Latest News
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Steam for Mac officially announced
So its been rumoured for a while but just now Valve have made it official, Steam is coming to the Mac:
"As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients," said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. "The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services."
"Our Steam partners, who are delivering over a thousand games to 25 million Steam clients, are very excited about adding support for the Mac," said Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development at Valve. "Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play."
"We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation," said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. "The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows."
Portal 2 will be Valve's first simultaneous release for Mac and Windows. "Checking in code produces a PC build and Mac build at the same time, automatically, so the two platforms are perfectly in lock-step," said Josh Weier, Portal 2 Project Lead. "We're always playing a native version on the Mac right alongside the PC. This makes it very easy for us and for anyone using Source to do game development for the Mac."
I use a MacBook and a PC so the chance to play some Steam games when on the move will be a treat!
EDIT: Both L4D games have been confirmed. Extra information can be found on the Left 4 Dead blog.By Blink on Monday, March 8th | Comments (43)
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Valve Announces Portal 2
It's taken a while but Valve have finally released details of an official sequel to Portal:
"Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike and Half-Life) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Portal 2 for shipment this coming holiday season.
Portal 2 is the sequel to 2007's Portal, which won 70 industry achievement awards."
Good times!By Blink on Friday, March 5th | Comments (111)
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Portal 'radio' Update
It would appear that Valve have released a new update for the 2007 game Portal. What it actually is, however, is slightly more complicated.
Here's the update text:
"Portal Update Released
March 1, 2010, 2:33 pm - Valve - Product Update
Updates to Portal have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted.
Portal
- Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations"
They also made a new achievement available, presumably for anyone who figures out what the heck is going on. Rumours are running riot in the steampowered forums, so if you fancy taking a crack at the mystery you can head over there to get started.
Update:
To unlock the achievement you must receive 26 different transmissions spread through the game.By delta_nl on Monday, March 1st | Comments (188)
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Natural Selection 2 Lerk Video
Unknownworlds have recently posted a video revealing the Lerk alien class:
It's worth heading over to their site if you haven't done so for a while. Plenty of cool videos to watch.By Blink on Friday, February 26th | Comments (32)
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Human Error Released
Congratulations to Au-Heppa and team, for their mod Human Error is finally made available to the masses.
You play as Anders, an ordinary man who must deal with the moral conflict of joining Civil Protection... but on the bright side, you get to play with manhacks, drive APCs, and kill Alien Grunts, Vortigaunts, Manta Rays, and Controllers!
Visit the Human Error website or their Moddb page to download the mod. Let us know what you think in the forums!By Mess on Monday, February 8th | Comments (38)
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Scheduled Steam Maintenance Downtime Underway
Valve is up to something. They're going to shut down their servers in order to update/change something. So far there isn't any more info about what they are going to do, but stay tuned.
"The schedule maintenance for Steam is now underway and will last three hours at most ending at 9:00 PM Pacific time.
Some Steam services are now offline during this time including the Steam Community, in-game matchmaking or lobbies, downloading games from Steam content servers, and making purchases from the Steam store. Games that do not rely on Steam matchmaking services should remain playable.
News updates and any further information will be posted in this space.
We will work to make this downtime as short as possible. Thank you for your patience!"
The official article.By delta_nl on Thursday, February 4th | Comments (22)
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Left 4 Dead 2 Article @ CGSociety
Digital Artist Community CGSociety has published an excellent article detailing the development of Left 4 Dead 2, showcasing design obstacles and objectives, as well as interesting media.
""For each suggested character, we would evaluate the designs with some key questions like 'Why would that particular person have survived?' "What is it about their background, career choices etc. that has left them to mop up?' If the character in question was a feisty barmaid or used car salesman, 'why would they still be knee deep in gore and reaching for the ammo?'
Of the many suggested characters, we settled on a group of four who seemed the most interesting to us individually and as a group.""
Check out the article for the full scoop, well worth a read!By Mess on Tuesday, February 2nd | Comments (9)
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Some Steam Statistics
Whilst I congratulate myself for such a wondrous news post title, I'll let you digest some general Steam back-slapping from Valve's latest news release:
"Valve today announced extraordinary 2009 growth data for Steam, a leading platform for PC games and digital entertainment, with major increases in accounts, concurrent players, unit sales and more. The year also marked tremendous adoption of the Steamworks suite of publishing services in the tangible and electronic versions of many of the year's biggest releases.
