Operation Barbarossa - The Struggle for Russua is a World War II turned based strategy that lets you relive and strategize Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 playing either as Germans or Soviets. There are three single player campaigns in the game two for German and one for the Soviet Union. The demo, allows you to play through a portion of the game, more information and download links can be found on the Operation Barbarossa demo page.

 • Operation Barbarossa - The Struggle for Russua Demo

Black Friday is once again upon us and over the next few days many retailers and online digital distributors will be offering all sorts of discounts on the hottest video games and accessories, making it the best time of year to pick up a gift for someone or that game, console or accessory that you've had your eye on.

Steam is offering some deep discounts of up to 50% on big name titles such as Far Cry 2, Chapmions Online, Batman Arkham Asylum and Dragon Age Origins. Steam's sale is good for another day so be sure to check out the deals quickly. Direct 2 Drive is also offering discounts on Dragon Age: Origins, The Sims 3, and Crysis Maximum Edition through November 30th. Rounding out the online digital distributors Impulse is offering 35%-75% discount on a number of games including, Warlords Battlecry III, Sins of a Solar Empire and Resident Evil 5.

Retail stores are also have their fair share of doorbuster sales on video games and accessories. GameStop is offering both PS3 and Xbox 360 bundles for $299.99 and has dozens of discounted games. Best Buy and Walmart have the same PS3/Xbox 360 bundle at the same price. Best Buy is offering Madden 2010 for $25 dollars off the suggested retail.

Finally if you're looking for gift ideas, game reviews, top picks, harware/accessories be sure to check out my 2009 Gift Ideas and Gift Guide.

Early this morning Bioware published the minimum and recommended system requirements for their upcoming action role playing sequel Mass Effect 2. Bioware also announced that the retail boxed PC version of Mass Effect 2 will not require online authentication and will only perform a basic disk check similar to Dragon Age: Origins. In Mass Effect 2, Commander Shepard is once again tasked with putting together an elite group of the best and the brightest to stop what could be the largest threat to mankind's existence in the universe.

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
 • OS = Windows XP SP3 / Windows Vista SP1 / Windows 7
 • Processor = 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or equivalent AMD CPU
 • Memory = 1 GB RAM for Windows XP / 2 GB RAM for Windows Vista and Windows 7
 • Hard Drive = 15 GB
 • DVD ROM = 1x Speed
 • Sound Card = DirectX 9.0c compatible
 • Direct X = DirectX 9.0c August 2008 (included)
 • Input = Keyboard / Mouse
 • Video Card = 256 MB (with Pixel Shader 3.0 support). Supported Chipsets: NVIDIA GeForce 6800 or greater; ATI Radeon X1600 Pro or greater. Please note that NVIDIA GeForce 7300, 8100, 8200, 8300, 8400, and 9300; ATI Radeon HD3200, and HD4350 are below minimum system requirements. Updates to your video and sound card drivers may be required. Intel and S3 video cards are not officially supported in Mass Effect 2.

 • Recommended System Requirements
 • Mass Effect 2 Info

A Ubisoft representative has confirmed to Official Playstation Magazine that Far Cry 3 is in development. Of course there's no other information on the game other than it's being developed out of the Ubisoft Montreal development team. This is the same development team that gave us Far Cry 2 last year. I suspect that the game will be available for the PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 but again, no word if the game play, story or anything else will continue where Far Cry 2 left off.

[source: computerandvideogames]