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STEAM announcements & updates 2012 Thread - Summer sales usually last week of June

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Do you want to fly a real Ka-50? Do you want to read through 536 pages of documentation? Do you want to go through a 10+ hour learning curve to fly a basic mission? Do you have a flight stick? Then you should buy DCS Black Shark.

Yes, no, no, yes.

2 out of 4 isn't bad. For 7 bucks why not!
 

Rufus

Member
Mostly because these benefits have been true for years but for some reason Valve only actually started selling on another storefront right now. So the question is: what changed?
They're getting their foot in every door, in case the competing services grow into significant threats to their market share.

edit: It's more interesting to ask why they didn't sell their games on competing services before. I think it has to do with the success of Steamworks. Going by how much the list of Steamworks games has grown every year, their own library isn't the only effective lure to draw people to Steam any more. Selling keys is easier for their competitors (so why not do it, even though they might very well be feeding the beast, so to speak) and it's a value add for many customers.
 
How is dustforce? The artstyle really appeals to me but the overall concept sound kind of weak, although I'm digging the flow if you play the game perfectly. Is it designed well in that regard?

Just to provide a (possibly unnecessary!) counter to the overwhelming positive opinions, I didn't like what I played of it. I loved Super Meat Boy due to its short levels meaning that if you died, you didn't have a great deal to repeat. However, Dustforce seems to favour reasonably long stages that you're going to be replaying a lot of if you want to get high ranks. I find the controls to be a little unresponsive, too.
 
Ha, ha, shit, F.E.A.R. made me jump last night almost through its sound design alone. The sound had me on edge enough that when a creepy little ghost girl scuttled towards me, crab walking, whilst I was clambering through a vent made me kinda jump. There's been a few supernatural moments like that in the game so far but that was the first to get me.

Between moments like that and it's overall creepy atmosphere I was on edge throughout the entire game. It's still one of my favorite FPS of this generation.
 
Maybe Valve realised how saturated their existing customer base on Steam was with how few of their catalogue coupons were redeemed versus how many they handed out in the recent winter sale. Maybe the only possible realm for expansion is on other DD services.

Between moments like that and it's overall creepy atmosphere I was on edge throughout the entire game. It's still one of my favorite FPS of this generation.

I unloaded half a clip the moment Alma (?) came scuttling towards me. "Oh shit" Panic spray with mp5. I remember the demo for the second Fear having more of those creepy supernatural moments too, although maybe it was condensed for the demo. I can see why people really like these games, the combat is fun, the presentation is well done, it's Half-Life mixed with supernatural/horror and the sound design is awesome, from the bullets ricocheting, shells bouncing on the ground to the freaky supernatural events that are peppered throughout.
 
I unloaded half a clip the moment Alma (?) came scuttling towards me. "Oh shit" Panic spray with mp5. I remember the demo for the second Fear having more of those creepy supernatural moments too, although maybe it was condensed for the demo. I can see why people really like these games, the combat is fun, the presentation is well done, it's Half-Life mixed with supernatural/horror and the sound design is awesome, from the bullets ricocheting, shells bouncing on the ground to the freaky supernatural events that are peppered throughout.

Yeah, I had so many "oh shit" moments where I just threw ammo out randomly. I really don't remember Fear 2's supernatural moments very well, but I do remember it not having the creepy atmosphere of the first game. At least for me, the atmosphere wasn't like the first game. Still good though. I like the entire series, even the expansions.

Possibly spoiler for later in the first game, but
have you encountered the guys who can teleport around?
They pissed me off because of how much they kept making me jump.
 
They still do but wasn't there a thing a while back where they were threatening to not stock a steamworks game. If we don't see valve games on other stores, we can assume something went down.
 
Ha, ha, shit, F.E.A.R. made me jump last night almost through its sound design alone. The sound had me on edge enough that when a creepy little ghost girl scuttled towards me, crab walking, whilst I was clambering through a vent made me kinda jump. There's been a few supernatural moments like that in the game so far but that was the first to get me.

The stealth ninjas made me scream lol.
 

Bluth54

Member
Every single game sold uses Steamworks. They get in on another storefront(Only one with retail presence) while being able to trojan horse Steam some more.

I'm confused at why this is even a discussion?

Yep. It's the same reason that Valve doesn't charge developers anything to use Steamworks and doesn't get a cut of any Steamwork cd keys redeemed on Steam.
It's not about the money they are missing out making short term, but the amount of money they are going to make long term when those people start using Steam more and more.
 

MRORANGE

Member
It's not about the money they are missing out making short term, but the amount of money they are going to make long term when those people start using Steam more and more.

Exactly, Steamworks does a very good, job of this, your very unlikely to find DLC for a game in a retail store - even if the game was bought from there, so your reliant on using steam to buy it or some other DD store.


The stealth ninjas made me scream lol.

shotty is your friend.
 
