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Archived News:
Steam now offers Q.U.B.E., along with a playable demo of this first-person puzzle game from Toxic Games. Q.U.B.E. is on sale during the next week for 15% off, and here's a description of what to expect: Set in a mysterious and abstract sterile environment, Q.U.B.E. (Quick Understanding of Block Extrusion) is a first-person puzzle game that challenges players to navigate each level by manipulating coloured cubes that surround them. There's little to go on as the game begins - the player is dropped into an all-white room with few instructions, and simply has to figure their way out. The tone of game changes as the player finds small and big alterations to their environment, supported by an original score, inviting each player to let their imagination take over as to where they might be. Through experimentation and discovery, players will progress through an ever-evolving series of cube puzzles that will challenge them with logic, physics, platforming.
Steam News announces the release of a new automatic patch to update Stronghold 3, Firefly's construction/strategy sequel. Here's the change list for version 1.7.25411:
- Fixed the issue with the campaign not continuing after loading in a save game from the main menu.
- Fixed an issue with sections of wall disappearing when loading in a save game.
- Fixed crash if closing a gatehouse when troops are moving through it.
- Several building footprints have been reduced.
- Buildings can be rotated by using the keyboard. Pressing SHIFT or CONTROL will allow the Q/E keys to rotate the building.
- Troops will no longer fall through the floor when crossing Stone Bridges.(User maps with this issue will need to be re-saved)
- Fixed the Fletcher occasionally making the bows in the stockpile.
- A few other potential crashes have been fixed.
- Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West on Steam. Save 50%.
- Sword of the Stars - Complete Collection on Impulse Driven. Save 60%.
Link of the Day: Contra vs. Paperboy. Thanks Ant.
A Microsoft Studios job listing for a Community Manager suggests Microsoft has plans for a new online RTS game. This may actually be for Age of Empires Online, which is already operational, but it mentions this is for "an exciting new online PC Real Time Strategy game" and the position will work with the developers, suggesting it is for something different. Here's part of the ad, spotted on the Age of Empires Online forums by RTS Guru: Are you a passionate gamer with a deep understanding of social media and online communities? Microsoft Game Studios is looking for a web-savvy community manager with editorial and PR experience to drive engaging and innovative end-to-end user experiences for an exciting new online PC Real Time Strategy game. As a web and community PM, you will work closely with Team leads, Marketing and PR on strategic initiatives within our communities, and help evangelize our Game’s story to the world.
Valve offers a retrospective on the success of Steam over last year, outlining the growth of their online service, while also discussing their ambitions of entering living rooms this year with the addition of "Big Picture UI mode." Here's the deal: January 6, 2012 - Valve® today announced the 2011 growth data for Steam, a leading platform for PC & Mac games and digital entertainment.
During 2011 the platform grew to offer over 1,800 games to over 40 million accounts. Year-over-year unit sales increased by more than 100% for the seventh straight year, and during the 2011 Holiday Sale Steam's simultaneous user number eclipsed the 5 million player mark.
Meanwhile Steam doubled the amount of content delivered in 2011 vs. 2010, serving over 780 Petabytes of data to gamers around the world. To meet the increasing demand for games and services on the platform, the Steam infrastructure more than doubled its service capacity and a new content delivery architecture was deployed to improve user download rates.
Over 14.5 mil copies of Steamworks games were registered during the year, a 67% increase over 2010. Steamworks titles shipped during 2011 include The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Deus Ex: Human Revolution , and more. Since the suite of services was released three years ago, Steamworks has shipped in over 400 games.
"Steam and Steamworks continues to evolve to keep up with customer and developer demands for new services and content," said Gabe Newell, co-founder and president of Valve. "Support for in-game item trading prompted the exchange of over 19 million items. Support for Free to Play (FTP) games, launched in June, has spurred the launch of 18 FTP titles on Steam, with more coming in 2012. Looking forward, we are preparing for the launch of the Big Picture UI mode, which will allow gamers to experience Steam on large displays and in more rooms of the house."
Though it's not yet reflected on their website, GameStop sends word of a preorder bonus they are offering along with Prototype 2, Radical Entertainment's upcoming open-world action sequel. Here's the deal: Radical Entertainment and GameStop (NYSE: GME) kick things into high gear with the announcement of an exclusive* pre-order bonus for PROTOTYPE® 2 – Sgt. James Heller’s Bio-Bomb Butt Kicker ability. Planned to launch April 24, 2012 from Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), North American fans who pre-order the game at GameStop between January 1, 2012 and April 23, 2012 will unlock this alternate version of one of PROTOTYPE 2’s unique, new viral-powered abilities, the Bio-Bomb.
