PC Gaming Roundup - January 26, 2009

Here's your Monday Edition of PC gaming goodness, including a few bits of patch news and the release of a deauthorization tool for Crysis Warhead.

War Plan Pacific Patched
Shrapnel Games announced that its new patch for "acclaimed" wargame War Plan Pacific addresses "the dreaded Model 99 Bug" as well as enhances the overall gameplay experience. Although the patch history resides here, the 21.4MB file adds extra feedback for base growth, three pre-set volume levels, several boosts to Allied AI and more. Head here to download the patch.

Orchard Now Available
Majesco's farm simulator Orchard is now available for purchase and download. Rated E for everyone, the new game tasks players to manage all aspects of a growing, working farm and roadside farm stand. According to the company, players must "dig in to salvage their granduncle Fred's orchard from its horrible state of disrepair." Consumers can download Orchard and play for free up to one hour.

Unreal Tournament 3 Mega-Patched Soon
Beyond Unreal threw up a massive list of fixes, changes and improvements Epic Games is currently working on, including major enhancements to the Server browser, improved networking performance, an award system using Steam Achievements and tons more. The list is crazy long, looking as if the update will require another publication in the same manner as 203 was updated and re-released as 2004. UPDATE: According to Epic's Steve Polge, this is only half of the planned expansion, with the "Titan Pack" to follow thereafter.

Crysis Warhead Deactivation Tool
FileShack is hosting a tool that will deactivate Crysis Warhead on one PC without installing the game, freeing up one of five slots so it can be used to authorize Crysis Warhead on another machine. This 1.04MB tool is an official release from Crytec, so no worries about piracy or attached trojans here.

Saints Row 2 Patched
Steam News is reporting that an update for Saint's Row 2 was released, adding an overall performance increase around 20 percent (depending on PC specs and game settings). Other notable changes include the removal of the 32 FPS cap, a corrected issue with 3rd party controller scrolling, various bug fixes and more. The updates will be applied automatically when the Steam client is restarted.

Hellgate: London Resurrected?
According to a HanbitSoft press release, the company has reformed a team in San Francisco stemming from Blizzard and ex-Hellgate developer Flagship in order to re-launch the multiplayer aspect. The team is also working on client patches as well as an expansion pack. The team will also work on finalizing and launching Flagship's other MMOG, Mythos. It possible that both games will use the free-to-play, microtransaction model. The expansion is supposedly set for late 2009.

Resident Evil 5 on PC?
Blues News is reporting that a ten-minute segment from Polish Gram TV is now up on YouTube, discussing the game in... Polish. However, the segment includes the mention of a PC version of Resident Evil 5, revealed by Jerzy Cichocki from CD Projekt (The Witcher). Apparently, the undead tidbit comes straight from Capcom, and while no official statement confirms or denies the revelation, a translation of Cichocki's statement says that the game will hit retail stores in the second half of 2009.

Games for Windows Live Head Cut Off
VentureBeat figured out that Microsoft's Chris Early -general manager of Games for Windows Live- was one of the 1,400 employees laid off by the company. Emails sent to Early's address bounce back, saying that his time at Microsoft "has come to a close." Recently Microsoft launched a separate, downloadable client for the PC, almost 20 months after the service originally launched. The free service offers multiplayer capabilities, demos, videos, and even premium-priced downloadable content (starting with Fallout 3 tomorrow).

More to come.