During the last calendar year the platform surpassed 25 million active accounts, up 25% from the prior year. Of the 25 million accounts, over 10 million of those have profiles in the Steam Community.
In addition to the millions of new accounts created during the year, the peak number of concurrent users eclipsed the 2.5 million mark during the month of December, pushing Steam's average monthly player minutes to more than 13 billion.
Meanwhile, Steam now offers over 1,000 games from over 100 developers and publishers around the world. Unit sales for 2009 increased by more than 205%, marking the fifth straight year the platform has realized over 100% year-over-year growth in unit sales.
2009 also delivered a wave of titles supported by Steamworks, in tangible and electronic versions, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Dawn of War II, and Empire: Total War. Empire also used Steamworks for the delivery and management of its paid downloadable content releases.
"Steam turned five years old in March 2009," said Gabe Newell, president of Valve. "With the introduction of each new platform feature released over the years -- such as the Steam Community, Steam Cloud, and Steamworks -- we've seen corresponding growth in account numbers, concurrent player numbers and developer support for the platform. As such, we plan to continue to expand and grow the platform to better serve the developers supporting the open platform and millions of gamers logging in each day.""
Just imagine the bandwidth bill...By Blink on Saturday, January 30th | Comments (15)
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Fort Noesis L4D Campaign
Noesis Interactive have recently released their three map campaign for Left 4 Dead. If you still enjoy the first game and fancy some zombie killing in new environments then you may just want to check this one out:
"A business center turned military evacuation outpost sits abandoned atop a heavily wooded mountain. Four survivors arrive at the gates of Fort Noesis with hopes of being rescued but are instead greeted by countless infected and barricades blocking their way. They begin to fight their way through the hordes of zombies in an attempt to contact and meet up with some sort of rescue. Will they survive Fort Noesis and make their escape? The outcome is up to you!"
Get more media and a download link over at the map release page.By Blink on Tuesday, January 19th | Comments (64)
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Jailbreak: Source 0.6 - Released!
The Jailbreak: Source team have literally just released the latest version of their mod. In development for the last year and a half, the mod is now a total conversion for the Orange Box engine.
Download Jailbreak: Source from one of the mirrors below!
ConvictGaming.co.uk (399mb)
Dedifrag.com (399mb)
MegaUpload.com (399mb)
Or head over to their website to get the full list of mirrors!By Wills on Friday, January 15th | Comments (14)
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Valve Wants You To Make Items In TF2
Valve announced yesterday that they're introducing a submission-based community inclusion system for Team Fortress 2. You can now send them your attempts at creating TF2 items and avatars, and have them included in the game proper:
"Today we're unveiling the TF2 Contribution site. This nifty site will allow anyone who's made a custom piece of TF2 content to submit it to us, with a view to it appearing in-game. Many of you have been building fantastic TF2 work for a while now, and we wanted a way for you to get it in front of all TF2 players, and for everyone to see that you were the one that built it."
You can read more about the requirements for the items on the Tips + Tricks page, or read more about the system in general at the TF2 Blog.By ad_hominem on Thursday, January 14th | Comments (32)
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Jailbreak: Source 0.6 - Official Trailer
The Jailbreak: Source team have announced that their latest version, 0.6, is now complete and they've just released the Official Trailer to celebrate.
The new version is described as being "Out VERY soon". So keep your eyes peeled for when it surfaces!By Wills on Monday, January 11th | Comments (15)
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Merry Christmas!
As mad as it sounds, this is the sixth time I've posted Merry Christmas on Interlopers, how the hell have we made it that far?
Anyhow, have a great one and make sure you have the internet nearby to get you through all that boring family stuff!By Blink on Thursday, December 24th | Comments (40)
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All I Want For Christmas Is An SDK
Valve seems to have decided to play Santa, and have announced that they are releasing the Left 4 Dead 2 SDK and Add-On support today:
"PLAYERS: If you are not looking to design but play custom campaigns all you need to do is install the add-on support package. Just go into steam and open up the Tools tab. Look for the entry labeled Left 4 Dead 2 - Add-on Support click and install it. This download is sizable, but will update your L4D2 installation to allow running ANY map, including custom maps made for the original Left 4 Dead. Once installed, you do not need to run this application, it will always be active.
