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Blizzard releases The Lost Vikings, Rock 'n Roll Racing, Blackthorne for free
While Blizzard today is best known for its crafts - Warcraft, StarCraft, DemonKillerCraft Diablo - once upon a time it also was a studio represented by three vikings who explored a colorful, albeit dangerous, world. Now, those vikings have come home. The Lost Vikings, Rock 'n Roll Racing and Blackthorne are all available right now via Blizzard's Battle.net service, and they're all free of charge. For those unfamiliar, The Lost Vikings is a sidescrolling platformer featuring three vikings: Erik, Olaf and Baleog. A single player can control all three vikings, though only one at a time. Blackthorne is another 2D platformer, though its tone is far darker and tells the tale of an exiled king returning to his home planet, using a pump-action shotgun to fight off monsters. Rock 'n Roll Racing turns the art of racing into a bloodsport, giving players access to weapons such as missiles and land mines as they race around a dystopian landscape. To access these games, you'll need to log into your Battle.net account and navigate to the "Download Game Clients" page. There, underneath all the clients for games you own, you'll find the trio of treasures just waiting for your loving embrace. Unfortunately, BlizzPro reports that the version of Rock 'n Roll Racing lacks the game's famous music selection, and includes only three tracks. [Image: Blizzard]
Classic Blizzard games available for download
If you've ever attended BlizzCon, you've likely noticed that the classic games section, where they set up some of Blizzard's early efforts for fans to play, is a rather popular destination. Popular enough that I've personally given up on trying to get in there, because I'm not a good "line-standing" person. Luckily for me, and others like me, Blizzard has made two of their early games available for free download on Battle.net. The Lost Vikings and Rock N' Roll Racing are two of Blizzard's most classic classics, published in 1992 and 1993 respectively, when Blizzard Entertainment was still known as Silicon and Synapse. If, as I did, you missed out on them when they were current, now is your chance to experience all their pixelated glory. Unfortunately, they are only available for Windows operating system, so if you're a Mac user, you may be out of luck. To find the new downloads, click on the "Games & Codes" option in your Battle.net account, then click "Download Game Clients" from the drop-down menu. The Lost Vikings and Rock N' Roll Racing can be found under the "Classic Games" section. Thanks to reader SparkysShocker for bringing this to our attention!
The Digital Continuum: It won't be World of Warcraft 2
I love Blizzard, and not just for creating World of Warcraft. I've loved them since they were called Silicon & Synapse and created Rock 'n Roll Racing. But if there's one thing I've learned about the developer, it's that when making games they prefer to improve upon established models more than anything else. That statement may seem to run counter to my title, but stay with me here.When Jeff Kaplan announced his move to the company's next-gen MMO, I didn't wonder if World of Warcraft would suffer. I also didn't ponder why Blizzard and Jeff made that choice and if it would mean their second massively multiplayer online entry was going to effective be a sequel to their first. All I considered was which MMOs they were going to pluck ideas from this time, and how cleverly they'd could be implemented.
BlizzCon 2008: The Retro Arcade
Diablo III, Rock 'n' Roll Racing, and The Lost Vikings 2. What do all of these things have in common? They're all made by Blizzard, and they're all playable on the floor of BlizzCon 2008. The last two, however, are hidden in the Retro Arcade area, where Blizzard has set up all of the old games from their past for visitors to experience and play. It's not a complete display (no Starcraft 64, and Justice League Task Force would have been fun to play), but there are a lot of great titles in there anyway. It's too bad I've got to play Starcraft II for a hands-on later today -- I'd kind of rather go play the original again. But that's not a bad problem to have.Check out our gallery of the retro arcade, and revisit some old Blizzard favorites.%Gallery-34294%
The many MMOs of Blizzard
Blizzard fans are a feisty bunch, we know because we once told WoW Insider that their favorite game was "all right" and they gave us a seriously painful noogie. It's hard to blame them though, since the developer consistently puts out amazing games. In the years since World of Warcraft launched and clutched the coveted first place position with its meaty fist, those fans have only become more frenzied. Sooner or later someone is going to come along and manage to pry that first place glory from World of Warcraft's hands and with the recent confirmation that their next-gen MMO is still being worked on, Blizzard is seemingly gunning to be the one to do it.So we know they've got a new MMO in the works, that's cool. What we don't know is what IP (intellectual property) the game is based upon. So in the spirit of tinfoil hat-wearing fun we've put together a list of all the possible Blizzard IPs -- both past and present -- for your personal enjoyment.%Gallery-27512%
Rock 'N Roll Racing artwork is as awesome as the game
Hey, you know what game should be on the Virtual Console? Rock 'N Roll Racing! This blogger can't tell you the amount of time he spent on that game. It's one of the most under-appreciated gems on the SNES. Now, through this eBay auction, a little piece of the game's history is up for grabs. The pictured art covers all of the characters in the game, done by game artist G C Almond. With Rock 'N Roll Racing on the brain, we're wondering why the game hasn't been released to the Virtual Console yet. Actually, why hasn't it been a spotlight of Virtually Overlooked? We've got too many questions that need answering![Via Gamesniped]
