If you’ve been holding out for a good deal on The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition or simply hadn’t gotten around to purchasing it yet, there’s some good news from Steam and Direct2Drive: You can now get the game at a sexy 50% off. The offer brings the price down to a budget-friendly $4.99 at Steam and $4.95 at D2D. For that price, everyone should run on over and pick it up. It’s our favorite pirate, after all. Arrr!

If the offer appeals to you, don’t hesitate, as the sale will only last until Monday, September 21. Then the spell will wear off and the carriage will turn back into a pumpkin and all you’ll be left with is an unpaired shoe. Or, you know, you’ll have to shell out the full $10. One of the two things will happen.

Links to your prefered downloading/purchasing locale: D2D or Steam.

Enjoy, mateys!

Via | VG247

Image: LucasArts

Post from: Play Girlz

So, there’s no confirmation from Nintendo that the Wii is going down in price. In fact, everything we’d heard until now is that the Wii is not going to go down in price no matter what the other Big Boys are doing with their next gen consoles. But in business, like in life, there are no never-nevers and no absolutes. So, while Nintendo may have believed that their Wii was the perfect price, they may have changed their minds.

Bottomline: Both Walmart and Toys R Us are reporting a $50 price drop for the Wii console, bringing it down to a sexy $199.99. Doesn’t that look kinder on the wallet? Both Sony’s weight-watching PS3 Slim and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Elite are both down to $299. So it would make sense for Nintendo to suck it up and slash some prices just to even out the playing field.

Whether or not the rumor is true will be confirmed soon enough. So keep your eye out, if you’ve been waiting for a cheaper Wii.

Via | The Video Game Blog

Image: Nintendo

Post from: Play Girlz

You may or may not have better things to do this weekend than download music and jam away on a plastic guitar. If you do, then the good news is that this DLC won’t be available until next week anyway, so you should go ahead and enjoy whatever it is you were planning to do. If you don’t have anything better to do, then at least you’ll have something to look forward to. See? Everyone wins.

Coming up on September 15 (for the Xbox 360) and September 17 (for PS3):

Anvil Pack 01

• “666″
• “Metal on Metal”
• “This is Thirteen”

And some individual songs (also hitting the Wii on September 15):

• Dinosaur Jr. – “Pick Me Up”
• Dinosaur Jr. – “The Wagon”
• The Guess Who – “Hand Me Down World”
• The Guess Who – “No Time”
• Tenacious D – “Rock Your Socks”
• Tenacious D – “Tribute”

The pack will set you back 440 Microsoft Points or $5.50 on the PS3. If you’re going for the individual songs: 160 Microsoft Points, $2, 200 Wii points each.

Via | Joystiq

Image: Harmonix

Post from: Play Girlz

For those of you – like me – that have pre-ordered Aion and have been anxiously awaiting this game for like – oh, I don’t know – years, the approaching launch of the MMO is high on our list of things to cheer over. Soon, my friends. Soon. In the meantime, there’s the open beta, which is well underway, and also whatever other news trickles down from the NCSoft offices. So, how about some server names?

Those of you looking for an Oceanic realm will not see one listed below. Oceanic players will get a chance to vote on an “unofficial” Oceanic realm to be agreed upon and then promptly ignored as everyone sort of scatters and does whatever they want to do anyway.

Server names are as follows:

[West] Siel GMT-8/ PST
[West] Israphel GMT-8 / PST
[West] Nezekan GMT-8 / PST
[West] Triniel GMT-8 / PST
[West] Vaizel GMT-8 / PST
[West] Zikel GMT-8 / PST
[East] Ariel GMT-5 / EST
[East] Azphel GMT-5 / EST
[East] Kaisinel GMT-5 / EST
[East] Lumiel GMT-5 / EST
[East] Marchutan GMT-5 / EST
[East] Yustiel GMT-5 / EST

Who’s excited? I’m excited.

Via | Voodoo Extreme

Image: NCSoft

Post from: Play Girlz

The latest PlayStation Portable update from Sony is likely to disappoint many. Considering the update labeled itself with the promising title of v6.00, nothing was revolutionary enough to warrant such a misleading firmware number. Alas, those at Sony felt that a splash of color was enough to make a few dreams come true. And hey, maybe for some it’s a bag of chips and more.

The full content update found in v6.00:

So there you go. For most of us, nothing to write home about. But those of you with PSPs might want to go ahead and update anyway. Why not.

