The Best of Big Download: August 25-31

by Joystiq Staff @joystiq on Aug 31st 2008 5:00AM

Happy Labor Day Weekend! Big Download has been laboring for the last week of August to give you some cool exclusive features and here's a quickie look back at the week that was:

Exclusive Features

Big Download's Most Anticipated Fall 2008 PC Games: Check out our picks for the games we want to play the most in the busy fall/holiday season.
Big Download's Penny Arcade Expo 2008 gallery: Check out our own gallery of images from PAX 2008
Guide to Team Fortress 2 Heavy Achievements: It's an extensive look at all of the new achievements you can get while playing the Heavy class in Valve's multiplayer shooter. Check out part one, part two, part three, part four and part five.
Reviews: Take a look at reviews of Tank Universal and the latest American McGee's Grimm installment. Plus a look at some new PC accessories from Razer.
Independent Minds: This new column on indie game development takes a look at how devs should take criticism of their work
Big Iron: Our latest hardware column takes a look at PC cooling systems.
Big Ideas: Our gaming themes column takes a look at whether classic games should be revamped.
MacMonday: Our look at Macintosh gaming takes a gander at the classic Maelstrom.
Alt-Tab: This week's feature gallery column concerns Valve's ideas about games.
Five reasons we think we will love Mercenaries 2: The title says it all in this new gallery feature.
Freeware Friday: It's our latest free game; the sandbox title Survival Crisis Z
BigCast: We have our regular weekly podcast plus extra ones from PAX 2008 with team members from Warhammer Online and one with AOL Game Daily's Robin Yang.

Downloads

Spore Creature Creator Patches: Patch up both the full and trial versions of the stand alone creature editor.
Tank Universal demo: Check out this free look at this Tron-like arcade action game
Space Siege DVD patch: Patch up the DVD issue for Gas Powered's latest action-RPG
Project Origin GC08 trailer: It's the latest footage from the Monolith shooter sequel.
X3: Terran Conflict trailer: Check out the latest footage from Egosoft's space sim
Mercenaries 2 launch trailer: It's the final gameplay trailer before the release of Pandemic's open world action game
Far Cry 2 trailer: It's an "immersive" look at Ubisoft's upcoming shooter.