Hidden Fronts map pack will drop its price tag, as promised.

The Gears of War “Hidden Fronts” map pack, which sold for 800 Microsoft points ($10) when first released in May, will be made available for free starting Monday, September 3rd at 2am (PDT). Hidden Fronts — which includes the Bullet Marsh, Garden, Process, and Subway multiplayer maps — has been downloaded by nearly 500,000 gamers to date, and will follow the original map pack and the Annex gametype into the realm of free content for Epic’s system-selling shooter. (more…)

EA celebrates C&C’s 12 years in style — with free stuff.

Twelve years may seem like a strange milestone to celebrate, but as Command & Conquer community manager Aaron “APOC” Kaufman points out, very few video game franchises have remained active and in mainstream gamers’ eyes for that long. Mario, Final Fantasy, Zelda, and a handful of others others — an elite list that Command & Conquer now calls home.

Today, August 31st, marks twelve years since Command & Conquer Gold was originally released for the PC. To celebrate the occasion, Electronic Arts has done something undeniably cool. Command & Conquer Gold can now be downloaded 100% free from the official Command & Conquer website. ISOs for both the GDI and NOD discs can be downloaded and burned onto a CD, giving anyone who hasn’t yet checked out the franchise a chance to do so at its very beginning. (more…)

Time-altering shooter now available in playable form.

The original version of TimeShift was reportedly just a handful of bug fixes away from release, but when Sierra came on board as the title’s publisher, Saber Interactive was granted the opportunity to rewind its development back to the planning stages and swap the initial steampunk-inspired designs for Gears of War-style grittiness and realism.

Now, Xbox 360 owners have the opportunity to check out the revised shooter via a single-player demo added yesterday to the Xbox Live Marketplace. The 582MB download allows players to experience the games main hook — the ability to pause, rewind, or slow down time to get a jump on enemies or reverse an unfortunate outcome.

TimeShift is expected to ship for the Xbox 360 and PC in late October, with a PlayStation 3 version to follow in December.
Source: gametab.com