Interesting video covering the history of Half-life and Valve. Much has been said about both topics but this video covers them well including who was the inspiration for Gordon Freeman.
I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.
2753 Posts
Gabe Newell gave a rousing talk at Linux Con today. He talked more about Valve's strategy with games, Windows, consoles and Linux. It is all shown in the video above(warning, it was recorded and put on YouTube so it isn't perfect).
A few note worthy bits from the talk:
All of that sounds great and I am very interested in seeing what news they drop next week. But a Steam mobile handheld? The future looks very interesting.
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/09/16/1924232/gabe-newell-talks-linux-as-the-future-of-games-at-linuxcon-na
A few note worthy bits from the talk:
- Valve is announcing hardware next week
- Valve is sinking resources into Linux in terms of development in SDL, LLVM & a Linux debugger
- They are working on something in mobile
- Valve wants to unify the mobile, PC and living room experience so they are not all different
- They want the future of technology to be built on open technologies
All of that sounds great and I am very interested in seeing what news they drop next week. But a Steam mobile handheld? The future looks very interesting.
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/09/16/1924232/gabe-newell-talks-linux-as-the-future-of-games-at-linuxcon-na
I just pushed a new update to the site upgrading it to use Boostrap 3. As with any upgrade, some site breakage may occur so if you see anything amiss let me know.
That said, the site should look much better on phones, tablets and desktops now.
http://getbootstrap.com/
That said, the site should look much better on phones, tablets and desktops now.
http://getbootstrap.com/
Jon & Sean from Analgesic Productions released a Anodyne Remix Album on Bandcamp under the "name your price" model. I love the Anodyne score and this remix album compliments it well.
http://seagaia.bandcamp.com/album/anodyne-remix-album
Blizzard has collected the winners of the Blizzard Gamescom 2013 cosplay contest. The winner this year was Ralph Z, a male Barb.
http://us.battle.net//d3/en/blog/10737565#best
Eldritch is a interesting new 3D Lovecraftian FPS from two former EA developers. The has a very unique style and has been making some waves in the indie community.
http://www.eldritchgame.com/
Crawl is a neat 2D retro styled Zelda/Ninja Turtles hack-n-slash with some interesting elements, one being that your friends can control the dungeon monsters. If you have been itching to play against your friends, this may be your chance.
http://www.powerhoof.com/crawl/
http://seagaia.bandcamp.com/album/anodyne-remix-album
Blizzard has collected the winners of the Blizzard Gamescom 2013 cosplay contest. The winner this year was Ralph Z, a male Barb.
http://us.battle.net//d3/en/blog/10737565#best
Eldritch is a interesting new 3D Lovecraftian FPS from two former EA developers. The has a very unique style and has been making some waves in the indie community.
http://www.eldritchgame.com/
Crawl is a neat 2D retro styled Zelda/Ninja Turtles hack-n-slash with some interesting elements, one being that your friends can control the dungeon monsters. If you have been itching to play against your friends, this may be your chance.
http://www.powerhoof.com/crawl/
Treasure Adventure World is the follow up to the free PC game, Treasure Adventure Game. Featuring hand drawn art and a large open world, Treasure Adventure World looks to up the ante considerably.
This game is being published by Chucklefish, the creators of Starbound and will initially ship on PC only.
http://treasureadventureworld.com/pre-order/
This game is being published by Chucklefish, the creators of Starbound and will initially ship on PC only.
http://treasureadventureworld.com/pre-order/
"Explore a beautiful, vast and ruined world riddled with unknown dangers and lost technologies. Inspired by nightmares and dreams alike.
Hyper Light Drifter is a 2D Action RPG in the vein of the best 8-bit and 16-bit classics, with modernized mechanics and designs on a much grander scale.
Visions for this game have been fluttering in my skull for ages; something dark and fantastic, with giant forests to navigate, huge floating structures to explore, deep crumbling ruins to loot, massive throngs of enemies to rend, and behemoths both flesh and mechanical to overcome. I want it all to be as beautiful as possible, forging color with the dark and eerie wastes and intimidating landscapes. It plays like the best parts of A Link to the Past and Diablo, evolved: lightning fast combat, more mobility, an array of tactical options, more numerous and intelligent enemies, and a larger world with a twisted past to do it all in."
This project was quickly funded on Kickstarter because of it's awesome gameplay, visuals and Disasterpeace score. It has sailed past the majority of it's Stretch Goals and still has 27 days left to fund. Interested in picking this up when it drops.
Hyper Light Drifter is a 2D Action RPG in the vein of the best 8-bit and 16-bit classics, with modernized mechanics and designs on a much grander scale.
Visions for this game have been fluttering in my skull for ages; something dark and fantastic, with giant forests to navigate, huge floating structures to explore, deep crumbling ruins to loot, massive throngs of enemies to rend, and behemoths both flesh and mechanical to overcome. I want it all to be as beautiful as possible, forging color with the dark and eerie wastes and intimidating landscapes. It plays like the best parts of A Link to the Past and Diablo, evolved: lightning fast combat, more mobility, an array of tactical options, more numerous and intelligent enemies, and a larger world with a twisted past to do it all in."
