SPOTLIGHT
- NEW SITE!Welcome to our newly designed
website created by our very own Yorick.
There's been a big reshuffle and lots of
new content added so check it all out!
You can begin to preload your copy of Left 4 Dead 2 today and be ready to play the game the moment it's released on November 17th.
If you haven't pre order your copy yet, it's not too late to get the 10% discount on the game plus a Team Fortress 2 hat..A HAT, there's no deal better than this.
Gearbox president Randy Pitchford has hit out again at Valve and Steam. This time he has criticised Valve's approach to PS3 development and Steam (again). A selection of his comments include:
I read it the same way I read fanboys. Like there's a guy who brought the Sony platform and he's a Sony guy, so he decides he's going to spend a certain percentage of his time bashing Microsoft. And there's a guy on Microsoft doing the same thing. Those guys are childish and narrow minded; It's the same kind of thing.
Valve think their own stuff is the only stuff that matters, to the point where they have their own distribution platform. It’s like, I don’t care about retail, about Marketplace, or PSN, I’m going to have Steam. It’s cool, it’s good, and they’re doing a good job but at the same time they’re reliant on the rest of the world.
They had to do that [Left 4 Dead] deal with EA. When I see the L4D ad on the television I don’t see a Valve logo, I see an EA logo, and when I bought it, I bought it at a store.
News source. Meanwhile Borderlands (a Gearbox title) ranks as the top seller this week on the awful digital distribution platform that is Steam. Odd way to thank Valve, Randy.
Some interesting news has emerged over on Kotaku as it emerges that digital distributors like Direct2Drive, Impulse and Gamersgate won't be selling Modern Warfare 2 because it uses Steamworks. Direct2Drive went so far as to tell Kotaku "We don't believe games should force the user to install a Trojan Horse" and that other titles using Steamworks (Dawn of War II and Empire: Total War) would be removed from sale until Valve seperates the retail side of Steam from features like Steamworks. You can get all the details here. What do you think, should Valve make a clearer seperation between the retail side of Steam and Steamworks?
You can read a short interview with Chet Faliszek from CVG here, where Chet talks about coming out the other side of boycott problems and gives us an interesting stat: Left 4 Dead 2 pre-orders are four times that of the original game. So things haven't gone so bad for L4D2.
Moving on, G4TV went to visit Valve and put together 3 videos which can be found on the Left 4 Dead 2 blog. The first of the videos can be seen below, where Chet takes us through Realism Mode in detail (after the details he gave me last week) showing how it's going to make the more experienced players struggle.
With the soon to be released Left 4 Dead 2 and upcoming
Episode 3, we at Halflife2.net thought it was about time we had a change. Our
pages were beginning to look stagnant and we needed something to give us a
little lift. Many thanks go to
Yorick who
designed this latest layout. I'm sure you will agree it is a lot clearer
and is probably our best yet. I've gone through a lot of pages updating their content
but there is still a lot to do. Over this weekend you will find a large bulk of
new Left 4 Dead 2 and Episode 3 content being added so check back then.
One new feature we have added to the site is our
mod listing which is
integrated into our forums. The idea of this is for mod teams to post their mods
to the listing and be able to update their content page and allow the community
to give feedback through comments.
The indie title Hammerfight is now available on Steam. This fun little game by developers Konstantin Koshutin is based around using physics to smash your way through the game.
A unique combat system is based on realistic physics simulation, and it ties the movements of the rider to the movements of your mouse. As you wave the mouse, your rider swings his warhammer, smashing the foe into the wall!
We also have 5 free copies of this game to give away! Bluewolf72 will be doing this competition through our Halflife2.net Facebook group, so go join us and check it out!
The new RPG from BioWare, Dragon Age Origins is now available in mainland Europe after being released in North America earlier this week. The UK version will be available on the 6th November.
Killing Floor has also received an update, you can find out all the details here.
The Off Limits team really is picking up pace as they promised at the end of this year. They have released a selection of new screenshots showing their final version of the Russia map (originally made for Nuclear Dawn, ha!).
It looks wonderful in Off Limits, you can get a tour around the map by checking out the Off Limits website.
Lost Hope is a lesser known mod breaking through with an incredible atmosphere and art direction. This mod is a total conversion and takes place in war worn China under a military regime. The team behind this mod are hugely talented and dedicated.
Check out some of the exclusive media below andour interview with Felix and Victor from Lost Hope as they discuss where they are going with the mod, what they hope to achieve and where they could use some help. This is one to watch, see more at moddb.
Gamasutra had an interview with Laidlaw and fellow Valve writer Erik Wolpaw. Laidlaw made some comments on Gordon Freeman's development as a lead character and how it has more to do with his external interactions rather than internal mechanisms.
So we were trying to do a thing where it wasn't about one guy who is saving the world heroically for his own reasons, You're doing it with your allies and friends. It's part of a larger effort. It's not just Gordon Freeman against the universe. It's Gordon Freeman as part of this group.
He mentioned that Alyx's actions sly smiles, concerned expressions, compliments gives Gordon Freeman an air of importance.
She gives back to you emotion, which is the only way we can tell the internal story of Gordon Freeman -- by the way the other characters treat him. So by having the characters like you and be glad to see you, you think, 'Oh, I'm an important person in this world.' Alyx was a great way of affirming that, and the things that are perilous to Alyx are going to be things that you care about.
This weekend I managed to pop down to the Eurogamer Expo in London to chat with Chet about Left 4 Dead 2, Scavenge mode & to see if I could get any other information out of him!
Chet spoke about how realism mode works, what kind of things we can expect from the Hard Rain campaign, how scavenge mode came to exist & how he works stays in touch with the community and forums. Also it seems that Valve are busy back in Bellevue. Being mad hatters. Check out the interview with Chet Faliszek here, which also includes my thoughts on playing with the new special infected in scavenge mode! Gameplay videos I took from the expo are below:
Jigsaw has kidnapped our Lead Editor Hectic Glenn! And he wants us to play one of his sick games so we can get Glenn back.
If you wanna help Glenn you have to follow Jigsaw's instructions.
He's asking the members of Halflife2.net to post their best Halloween costumes while holding a sign which says 'Boo Halflife2.net".
We're offering 5 keys for SAW: The Game for the best 5 costumes. Deadline you say? Sunday, November 1st - 12:00AM GMT.
So are you gonna help Glenn live or just leave him to die? Make your choice now, the time is running out!
