Steam's weekend sales deal involves a bald guy with a talent for sniper shooting. The PC game download service has put three of Eidos' Hitman games on the price chopping block from now until Monday. Hitman: Codename 47, Hitman 2: Silent Assassin and Hitman: Blood Money are just $4.99 each. You can also get all three games in a bundle for $9.99.

In related news, Steam has lowered the price of the strategy game Defense Grid: The Awakening to a new permenant price of just $9.99. Also an upcoming futuristic action game, Metal Drift, is taking pre-orders for just $9.99. People who put their money down early get immediate access to the game's beta test.

Last year, developer Black Sea Studios released the sci-fi themed RTS game Worldshift in Europe via Playlogic. However the game never made it to US shores. Now publisher Got Game Entertainment has announced they will finally bring Worldshift to the US in November.

The game is set thousands of years after an alien object nearly wipes out all humans on Earth. The game's three factions (Humans, Tribes, and the alien-based Cult) are now fighting for control of the planet. Unlike most RTS games which have factions upgrade their forces via tech trees, Worldshift has factions discover items in the game world and use them to upgrade their units.You can check out a playable demo of Worldshift right here at Big Download.

"The RACE On demo has two game modes: in 'Racing Event' mode players must complete a whole weekend of racing, including training, qualifiers and the race itself, whereas the objective in 'Time Attack' is to achieve the fastest lap around a circuit."

In RACE On, "players can race on the circuits in 39 meticulously reproduced vehicles that are available in over 450 designs. 27 variants of 21 racing tracks guarantee hours of gaming fun. Apart from Imola and Okayama, glamorous raceways such as Laguna Seca, Road America, Sturup and Karlskoga also feature on the impressive list of tracks.

A realistic physics engine and a dynamic weather system that can change during a race, provides a totally authentic race atmosphere. Compulsory pit stops in the STCC races add an extra tactical component to the already exhilarating gameplay experience."

The full game is scheduled to release on October 22nd. System requirements are shown after the jump.

Download RACE On Demo (665 MB)

The PC game download subscription service GameTap has been lacking support for running games with 64-bit operating systems. That finally changes today with their latest addition to their premium subscription service. The recent action-puzzle game Trine is not only part of the GameTap library but its the first game with 64-bit support. GameTap says with a few exceptions all of the new games added to their service will have 64-bit support and older games will have that support added at the rate of several games a week.

Also this week, the action title Total Overdose will be available in GameTap's free subscription service until October 22. Finally all of their classic browser based games now have save support at any point in the game.

So when is a secret event not so much of a secret anymore? When the company holding the event posts about it on its blog site. In any case, Capcom has done just that for a not-so-much-secret-anymore event to promote their first game of 2010, Dark Void.

The Capcom Unity site is inviting anyone to register for the event who is 21 year of age and over and will be able to make their afternoon and early evening free in San Fransisco. Now they are keeping exactly what's on the agenda to themselves for now, saying only that those who get selected will have to show up at a location on Monday at 2 pm. Then the invited will be picked up and driven to the final secret location for the event.

What will it be? Will folks get to fly a real jetpack like the one in the Airtight Games-developed Dark Void? Will there be wine, women and singing involved? If you get picked and are allowed to talk about the event after its held, let us know.

This minor patch for Risen addresses the grey fog effects issue players using Nvidia GeForce 6 and 7 series video cards experience. The Risen demo can be downloaded here.

Download Risen v1.01 Hotfix Patch (6 MB)
Download Updated Risen Demo (1.08 GB)
Check out all Risen downloads

Nearly a year ago, React! Games announced plans to bring the classic strategy game Archon to the PC. Now it looks like that time is coming as a new press release announces that they will be taking pre-orders for the PC version on October 15.

The developer first released a version of Archon for the iPhone earlier this summer but for the PC version you can expect lots of additional features such as switching from the original 8-bit artwork to one with enhanced graphics (there's a screenshot of the latter above this post). Also look leaderboards, multiplayer for up to four players, achievements and other features The game itself will be released sometime before the end of 2009. Pricing has yet to be announced. There's also no word on the previously announced Mac and Linux versions.

"No one knows how the Darkspawn truly live in their tainted warrens beneath the earth, although a few Grey Wardens have, on occasion, delved deep into the old Dwarven tunnels in an effort to find the heart of the Darkspawn corruption and scour it clean. Those who ever returned, did so with ashen faces and spoke only of a creature called a "Broodmother" that haunted their dreams for the rest of their short existence. What the Broodmother truly is, only the Grey Wardens know for certain."