This project was quickly funded on Kickstarter because of it's awesome gameplay, visuals and Disasterpeace score. It has sailed past the majority of it's Stretch Goals and still has 27 days left to fund. Interested in picking this up when it drops.
Robot Loves Kitty just dropped Legend of Dungeon 1.0 today after a great beta period. The game has really improved over the last few months of refinement and I think it is well worth a look if you peeked early or haven't yet.
Legend of Dungeon is a new Indie Game that is reviving the Rogue-like in a fresh way. They are planning a few more large content updates after 1.0 in terms of a in-game pet system and player classes. I talked with Alix and Calvin a bit about this at PAX and what they have planned sounds very interesting.
You can nab the game for Mac, Linux and Windows for $15.
http://www.robotloveskitty.com/LoD/buy.php
Legend of Dungeon is a new Indie Game that is reviving the Rogue-like in a fresh way. They are planning a few more large content updates after 1.0 in terms of a in-game pet system and player classes. I talked with Alix and Calvin a bit about this at PAX and what they have planned sounds very interesting.
You can nab the game for Mac, Linux and Windows for $15.
http://www.robotloveskitty.com/LoD/buy.php
Been waiting for the Game of the Year Edition to pick up Dishonored and it looks like Bethesda is finally releasing it. Game of the Year Edition comes with the base game, The Knife of Dunwall, The Brigmore Witches, Dunwall City Trials & Void Walker’s Arsenal.
I don't typically get stealth games but I have heard good things about this one and want to give it a shot.
Dishonored Game of the Year Edition ships October 8th on PC, PS3 & XBox 360 for $40.
http://www.bethblog.com/2013/09/12/dishonored-game-of-the-year-edition-announced/
I don't typically get stealth games but I have heard good things about this one and want to give it a shot.
Dishonored Game of the Year Edition ships October 8th on PC, PS3 & XBox 360 for $40.
http://www.bethblog.com/2013/09/12/dishonored-game-of-the-year-edition-announced/
"Ah, bashing video games for their senseless violence. It's a time honored tradition... at least since the 80s. But is this violence really a VIDEO GAME issue? If we look at other games - sports, even board games - we'll see echoes of these violent game mechanics. In our complex competitive world, we may need these simulations to help us learn and train for the unexpected. So are violent video games possibly more helpful than harmful? Watch the episode and find out!"
Jamin Warren gives a good history of violent video games with Arcades, Mortal Kombat, Doom, Postal 2 & Night Trap. He notes that our culture over time has become less violent but that it's not entirely obvious.
What do you think? Will we always have violent games? Does it matter?
Jamin Warren gives a good history of violent video games with Arcades, Mortal Kombat, Doom, Postal 2 & Night Trap. He notes that our culture over time has become less violent but that it's not entirely obvious.
What do you think? Will we always have violent games? Does it matter?
I completed Fez on Mac after the Mac port came to Steam yesterday. The game plays beautifully and picks up my controller such that the game feels just as polished as the Windows version. Another rad feature is that Steam syncs your saves. I started the game on Windows and played it a bit on Linux and completed it on Mac.
You can unlock the final area with 32 cubes collected and I achieved that in about 6 hours of total play. I have many more cubes to collect and plan on doing that here and there over the next bit. The ending sequence was really interesting and I don't want to say much to spoil it but I will say that it was unique and thought provoking.
After you complete Fez you can create a new Fez+ game that starts the main campaign over again but allows you to pick up where you left off in terms of collecting things. I many areas left to explore and cubes to collect. Some of the puzzles in Fez are fairly complicated and I am not really sure how to complete them yet. That said, I have many areas left to explore and sometimes exploring an area tips you off to how to complete a series of puzzles you didn't have the key to earlier.
Fez is great and is currently part of the Humble Bundle 9 and I seriously recommend you play it.
https://www.humblebundle.com/
You can unlock the final area with 32 cubes collected and I achieved that in about 6 hours of total play. I have many more cubes to collect and plan on doing that here and there over the next bit. The ending sequence was really interesting and I don't want to say much to spoil it but I will say that it was unique and thought provoking.
After you complete Fez you can create a new Fez+ game that starts the main campaign over again but allows you to pick up where you left off in terms of collecting things. I many areas left to explore and cubes to collect. Some of the puzzles in Fez are fairly complicated and I am not really sure how to complete them yet. That said, I have many areas left to explore and sometimes exploring an area tips you off to how to complete a series of puzzles you didn't have the key to earlier.
Fez is great and is currently part of the Humble Bundle 9 and I seriously recommend you play it.
https://www.humblebundle.com/
Half-Life amazes me that it still holds up after all this time. I played a bit of it last year and still had a blast with it.
It was interesting to know that "Valve time" started with their very first game. I'm certainly glad they didn't rush to release though, and pushed it back when they knew they needed to.
Yeah, me too. Strange fact, I originally bought Half-life to play Counter Strike. Many moons later, I played it, but yeah it was for Counter Strike.
I bought Counter Strike just for the models for Garry's Mod. I still have yet to play a CS game.
Hahaha, yeah, I haven't played a game in ages myself. It's so much fun, but I suck so bad. I sucked then too, it's just that I was playing with friends and a bot mod, which made it really fun because I would win sometimes.
Speaking of, I think I still have CS 1.5 and that bot mod still..... Hmmmm.