We will be updating the Left 4 Dead 2 game UI to include links to this package when applicable but for now please just download it directly. If you see any missing textures or models from your favorite map let us know in the forums.
DESIGNERS: Besides also downloading the above file you will need to download the Left 4 Dead 2 - Authoring Tools. Downloading it will add applications, utilities, and example files that are useful for building L4D2 game add-ons. These are similar to the tools released for Left 4 Dead, but include many updates and new features."
You can read more about how to get the SDK up and running at the official L4D2 Blog.By ad_hominem on Wednesday, December 23rd | Comments (31)
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New mod release: Flesh
Another zombie style mod? You may think that but the unique twist with Flesh is the fact it has no weapons, is third person and entirely puzzle based:
Grab a download over at Moddb.By Blink on Wednesday, December 23rd | Comments (6)
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Kreedz Climbing 4.2 Updates
The guys working on Kreedz Climbing have recently released version 4.2 of their mod:
"Kreedz Climbing (aka KZMOD) is a Half-Life 2 modification for the Source engine. The whole premise of the game revolves around getting from point A to point B in the shortest time possible, in a linear route that can include any of the mod's 15 game modes from jumping on blocks to a death trap race, or a mix of disciplines in a single course"
Some highlights of their latest version:
"o CS 1.6 original duck/crouch feeling, double-ducks, ladders and CSS Knife added
o Smoothed demos for World Record viewing and movie making
o A new Female Climber player model
o 9 brand new maps which are mostly easy difficulty
o Over 100 map bug fixes of older maps
o 5 new awards to buy with your earned medals including Stats Readout and Slow-Motion"
For more info and download links check out this press release.By Blink on Wednesday, December 23rd | Comments (0)
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ModDB 2009 Mod Of The Year Nominations Have Begun
ModDB, the central hub for all things mod-based, has announced its annual Mod Of The Year Awards and is now taking nominations for any mod. To vote for your favourite mod, all you have to do is visit the mod's profile on ModDB and click the 'Vote For Mod' button on the page. You have until 5th January to get your nominations in, before the next phase of voting begins.
"Picking a winner from 6,100 mods and 740 indie games all of which are built on different game engines, platforms, genres and themes is no easy feat. We know everyones tastes differ and we can only recognize the efforts of so many. So if you want your favorite to win remember EVERY VOTE COUNTS (last years results were incredibly tight)."
You can read more about the awards on the ModDB page.By ad_hominem on Monday, December 21st | Comments (43)
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Left 4 Dead 2 DLC Announced - 'The Passing'
Remember the mysterious Midnight Riders website that Valve set up? Well, looks like it was all a ruse for an even bigger surprise - the return of the original Left 4 Dead survivors:
"Dubbed “The Passing,” the first game add-on for L4D2 brings the original Left 4 Dead (L4D1) Survivors down south for a meeting with the L4D2 cast, while delivering new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay for the PC and Xbox 360.
Targeted for release in early spring, “The Passing” takes place just after the Dead Center campaign of L4D2. Set in a small town in rural Georgia, players assume the role of the L4D2 Survivors as they meet with the L4D1 characters.
In addition to the new co-operative campaign and associated narrative, “The Passing” will include new arenas for Survival, Versus and Scavenge mode and introduce a new co-operative challenge mode of play. The Passing will also include a new “uncommon common” zombie class, melee weapon, and firearm.
“The Passing will become the most important campaign in the Left 4 Dead story, as all the Survivors are being called together in one campaign,” said Doug Lombardi, VP of marketing at Valve. “It will also be a huge offering of new gameplay content, with something new for every game mode plus a new uncommon common and weaponry.”"
It currently has a release date in Early 2010, and you can head to Rock, Paper, Shotgun for more information.
[Edit] Now with official source!By ad_hominem on Monday, December 14th | Comments (49)
