Colin McRae: Dirt 2 (known as just Dirt 2 outside of Europe) is a racing game released in September 2009, and is the sequel to Colin McRae: Dirt. This is the first game in the McRae series since his death in 2007. It was announced on 19 November 2008 and features the late Colin McRae as well as Ken Block and Travis Pastrana. The game features many new race-events, including stadium events. Along with the player, a mobile home car travels from one event to another, and serves as ‘headquarters’ for the player. It features a roster of contemporary off-road events, taking players to diverse and challenging real-world environments. The game takes place over four continents: Asia, Europe, Africa and North America. The game includes five different event types: rally, rally cross, trailblazer, land rush and raid. This World Tour sees players competing in multi-car and solo races at new locations, from canyon racing and jungle trails to city stadium-based events, and also includes a new multiplayer mode.

A demo of the game was released on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Marketplace on 20 August 2009. The demo appeared for the PC on November 29 2009, it features the same content as the console demo with the addition of higher graphic settings and a benchmark tool.

Colin McRae: Dirt 2 is an official sponsor of Ken Block, Travis Pastrana and Dave Mirra of the Subaru Rally USA.

Dirt 2 will be one of the earliest games to launch with DirectX 11.

I was one of the lucky people to get a free CD key for Dirt 2 buy purchasing one of the new 5000 series ATI video cards. The game will be available for download from Steam as soon as the game is launched. Get your own Dirt 2 CD Key today!

I’ve found that the best way to get a Colin McRae: Dirt 2 CD Key is through legitimate means, that way you don’t have the hassle of illegal software, or the worry of malware.

In my quest for Viacom to find the most addicting and well ultimately for them profitable Flash Games I’ve run across quiteВ  a few interesting picks.В  One of them being Castle Wars, a very simple card based battle game.В  Of course being card based there is a lot of luck that comes into play, but it also very much so boils down to skill.В  Interpreting your opponents next move, playing the right cards at the right time to achieve ultimate victory.

Castle Wars Ultimate Vicotry

This was a screenshot of a game that I played that admittedly was very lucky, but also played in a lot of skill in defeating the computer.В  I started the game off with a Curse on hand, a Wizard card, and two conjure crystals cards.В  After conjuring the first set I summoned my new wizard giving me three to play with.В  I soon after got another wizard card and summoned him as well giving me four wizards, and also had before hand summoned a builder and a soldier so it was already three builders to his two, three soldiers to his two, and four wizards to his two before he had even done 10 damage to my fence. This is a pretty rare case, but because I got even more conjure crystal cards within the first 12 moves of the game I was able to curse him dropping his stats down to two builders, one soldier, and one wizard where as I had four builders, four soldiers, and five wizards.В  Soon after getting the chance to curse him again.В  The reason I have so much stuff in the end is because I wanted to kill him off rather than win by way of building my castle too tall.В  I kept getting building supplies, and after two dragons, a banshee, and a curse from him I decided that it was finally time to just finish the game.

You can play Castle Wars at it’s home on XGenStudios.com

Most of you probably don’t know, but one thing that I do besides blogging is freelance work for Viacom.В  Recently they had me search out the best flash based mini games online.В  They want to start putting flash games on some of their MTV websites and it was my job to come up with some proposals for games this is what I came up with:

Yard Golf Flash Game

I’ve noticed a few things in common when it comes to viral/sticky mini games online. They really come down to a few very basic elements.

1. Score databases

2. Exponentially increasing difficulty

3. Various levels / changes of scenery

4. Variations on user equipment/characters/weapons

5. Upgrades / bonuses (not 100% true, but generally speaking)

6. Very easy to learn / master controls

With these factors in mind I’d like to propose a game that we could create for IAmOnMTV that would be both addictive, and viral. The idea is simple starting with an already addictive, and time consuming game out there: yard golf. Yard Golf is a very simple game in which two opponents have three sets of golf balls strung together with about a one foot length of rope. You take your golf ball sets and throw them at a “goal” that has three tiers and you attempt to get the balls to wrap themselves around and stay in place. Points values are 2pts for bottom row, 1pt for middle row, and 3pts for top row, if the opponent gets one of their ball sets on the same tier as you no points are awarded for either player.

The game could be created very simply with a “Power” bar at the bottom, “Spin” bar on the side, and angle is gathered from how you move the mouse in relation to the balls. When it comes to the angle it could work something like how it does in this game:

http://www.neopets.com/games/play.phtml?game_id=648

Also a great feature of that game that we could very potentially use is the choice of characters. Not only could we let the player choose who they play as (various MTV personalities), but who they play against (A.I. Played by even more MTV personalities). Each character has special abilities based upon their personalities, and character played on whatever MTV show they are on (just as an example, maybe Tila Tequila’s description might be something like “Can handle any balls” or whatever). We can also offer the use of several different types of balls and could easily incorporate branding and marketing ploys in such idea as well.

In more challenging modes I’d also like to see “wind” which could be represented with an arrow at the top that said direction and speed of wind, which would change through the game to make it harder to hit the target exactly every time. Of course heavier balls would be an advantage in this scenario, but you’d also have to use a stronger character… which would make the game amazingly versatile and appealing to a wide range of players.

With both the power and spin bars I imagine them being controlled by the user either simultaneously, or one right after the other with the space bar similarly to how it is in this game:

http://www.neopets.com/games/play.phtml?game_id=903

Except the release of the balls would be with the mouse. Maybe we could set it up so that the spin bar is controlled with the space bar, and then the power bar is controlled by how far back the mouse is pulled (reference the first game).

Ideally it would be nice to see the game work in 3D with Shockwave as in this game:

http://www.neopets.com/games/play.phtml?game_id=430

However it is not necessary, and could work very easily much like the second game listed, with attributes of the first (ball movement, bounce, etc.) just with two balls strung together instead of just one.

Refer to the attached image for what some of my ideas might look like (granted made by someone who’s better at photoshop, and flash than myself).