Today it was announced that S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky will be arriving around the globe Aug 29.
For those of you who don’t know, Clear Sky is the prequel to the FPS/semi-RPG S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl.
Clear Sky boasts improved AI, a more detailed story and better character development.
The full press release is after the jump. Continued…
As of today, Epic Games’ Unreal series is available on Steam.
The entire series is available as a package deal for $59.99. It includes Unreal Gold, Unreal 2: The Awakening, Unreal Tournament: Game of the Year Edition, Unreal Tournament 2004: Editor’s Choice Edition, and Unreal Tournament 3.
You can also snag them individually. UT: GOTY is a paltry $8.95, which is not much to pay for a game that had arguably the best CTF action in a decade (in my opinion, of course).
Valve is now adding many of Atari’s PC titles to its digital distribution service, Steam. The current list of titles include:
Valve mentioned that The Witcher, Neverwinter Nights 2 and its expansion Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, will also be coming online shorty.
I have to give my props to Valve. Every time a new company teams up with them to release its games via Steam, I feel that we as PC gamers are moving on to a new era. Keep up the good work.
Valve has already given gamers more than they bargained for last year with The Orange Box. Now they want to increase the value of gamers purchases by supplying free add-on content for their popular online shooter, Team Fortress 2.
Valve’s VP of marketing, Doug Lombardi, went on the record to say that they wish to give gamers as much add-on content for free as possible.
He goes on to explain how Valve views it as an investment in their next product. By providing free content for gamers, Valve is hoping that potential buyers will no longer contemplate purchasing their games, because the consumer will know they will get their value for their dollar. Bravo!
In the end it’s up to the two platform suppliers to make the call. Traditionally in the past add-on content such as maps has always had a price tag strapped to it, at least for a specific period of time. One thing is for sure: it is nice to hear that there are still game companies out there concerned about giving their loyal gamers the best bang for their buck. It’s just another reason why Valve is such a highly respected company in the industry.
Valve seems to have a handle on what they are doing when it comes to games. With Team Fortress 2 being such a success, they’re thinking about Counter-Strike 2.
According to Valve’s marketing director Doug Lombardi: “With Counter-Strike 2, there’s a big question between, do we go start over from scratch and build a whole new game, do we do something that looks more like Team Fortress 2 that is rooted in the old game but has a ton of new stuff, or do we just sort of take everything that’s new that we’ve released and put that out in a new box.
I think we’re leaning more towards the two more radical places than just sort of rolling up the new box and re-skinning the box and putting out all the new stuff. “
As someone who has by far dedicated more time to Counter-Strike (Source and 1.6) than any other game in my life, this story is really important to me. One part of me wants the game to remain the same so I can still boast about all my accomplishments in leagues and tournaments. However another part of me knows that in order for the game to survive it must evolve. I can rest assured because I have the utmost faith in the guys at Valve. They haven’t really disappointed me yet.
Team Fortress 2 seems to be evolving all the time. Every couple of weeks the guys over at Valve crank out some tweaks and bug fixes. This time they are bringing a new map: Badlands.
Other changes include the usual gameplay tweaks and balances as well as some non conventional changes, like “Added flamethrower ’sizzle’ sound when the Pyro is hitting a target.”
Dustbowl has also been changed significantly, such as: “Added a new access point to the stage2 attacker gates (drop-down left from spawn), allowing attackers a way to reach the left route without being subjected to the spam and sentry gun fire.”
The update comes out Thursday, and provides a perfect excuse for not going out and buying dinner for your girlfriend. Unfortunately this is a PC only update, so if your on Xbox 360 or PS3 don’t cancel that date yet.
Read: Team Fortress 2 Thursday Update Brings New Maps, Changes.
It’s hard to think that at one point people were crying out for Valve to ditch its Steam service. Sure, when it launched it was slow, buggy and generally a pain to work with; now its a juggernaut smashing through the walls of PC game sales. This is why it comes as no surprise that Valve announced Steam has over 15 million registered users.
These 15 million users are the reason that Valve has seen a 158% growth in holiday sales. It also doesn’t hurt that Valve keeps releasing fantastic games.
Bravo to the guys at Valve. They have really given the people what they want; an easy, efficient, safe method of digital distribution as well as a tool for social networking.
If all goes well at Valve, a new game mode will be added to Team Fortress 2 this month: Escort.
The first Escort map will be Goldrush, which features the blue team attemping to progress a mining cart through the map, while the the red team tries to stop them. The more blue players near the cart, the faster it moves, while one lone red player can stop the progression.
This new mode, in addition to new weapons and class abilities, should give players a reason to stop complaining that the game is stale.
There’s no question that the star of Valve’s Orange Box was Portal, for me at least. That’s why I’m sure that it comes as no surprise that Valve is planning more Portal content.
As to what this content is, I am not sure. However Doug Lombardi, Valve’s marketing director, said: “There’ll be more Portal, for sure. But the details of that, to be honest, we’re still working out.”
Personally, I would prefer a Portal 2 rather than just more puzzles. I’m tching to know more about our hero and what happened to GLaDOS. Hopefully this time around, the cake won’t be a lie…
Read: More Portal Coming (Eventually).
As an English major and wannabe fiction writer, I just had to post this as news.
It’s been a rough day for me. After a five year run, my favorite comic book, Y: The Last Man, just ended and my Xbox 360 red ringed. Pretty bad, right? It’s just been turned around by a piece of fan fiction written by a nine-year-old set in the Half-life 2 universe.
Continued…
Some light has finally been shed on those cryptic hints that Valve kept dropping about Team Fortress 2 changes, with PC Gamer reporting that unlockable weapons will be revealed for all classes in the game.
The Medic is the first one to get a new weapon dubbed the “Overhealer.” The Overhealer will permanently double the health of the target at the cost of reduced, or eliminated Ubercharge capabilities. He’ll also get another, as-yet-unnamed gun.
Eventually, all classes will receive two guns unlocked by way of achievements. After attaining half of the achievements, you get the first unlock, and after performing all 35 achievements you’ll get the second.
Cue teams getting together to plow achievements all day until they unlock everything.
By the way, the new weapons are meant to rebalance the game, but one has to wonder if this just means that every class is going to receive a boost in effectiveness. If (hypothetically) sentry guns are upgraded with longer range, but Demomen get better sticky grenades, does that cancel everything out? If Medics are allowed to permaboost one target to 200% health, but all the classes do more damage, what was the point? Continued…
Today marks a first in Steam history: EVE Online will be the first MMO offered via Steam.
Steam will offer its users a 21-day free trial of EVE Online. If you decide to subscribe, you will also get a discount.
Valve’s director of business development, Jason Holtman, had this to say: “The team at CCP continues to expand EVE’s universe and gameplay for the legions logging in to play each month, just as we continue to expand Steam’s consumer and developer features.”
I believe that Steam is one of the greatest things to happen to PC gaming; long gone are the days of having to swap disks, let alone drive to the store to buy them.
