EL33TONLINE: News tag archive: valve
We all love Portal 2. And we all love Skyrim too (see what I did there?). Apparently these games love each other as well as Bethesda and Valve have teamed up to create a mod for Skyrim that includes a little character from Portal 2.
Who says video games can’t change the world? The people at Valve - the company behind Half-Life and the game-changing digital distribution channel Steam - have shown their commitment to education by giving away the highly cerebral, physics-based puzzler Portal for a limited period.
So many tiny pieces of videogame news have emerged over the last day or so, but despite their relative size to, say, the reveal of a circle pad peripheral for 3DS, they’re still very important and/or interesting.
Just take our word for it.
Let’s try to round up some of the more important bits of tiny game news in this edition of News B33ts:
Left 4 Dead fans will no doubt be aware that Valve is hard at work on the Cold Stream downloadable content for Left 4 Dead 2. But what you might not know is that the developer has revealed an incentive for all you zombie-killing players out there.
“My name is Marco Spitoni, I was born in 1970 in the north of Italy and I’m presently living and working on the other side of the world in New Zealand… I’m presently working at Weta Digital, Peter Jackson’s VFX facility as Previs Supervisor, here in Wellington, NZ.”
You’ve just been introduced to one Mr. Spitoni, a fellow who has a passion for 3D graphics, Star Wars and videogames.
From the looks of a teaser video for one of his animated CG short movies dealing with the universe of Half-Life and featuring Gordon Freeman, Mr. Spitoni also has a passion for making the dreams of videogame geeks come true.
In continuing with its theme of strategic benevolence, Valve will today release the anticipated isometric action shooter, Alien Swarm, through the company’s Steam digital distribution service for the grand total of nothing.
That’s right: Today, from Steam, you’ll be able to download what looks to be an authentically excellent action romp absolutely for free.
Oh, that’s not enough for you? Well, what if Valve throws in the complete code base and SDK (Software Development Kit) for Alien Swarm as well, so would-be videogame programmers and creators can learn how the developers of Alien Swarm went about making the title.
Surely you’d be willing to pay ‘Free’ for that package!
Valve has made good on its promise and unleashed its digital distribution service, Steam, on Apple’s range of Mac computers running Mac OS X.
This will give Mac users access to an initial selection of 57 games to download and play through the service (all listed below), while new games will be added to the roster every Wednesday.
These games will all feature Valve’s ‘Steam Play’ functionality, which enables gamers to purchase one copy of the game via Steam, and then play the game on a computer imbued with the power of Windows or Mac OS, all through a single Steam account. It’s the Valve way.
Counter-Strike: Source, the much-maligned update to classic Counter-Strike 1.6, has received an extensive update to bring new features and functionality to the aging (but still ultra popular) online team-based shooter.
Currently in ‘beta’ (unfortunately Valve has already filled all available beta testing slots), this update to Counter-Strike: Source has been implemented with help from developers Hidden Path Studios. Once the beta has run its course, the update will be applied to Counter-Strike: Source proper, for free naturally. It’s the Valve way.
Valve has released the first weekly mutation for The Passing DLC for its co-operative zombie shooter, Left 4 Dead 2.
The Passing DLC was released last month and introduced new single player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay to the game. It also introduced a series of weekly game mode events dubbed “Mutations.”
Now that we know the first game add-on for Left 4 Dead 2 will be available tomorrow for the Xbox 360 and PC, let’s find out what new achievements lie in wait for us.
Valve has announced that the first game add-on for Left 4 Dead 2 will be available tomorrow for the Xbox 360 and PC. Xbox 360 gamers will have to cough up 560 MS Points for the new DLC while PC gamers can get their hands on it for free.
Zombie fighting fans rejoice because the first downloadable content for Left 4 Dead 2 will be coming this week.
Titled ‘The Passing,’ the DLC will include a “wicked witch bride, a gargantuan M60 and a slashing golf club.” Gamers can also look forward to meeting three Left 4 Dead 1 survivors in the new DLC as well as a new enemy called the Fallen Survivor. It will also include new game modes!
The Left 4 Dead team has posted on their blog to inform fans that they’ve done some behind-the-scenes infrastructure work to facilitate a better online play experience for Xbox 360 players of Left 4 Dead 2. From the post:
“We have upgraded our network infrastructure to better accommodate the huge response to L4D2. 360 players will now have lag-free servers. We’ve also added more dedicated servers.
”We will continue to monitor the situation and add resources as needed.
”Thank you for your patience. Now quit reading this, get out there and kill some zombies!”
Valve has now fully opened the floodgates, allowing gamers of all colours (Gold and Silver Xbox 360 members), creeds (Xbox 360 and PC) and lifestyle choices (whether you’ve pre-ordered the game or not) to sample the delights of Left 4 Dead 2 in demo form.
Additionally, a new update for the PC demo has been released to fix sound and microphone issues gamers were having (settings being reset) that affected those of you running the demo on Windows 7 and Windows Vista.
The full version of Left 4 Dead 2, Valve’s follow-up to their original zombie shooting cooperative shooter, releases over the week of November 17th worldwide.
Chet Faliszek, one of Valve’s writers and the Left 4 Dead 2 project lead, recently spoke to CVG about the fallout from the Left 4 Dead 2 boycott (which recently ended) and what affect it’s had on projected sales of the game, if any:
“As we get closer to launch we see the reaction to the demo,” said Faliszek, “pre-orders are four times what Left 4 Dead 1 was, people’s excitement, the boycott itself and how it’s changed… I think people are just excited now.”
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