Via | 1Up

Image: Sony

Post from: Play Girlz

If you’re the type that wants more more more when it comes to your video games and relishes the notion of downloadable content, then there’s potential bad news for you: There will likely be no DLC for Halo 3: ODST. During PAX 2009, Bungie made it clear that DLC is not in the cards for the shooter game. Why? Well, mostly because they’re working on “another huge game.”

Speaking to Eurogamer, Bungie’s own Brian Jarrard stated:

“The number one question these days is whether we’re going to do DLC for ODST and add more Firefight maps. Right now we honestly have no plans to do that because we have another huge game in the works.”

Bummer? Some players would probably agree that the game will not actually need any more maps added to it, and so this isn’t necessarily the end of the world. At the same time, those of you that were holding out hope for some of that additional content shouldn’t cry too hard into your pillow. Jarrard didn’t say that there was no way it wouldn’t happen.

Anything’s possible. Would you like to see DLC or do you think it’s all enough as is?

Via | Destructoid

Image: Bungie

Post from: Play Girlz

Aion: The Tower of Eternity is finally finally - almost – here. And if you’ve taken advantage of the beta weekends then you know why so many people are excited about this game. With the release date on the horizon and open beta at our fingertips, Producer Brian Knox has published a letter to the fans, detailing many of the features players can look forward to enjoying. The letter covers the release as well as new areas and patch information.

You can expect a couple of new areas in the game, as well as new instances, 40 new face options in the character creation screen, more rewards for PvE and PvP, UI alterations, new quests (”tons”), new chat channels, items, and a plethora of other goodies.

So if you’d like to full-on lowdown of details, be sure to read the letter over at the Aion website.

Will you partaking in Aion’s Open Beta? I’ve already put in a pre-order.

Via | Unigamesity

Image: NCSoft

Post from: Play Girlz

On the heels of the Guitar Hero 5 release, Activision has unveiled their upcoming DLC for the month of September. As far as updates go, this isn’t what I would call “awesome” or even particularly exciting. But if you’re desperate to download something new to play (or if your music tastes differ from mine) you might find something scintillating in the list below to add to your collection. Prices for the track packs are the usual 440 Microsoft Points, and the individual songs will set you back 160.

September 10

• Sweet Sweeper Social Club Track Pack: “100 Little Curses”, “Fight! Smash! Win”, “Somewhere in the World It’s Midnight”

September 17

• AFI Track Pack (440): “Beautiful Thieves”, “Girl’s Not Grey”, “The Missing Frame”

September 24

• Track Pack: Editors – “Munich”, The Faint – “Geeks Were Right”, Yeah Yeah Yeahs – “Dull Life”

Via | OXM

Image: Activision

Post from: Play Girlz

In keeping with their long-standing philosophy of listening to their player base, Blizzard has delivered on their promise to offer faction changes for World of Warcraft characters –for a fee. Now you can log into your WoW account and access the brand spankin’ new Faction Change Service and switch your Alliance character to Horde or vice versa. Keep in mind that you are only able to switch to a class supported by the race of the character you’re choosing. For example: You would not be able to switch your Night Elf Druid to a Blood Elf Druid.

If you’re interested in the new service, but remain uncertain on the details, you can read up on it all at Blizzard’s Faction Change FAQ or if you’re ready to go, head over to the Faction Change page directly.

In a further attempt to meet their customers’ needs, Blizzard has announced the decision to offer a race change service in the future. The race change will be limited to your class and faction, and will undoubtedly come attached to a fee. When this particular service will be made available remains unsaid, but one can guess that it will likely arrive sometime around or before the release of the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion.

Via | Voodoo Extreme

Image: Blizzard

Post from: Play Girlz

As far as unsurprising news goes, this is up there. But for those of you that were holding out hope that Final Fantasy XIV would be served fresh and free of a monthly fee: sorry! Ain’t happening. A subscription fee has been made official by Hiromichi Tanaka himself at GamesCon, who stated that the game would require the usual exchange of real-world money for 30 days of game play. So, what everyone expected, basically.

Those of you that just perked up at the mention of FFXIV, the wait is almost over, relatively speaking. The game is set for a 2010 release, which means it’s finally there in the horizon. Once released, you’ll be able to pick it up for both the PS3 and the PC. But don’t despair, my Xbox 360-loving friends, Tanaka revealed that talks of bringing it to the Microsoft console are simply held up due to the Xbox Live policies.

So come launch time, the PS3 has a special console exclusive hold over the title. So even if the Xbox 360 version were ready to go, it won’t launch simultaneously. So, you can pick it up for the PC or you can wait a bit longer. Or, you can play it on your PS3.

Via | VG247

Image: Square Enix

Post from: Play Girlz