Dragon Age: Origins is scheduled to release in November.

Download HD Dragon Age: Origins 'Broodmother' Trailer (39 MB)
Check out all Dragon Age: Origins downloads

Valve was apparently only supposed to show press folks the new Scavenge mode in Left 4 Dead 2 this week at a press event but 1Up.com caught something different while playing the press build of Valve's upcoming co-op zombie shooter sequel. They saw a menu option titled "Realism Mode" and that's something that Valve wasn't supposed to show this week.

However, Valve's Doug Lombardi admitted to the new mode when asked, saying it's for the super hardcore players that blow through games like, as an example, Portal in just a few minutes. There's no word yet on the specifics of "Realism Mode" but we will guess it's more involved that going through puzzle levels with no enemies.

The Sims and Spore creator Will Wright shocked many in the game industry earlier this year when he decided to leave his long time development team at Electronic Arts to start an all new company with the terrific name Stupid Fun Club. VentureBeat chatted with Wright this week to get an update on what he's been up to and what he has planned for his new company.

Wright says that Stupid Fun Club has three projects in the works right now including one that might be released in the next year. However not all of the projects involve video or PC games. Wright states, "One of them is toy related. The others aren't. We are looking at a lot of different industries. There's the web. Toys. We're not restricted to one type of entertainment. We're kind of looking for ideas that cross a lot of different boundaries." However games are not far from his mind with Wright saying, "We are taking the games industry into other areas. We are expanding what we call the 'play industry.' Games are limited in some ways. Play can be applied to so many different kinds of experiences."

Each week we find more and more free games that do not quite fit into the freeware mold. Games that do not require a subscription fee to play, but encourage player usage of money through microtransactions or special subscription services. This is Playing For Free, a column that showcases these games.

There are not a lot of brawler games available on the PC, and for good reason. Most people prefer control pads while kicking the snot out of random henchman. However, there are a few, and in the case of Dungeon Fighter Online, they are sometimes even MMOs. An excellent side-scrolling brawler packaged into a rather average MMO, it's Nexon's newest release, and easily our favorite. How can Combat Arms or Maple Story compete with classic gameplay, after all?

Last month Mad Otter Games announced that they had purchased the IP for the classic Red Baron series of PC flying action games. Today GoG.com has announced a new agreement with Mad Otter Games that will allow GoG.com to offer the original titles for sale at their DRM-free PC game download site.

GoG.com is selling the Red Baron Pack which contains the original game along with Red Baron 3D (a patched version of Red Baron 2) and the Red Baron Mission Builder for anyone who wants to make their own missions for the game. The bundle is being sold for $9.99 and includes reference cards and extra maps.

Last August, on the heels of poor sales of Wolfenstein, Activision made the decision to lay off a number of team members at its Raven Software dev studio. This week two separate reports claim the publisher has cut more team members from another studio and shut down a third one entirely.

Activision has admitted to Kotaku that a number of team members from 7 Studios have been let go "to better reflect Activision's upcoming slate of music-based games." Kotaku estimates 30 team members have been laid off from the studio which Activision just acquired earlier this year. Another Kotaku report states that their Shaba Studios offices have been closed completely, with another 30 team members out looking for work. If true this means Activision may have let go of as many as 100 total team members in the past couple of months.

This is the playable demo for the mystery adventure game, Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy. The full retail boxed game is already out and the digital download version is scheduled to release on October 13th. System requirements are shown after the jump.

"You, as Nancy Drew, are undercover at a prestigious girls' boarding school to discover the culprit behind threatening notes and dangerous accidents aimed at its valedictorian candidates! Is there a secret someone wants to protect or are the malicious pranks intended to scare away the competition - permanently? Solve the mystery before the threats turn deadly and you're expelled from the case!"

Download Nancy Drew: Warnings at Waverly Academy Demo (237 MB)

While we wait and wait and wait some more for Rockstar Games to give us more info about Max Payne 3, we have to just twiddle our thumb just a bit before more is revealed about the action shooter sequel. Thankfully a 30 second clip that looks and sounds just like an official Max Payne 3 trailer has popped up on YouTube and, well, it's just cool to watch.

No, there's no real gameplay in this clip (that would just make our heads explode at this stage) but the skill in this teaser has made many think its an attempt by Rockstar to release a viral video. On the other hand, the now incorrect "Winter 2009" release date at the end also makes us think this was just made by a fan with a lot of skill. Either way, we all win in the end.

[Via Joystiq]