Author Archive for Andy

Upcoming Releases: Left 4 Dead and Silent Hill

Some more news this week regarding Left 4 Dead, as well as news of Silent Hill Homecoming.

It was revealed this week that Silent Hill Homecoming will be coming to PC along with the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 releases, and will be available on Steam. The game should be released some time in September.

If that’s not enough to fill your thirst for the supernatural, you will be able to get through hordes of undead in Valve’s new release Left 4 Dead.

This week, we learned that Left 4 Dead will be following both Team Fortress 2 and Portal’s examples, when Doug Lombardi told us that, like Portal, there would be:

subtle hints fleshing out the game’s back story.

He goes on to say that:

graffiti and scratches [will pepper] the walls of the zombie filled city, with messages to and from survivors scrawled upon the walls of the game’s safe rooms

In addition, like Team Fortress 2, there are plans to:

feed Left 4 Dead players with regular updates. [There will be] new scenarios as future downloadable content through Steam, [and] new monster types and weapons sound like a distinct possibility

As Left 4 Dead sounds like it’s getting better by the day, we also heard this week that the boxart that we showed a few weeks ago (and can be seen above) may well be open to change.

Why would they do that, you ask? Well, apparently, it may have something to do with the obvious pun in the image. You see, the hand obviously only has 4 fingers, and it is clearly dead, however the more observant of you may have noticed that it’s a right hand…

Yes, really. They are thinking of changing the artwork so the one person in 3 million who actually notices this will feel all warm and fuzzy inside! I guess we’ll actually have to wait an see if this transpires, however I for one wont even be looking at the boxart… who needs a physical copy when you’ve got steam?!

Unfortunately, the final bit of news about Left 4 Dead is that there has been a release delay. Left 4 Dead will now be released on November 20th, not the originally planned 4th November (to go with the whole ‘4′ thing…).

No news as to why this is, and it’s not that much longer to wait, however at least we will be playing it exactly 10 years after we were originally playing Half-Life. That’s right folks, Left 4 Dead will now be released on the 10 year anniversary of the release of Half-life… ah the nostalgia :)

This Week’s News: Updates and Previews

Other than the huge Team Fortress 2 Update, this week has only seen one other update, and that is to the independent game Planet Busters. The update does the following:

  • Fixed crash after completing Indi 3/Indi 4
  • Fixed difficulty on Daggers in Men’s Smiles mission
  • Addressed bug with UTF-8 characters in user names
  • Anti-aliased graphics

While this was the only Update, there have been a slew of new trailers and videos for upcoming games, and most of them are definitely worth a watch. These are as follows:

  • Multiwinia (released September) - Domination
  • Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (available 2009) has 4 new videos
  • Far-Cry 2 has 3 new videos (which I must say, make this game look even more awesome! If only it were on Steam in the UK :()

Can’t wait to play those!

This Week’s News: Team Fortress 2

It’s probably escaped nobody’s attention that this week has finally seen the release of the Heavy Update for Team Fortress 2. With so many people at Valve working on Steam and related projects, it’s no wonder that the Steam community has got such a cracker of an update for one of it’s most popular games!

The full list of updates can be seen below the break (the initial update has also seen two additional additional patches, also listed), but the key points are described in more depth at the Heavy Update portal site.

To summarise these key points, the update includes:

All in all, this is an awesome update!

And… if you’re an Xbox 360 player, do not fret - all updates are coming to you “later this year“.

The full list of updates, changes and bug-fixes is after the break.

Continue reading ‘This Week’s News: Team Fortress 2′

This Week’s News: Releases

So, all I can say is that this week, we’ve been slack. It’s been my birthday, and John’s just got a new job, so we’ve been celebrating a little, and blogging a little less. We’re sorry.

But, now we’re back, with a vengeance!

This week has seen a number of new releases:

Pacific Storm: Allies

The long-awaited sequel to Pacific Storm; Pacific Storm: Allies expands upon the success of the internationally acclaimed original to deliver an unforgettable mix of real-time strategy and blistering arcade combat, recreating World War II’s most heated battles.

Pacific Storm: Allies is available for $9.99 or $15.99 along with it’s predecessor, Pacific Storm. Check out the trailer, here.

FlatOut & FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage

FlatOut Ultimate Carnage lifts destruction racing to a whole new level of bone-breaking slaughter. FlatOut Ultimate Carnage is arcade destruction racing at its best and most extreme with real world physics, three different game modes and offering players a wide variety of online and offline multiplayer options.

With a metascore of 78, if you’re into racing games, this is definitely one worth checking out. The pack is available now for $49.99, and you can check out the trailer here.

