Today it was announced that the ending song from Portal, “Still Alive,” will hit the Rock Band store tomorrow for both Xbox 360 and PS3. The best part is, that the song is free.
Greg LoPiccolo, Harmonix’s VP of product development said: “While the cake may be a lie, the free download of ‘Still Alive’ is confirmed truth. ‘Still Alive’ is an awesome song that brings together great gaming and great music. We’ve teamed up with Valve to deliver a free download of ‘Still Alive’ as a thank you to our fans for their incredible support.”
Now I have to think of a way to coax my non-gamer friends into playing such a nerdy song. Then again, I already have them playing Rock Band, which is kind of nerdy.
Read: Still Alive for Rock Band Free Tommorrow.
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…
Today is was announced that the popular indie strategy game Darwinia will be arriving on Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade. Dubbed Darwinia+, players will get both Darwinia and its multiplayer component, Multiwinia: Survival of the Flattest.
At this time, no release date or price has been announced.
I am pretty excited about this. Darwinia is a clever game that is a lot of fun. If you just can’t wait to get your hands of it, it is available on PC via Valve’s Steam service.
Read: Darwinia 360 Is Darwinia+.
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).
Follow to Steampowered for the package deal.
Valve is now adding many of Atari’s PC titles to its digital distribution service, Steam. The current list of titles include:
- Act of War: Direct Action
- Act of War: High Treason
- ArmA: Combat Operations
- Atari 80 Classics in 1
- Death to Spies
- Desperados 2: Cooper’s Revenge
- Indigo Prophecy
- RollerCoaster Tycoon 3: Platinum
- Tycoon City: New York
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.
Read: Atari uses Steam for digital distribution.
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.
Source: Kotaku: Valve Wants Free Team Fortress 2…
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.
Read Valve Still A Little Unsure On Counter-Strike 2.
In an interview with Chief magazine, Infinity Ward community manager Robert Bowling was grilled about the state of CoD4 as related to e-Sports. The results were less than pleasing for e-Sports fans, as is often the case.
Bowling said:
CODTV is something we’ve constantly been talking about internally throughout development and even now and something I still think is a possibility for a future PC update. We’ve met with the creator of the original CODTV and discussed what may be needed or what we can do, so it’s definitely a possibility, right now we’ve been focused on patches and mod tools updates, but that is something that’s being looked at.
Doesn’t sound too promising to me. However, at least it’s on their radar; I can’t say that id cared much at all about GTV despite its obvious utility. Of the few developers of “e-Sports titles,” only Valve has stepped up with SourceTV so far.
Read the full interview at Chief Magazine.
The other night at Valve’s GDC party, they made a surprising announcement: The ending song from Portal, “Still Alive,” will be available to play in Rock Band.
Jonathan Coulton, writer of the song, said: “That is when we jumped on-stage and pulled out our Rock Band equipment piece by piece…When they got to the song list they scrolled through an almost infinite amount of DLC until eventually they stopped on one- ‘Still Alive’ by GLaDOS.”
Unfortunately there are no details as to how much it will cost or when the song will be released. Regardless, I still think that this was a triumph.
Read: Still Alive Confirmed For Rock Band.
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.
Read: Steam hits 15 million users.
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.
