. That one on the bottom left looks kind of like a puzzle, and the one on the bottom right is obviously an Excite Truck, but we have no idea what the other things are supposed to do. Is that Wii remote at the top supposed to be a disc shooter? A laser pointer? A pog case? We just don't know.Until that "Coming Soon!" becomes an "available now" we're opening up the floor to theories. How in the world do these Wendy's toys work? The five best commenter responses based on humor, cleverness, relevance, plausibility and use of massive damage jokes will win ... the hearty respect of the Joystiq staff. Hey, it's harder to get than you might think.[Via Wii Fanboy]
Joyswag: Free 1-year subscription to Games for Windows magazine
[Update: "Thank you for your interest in Games for Windows. Unfortunately, this promotion has ended." And with that, our Games for Windows: The Official Magazine promotion has run its course; exhausted from a non-stop barrage of subscription requests, it finally toppled over and died. See what you've done? Enjoy!]Sure, they've got a new corporately-sanctioned identity, but beneath the glitz and glamour of the Games for Windows branding, it's the same old Computer Gaming World magazine, one of the longest-running gaming mags around. To maintain their street cred, the editorial team introduced some risky features, like a new scoring system that ranks a 5 out of 10 as "average," and sounded off on their trepidation about upgrading to Vista, Microsoft's latest and greatest and, ostensibly, the very reason behind their magazine's name change. So what is this all about? We've teamed up with Ziff-Davis, the publishers behind Games for Windows: TOM, to give away 25,000 free 1-year subscriptions (to US readers only ... sorry!). How free? You won't need to provide your credit card information; your subscription won't be automatically renewed at the end of the year; and you will need to "opt-in" to renew your subscription before receiving any bill for the magazine. Free.Thanks, Joystiq readers!
Keep warm with a Monster Hunter scarf [Update 1]
As you may know, Japan loves Monster Hunter. And, Capcom is quickly trying to capitalize on its popularity. As if having over 400,000 pre-orders wasn't enough, Game Watch reports that Capcom will offer this chic Monster Hunter scarf for Japanese customers that pre-order the game at Capcom's electronic store.Why a scarf? Why not? You know, I try to look as fashionable as I can while slaying demons.See also:PSP Fanart Fridays: Monster Hunter[Update 1: Language Police caught me red-handed. Thanks for the correction!]