Tank Universal

Tank Universal creates a huge virtual ‘Tron-like’ world where you take part in immense 3D tank battles involving scores of units both friendly and not so friendly in wide open levels!

I’ll be honest, the trailer for this didn’t blow me away, however there is now a demo available so it just may be worth checking out, especially for the low price of $9.99. If you like the movie Tron, why not check it out?

Heavy Update introduces Badwater Basin

The Heavy Update Site has released news of the next part of the pack - the new map Badwater Basin.

From the site:

Badwater Basin is a Payload map focusing on more open spaces and less chokepoints than Gold Rush.

So far so good!

Unlike Gold Rush, where the track is split into three separate stages, Badwater Basin uses a single large stage with several checkpoints. As a result, the Blue team is highly encouraged to push the cart hard after beating their way through the Red defensive line.

Sounds like a hell of a lot of fun!

Head over to the site to see some pictures in anticipation of actually getting to play it. This pack is shaping up to be a cracker!

Sega add three games to Steam

Today saw the release of three new games on Steam. Sega have released Space Siege, The Incredible Hulk, and Beijing 2008 for all of us Steam users.

With Metacritic Scores of 35 (Incredible Hulk) and 57 (Space Siege), and Beijing 2008 yet to be rated, these games don’t look like they’re anything to write home about, but if you’re interested in playing them, you can check out the trailers at the links above, and buy them for $49.99 a piece.

Bionic Commando swings away from Steam

A notable omission from Steam this morning was the fact the the anticipated Bionic Commando Re-armed has not appeared.

While it was supposed to be on Steam, Christian Svensson, a Capcom employee, has said on their official forums that Capcom and Valve have “been unable to reach mutually agreeable terms”. He doesn’t go into detail about this, but does say that Capcom “continue to have a good relationship with Valve and future Capcom titles we expect to be carried on Steam”.

For me, this is a little worrying - what terms couldn’t they agree on for this one game that other games will be alright? It doesn’t seem to bode well - whatever may be said in front of the curtain.

I guess the only way we will find out is by letting time work it’s magic…

Oh, and while it’s kind of irrelevant to the point I’m making, after playing the demo on Xbox Live Arcade last night, I personally don’t think we’re missing out on that much, although it still doesn’t change the fact that we should have the option.

Unreal Tournament 3 and Team Fortress Update News

An update has been released for Unreal Tournament 3. The update makes the following changes:

  • Fixed overlay mesh showing up on hidden sniper rifle when un-zoomed
  • Added motion blur menu option for PC (defaults to off)
  • Fixed zero extent collision bug in octree code (finding nodes in Z axis)
  • LOD Hysteresis / LOD Decision making bug fix
  • Fixed default mesh not having proper LOD settings
  • Fixed rare darkwalker physics crash
  • Added player name list to server browser

If you’re still playing this, and not Team Fortress 2 then these could be interesting*. If however you’re a Team Fortress 2 player, there is some more news for you!

Following on from yesterday’s update, the Heavy portal site has released information on the first new weapon and all of the achievements that will be available for the class.

The weapon is the K.G.B (or Killing Gloves of Boxing) which will give the Heavy “five seconds of guaranteed critical hits”. This can be used to “to punch and kill further enemies, extending the boost time” or to “switch to another weapon and use the boost to take out an enemy at range”. Either way, sounds like a lot of fun to me!

As for the achievements, no news has been released on what to do to get them, however you can see them all, as well as download the icon pack at the official portal site.

* Please note, I am aware that Team Fortress 2 and Unreal Tournament are significantly different games, however I wanted some way to link the two items and this was the best way I could think of. Sue me ;)

Pro Cycling Manager - Le Tour De France 2008

Today’s new release  Pro Cycling Manager - Le Tour De France 2008.

Not much to say about this one… it’s a Simulation, and it seems that it’s a bit like Championship Manager for the cycling world. From the site:

With over 180 races, 65 official teams and 1,600 cyclists available, you’ll get to play the role of general manager and will have to handle all aspects of a professional team’s season. Manage well and build the most competitive team!

It’s available now, for $49.99, and if you need more persuading, perhaps the trailer can help you decide.

Valve announce Heavy Pack coming ’shortly’

Valve have just posted on the official Team Fortress 2 blog that the much anticipated Heavy update will be coming shortly.

To count down to the release, valve have launched a special Heavy ‘portal‘ which will showcase some of the key features of the pack in small bite size chunks.

According to the blog:

Throughout the rest of the week [they'll] be giving you the details on [everything in the pack], and if all goes well, you’ll have your hands on it shortly afterwards

First up on the heavy update site is the community map they are releasing - cp_steel.

For information on this and everything else in the pack, make sure you keep checking the official blog!

This is going to be fun :)