“Butt Kicker is a fun twist on Heller’s already over-the-top new Bio-Bomb ability,” said Ken Rosman, Studio Head, Radical Entertainment. “Rather than just throwing enemies once Heller has infected them with the Blacklight virus; Butt Kicker allows Heller to drop-kick punt them across the map, turning enemies into projectiles that rain down devastation from above.”
Closed beta testing is now underway for Repulse, Aeria Games upcoming science fiction-themed first-person shooter. Here's a refresher on the game: "In Repulse, players must create a soldier and enlist to help save the future of mankind by battling enemies in a variety of player-versus-player (PvP) and player-versus-environment (PvE) matches. The game’s fast-paced combat is fueled by an arsenal of futuristic weaponry and enhanced movement abilities. Matches take place across a diverse selection of engaging environments. Each map is strikingly rendered in crisp, 3D graphics and loaded with plenty of sniper hideouts, choke points and other twists designed to create an edge-of-your-seat shootout between players."
The9 Website now offers a new trailer from PlanetSide 2 from the Chinese publisher of SOE's upcoming MMO shooter sequel. This includes gameplay/combat footage along with an interview. Thanks PlanetSide Universe, where they have posted a copy of the trailer to the YouTube. Continue here to read the full story.
A post to the Steam Users' Forums by Team 6's Ronnie Nelis calls out Eurogamer for its scathing review of Flatout 3: Chaos & Destruction, which gave the racing sequel a miniscule 1/10 ranking. Nelis calls the reviewer a "liar," saying the review was copied (thanks Joao). A subsequent post expands: If you don't believe the text, check the screens: They don't show any deformation for example, someting that is present for quite some weeks now. There's only one reason how this is all possible: He is playing a non-official, old version of the game. It's not what people see when they purchase the game, thus not representive.
Also worth noticing: our publisher has only sent out review copies to the press as from today.. (so how could he have 'received' it earlier?)
I don't mind people complaining, giving feedback, or just disliking the game in general. I have plenty of positive and happy fanmail to cheer me up again after reading this article, but what bothers me is that he is not telling the truth. Shouldn't a reporter be fair and tell the truth?
If you are interested in fair reviews, i currenly recommend the one on gamespot. http://www.gamespot.com/flatout-3-ch...%3Bread-review
To make this comparision fair: This one is not positive neither, but the text is open-minded, fair and therefore better. The gamespot reporter also used an old version and not the official publisher-review copy which has been sent out only today BUT he did actually played and obviously enjoyed the game. Worth noticing: The two things he marks as "bad" are completely fixed nowadays. (too bad we can't get a re-review hehe)
GamesIndustry.biz - A SOPA Mess (registration required).
Yet the opponents of the bill are themselves correct about two very important (and seemingly contradictory) points. Firstly, SOPA won't work. It will do precious little to impede internet piracy, which remains at the cutting edge of distribution technology, far beyond the reach of any of the measures enshrined in the law. The Internet itself militates against attempts to restrict content distribution - it's now a cliche but remains entirely true to say that the distributed architecture of the network, originally designed to allow military communications to continue in a time of nuclear war, interprets censorship as damage and routes around it accordingly.
Secondly, while it won't impede piracy in any meaningful way, SOPA's provisions could have far-reaching consequences for freedom of expression online - something which has been increasingly under threat in recent years both from censorious approaches from national governments and from corporate efforts to limit "net neutrality", in effect threatening to create a multi-tier Internet in which not all traffic is treated equally and, ultimately, not all users may have access to all services.
The weather remained warm around here through the end of the year, but things got pretty cold as soon as the new year arrived. It's milder the last couple of days, but it was startlingly cold earlier this week, but I still knew something was wrong when I went downstairs a couple of mornings ago, and could practically see my breath. It turns out the back door had blown open during the night, as it hadn't been shut properly: It seems there is too much weather-stripping around it, which can make getting the latch to catch difficult. Counter-intuitively, this seems worse in the cold (isn't that supposed to make things shrink?), so I have a weekend project to try and address this, as I don't like to think about the cost of all the heat that wasted.
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