Ruining It For Everyone Else Since 2004
I posted my Steam Controller review the other day via Steam (What a shocker). In case anyone didn’t see it I’ve decided to put a link to it here. Surprisingly I was 99% serious in my review. But considering a broken clock is right twice a day I guess it was bound to happen. Here’s the the review.
Nothing like using Source Filmmaker and the TF2 universe to sell your product.
I wouldn’t buy one, but it does look pretty handy for someone who would want to expand their gameplay to another location without the need of building an HTPC.
Gabe Newell decided to troll about Half Life 3/Half Life 2 Episode 3 or whatever the hell it’s being called at this point.
“But you know if you want to do another Half-Life game and you want to ignore everything we’ve learned in shipping Portal 2 and in shipping all the updates on the multiplayer side, that seems like a bad choice,” Newell continued. “So we’ll keep moving forward. But that doesn’t necessarily always mean what people are worried that it might mean.”
Make of that what you will. It could either mean that the franchise is gone due to no multiplayer, or the next Half Life will be multiplayer specific. Who knows? The Gaben works in mysterious ways and for the most part, many gamers have benefited from what Valve has done thus far.
Either way until then, HL3 unconfirmed.
A friend of mine shared this with me yesterday. PC World even picked up on the story.
If you’re a Steam fan running Linux, the last thing you’ll want to do in the next few days is mess with your Steam files. Users on Valve’s GitHub Steam for Linux page are complaining about a nasty bug that has the potential to wipe out every single personal file on your PC. Even worse, users say the bug will even wipe out documents on USB connected drives. So much for local backups.
That’s a pretty serious bug. I hope Valve gets on that ASAP.
Portal 2 is currently in beta form on Linux. To install it you will need to opt into it via the Portal 2 Properties in your Steam Library.
If you have any issues you can submit bug reports and the like to Valve’s GitHub page.
It’s been far beyond obvious for a quite some time that Microsoft hasn’t exactly had much interest in the PC Gaming market. Not when they have been trying to sell a console, and the failure of GFWL not only proves this but also this article where Microsoft basically wishes they could have done what Steam has accomplished to keep PC Gaming alive and well.
“Valve is right down the street from us,” Spencer noted. “They’ve done a great job of keeping the PC ecosystem strong at a time where I don’t mind saying that we could have been more focused on what was going on in PC gaming.”
He also goes on to say:
“We were probably too focused purely on console,” Spencer admitted. “With Steam, [Valve has] done an amazing job of building this thing that, in a lot of ways, we should have been building as well at Microsoft.”
It’s amazing to think of in retrospect. Considering that back in the 90’s Microsoft wanted Windows to be the future platform of gaming.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gun4erVV8CM
My how times change.
This is a cross post from a blog that I help co-author. To read it over there click this link, if not just read on.
Seriously. I found this to be all too strange. In the Korean version of Counter Strike called Counter Strike Online 2 (licensed by Valve and developed by Nexon Korea with Valve’s Source Engine) you can play in a new mode called Pig Mode. Which looks something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1zDNsTRdl8&feature=player_embedded#t=0
To promote this new gamemode, Nexon Korea is selecting five people at random who share the mode’s trailer on various social media websites. The five people who win will receive a pig. Not a pig model, but an actual live pig. O_o
This is looking pretty interesting. So far it seems to handle Civ 5, Portal 2, CS:GO very well.
I’m sure quite a few of you heard about the second steam announcement today.
In case you missed it here’s how you can (hopefully) participate in the beta.
THE HARDWARE BETA ELIGIBILITY QUEST:Before October 25, log in to Steam and then visit your quest page to track your current status towards beta test eligibility1. Join the Steam Universe community group2. Agree to the Steam Hardware Beta Terms and Conditions3. Make 10 Steam friends (if you haven’t already)4. Create a public Steam Community profile (if you haven’t already)5. Play a game using a gamepad in Big Picture mode
I’d say this is definitely worth signing up for. Especially for people interested in the hardware aspect or people who would like a more current gen gaming system. SIGN UP NAO DAMMIT!
All the fun stuff always happens when I’m at work. 😛 Apparently Steam announced today “SteamOS” their own Linux Operating System. Making it easier for people to create their own Steam based entertainment systems if they so choose to.
This is an excellent idea and Valve doesn’t really have anything to lose since this is a free Open Source platform that anyone could jump into. Unfortunately I don’t have any TV in the house to run Big Picture Mode, but that might change this winter. And when it does I’ll have to install it on my laptop along side my Win 7 install to test. 😛