The thing I've been wondering is how this percieved "falling out" will effect valve's future retail releases. Will they choose a different publisher? They could easily self publish if they really wanted to. Do they not care that much and are still pals with EA?
 

camerooni

Neo Member
Just catching up on the Gamestop thing, that's pretty funny. Well funny probably isn't the right word, but that was a bit unexpected.

I'm just assuming that EA have filed for some sort of antitrust complaint against Valve or vice-versa after the whole kerfuffle that's been going on, and to show that EA games should be on Steam and not exclusively on Origin, Valve had to put their games on another DD to not look hypocritical :p
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
The thing I've been wondering is how this percieved "falling out" will effect valve's future retail releases. Will they choose a different publisher? They could easily self publish if they really wanted to. Do they not care that much and are still pals with EA?

I wouldn't be surprised if Valve began to shop around for a different retail distributor after EA complained about the intention to unlock Portal 2 the Friday before release week. THQ needs money, right? :p
 
Since I'll upgrade in a few weeks, I'm trying to finish the non-Steam cloud games that run decently on my rig, today I started with...

Devil May Cry 4

Played Chapter 14 and 15 and finally I can see why people don't like it as much. Both chapters had lame backtracking and a recycled and piss-easy boss at the end of 15. Got a new ridiculous weapon though. I suppose I'm 3/4 through, right?

Gonna try to juggle between DMC4, Aquaria, the F.E.A.R. expansions and The Last Remnant. Maybe throw some Renegade Ops and LIMBO inbetween.

Edit: Oh fucking hell, Steam deleted my categories again.
 

Narag

Member
Devil May Cry 4

Played Chapter 14 and 15 and finally I can see why people don't like it as much. Both chapters had lame backtracking and a recycled and piss-easy boss at the end of 15. Got a new ridiculous weapon though. I suppose I'm 3/4 through, right?

Yup. Dante really needed his own levels designed for his moveset rather than shoehorning him into Nero's stuff. I adore the game but that's such a big flaw.
 

Htown

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE
So do you think Valve actually decided "we're going to put our games up on Gamestop", or did Gamestop just grab a bunch of retail boxes and rip out the CD keys?
 

Semblance

shhh Graham I'm still compiling this Radiant map
Yeah, DMC4 is a weird one. There's a genuinely great game buried underneath all that recycled fluff, but they don't make it easy to enjoy.

Looks damn clean on PC though.
 
Yup. Dante really needed his own levels designed for his moveset rather than shoehorning him into Nero's stuff. I adore the game but that's such a big flaw.

Yeah, DMC4 is a weird one. There's a genuinely great game buried underneath all that recycled fluff, but they don't make it easy to enjoy.

Looks damn clean on PC though.


Yeah, the parts where you play Nero are pretty good. Well, except for Nero. Is the rest of the game like this?
 
Dante until 18, Nero for 19 and 20. Level 18 is actually designed for Dante and something amazing, 19 & 20 is more rehash but I enjoyed it.

Okay :( We'll see, I haven't grown tired of the game yet but still, it's a bit of a bummer.

Thanks for the info though!
 

Narag

Member
Okay :( We'll see, I haven't grown tired of the game yet but still, it's a bit of a bummer.

Thanks for the info though!

If you're still enjoying the game, there's the harder difficulties as well as Legendary Dark Knight mode. The meat of the game isn't so much the default story mode as unlocking the full move sets and challenging yourself. There's also a Bloody Palace mode that's pure encounter and no puzzle/story to get in the way.
 
If you're still enjoying the game, there's the harder difficulties as well as Legendary Dark Knight mode. The meat of the game isn't so much the default story mode as unlocking the full move sets and challenging yourself. There's also a Bloody Palace mode that's pure encounter and no puzzle/story to get in the way.

Yeah I expected as much. Souds like something I'd enjoy but my backlog is massive. We'll see.
 

oipic

Member
Steam library weirdness, I have it; e.g.

Time played in the past two weeks (a couple of nights ago, to be precise about it):

ejvLP.png


...does not reconcile at all against last-played date:

CBTC4.png


In a nutshell, a whole bunch of my recently-played games aren't listed as, well, recently played. Anyone seen such things before?
 

Omikron

Member
Steam library weirdness, I have it; e.g.

Time played in the past two weeks (a couple of nights ago, to be precise about it):

ejvLP.png


...does not reconcile at all against last-played date:

CBTC4.png


In a nutshell, a whole bunch of my recently-played games aren't listed as, well, recently played. Anyone seen such things before?

I could probably fix that... :p
 

Stallion Free

Cock Encumbered
I cannot understand why this game exists. It's AvP without the two sides people actually want to play.

They are trying to make the Marines appealing for once since they since it should be cool and exciting to play them.

Also, the game has been in production wayyy longer than Prometheus.
 

svegis

Member
Steam library weirdness, I have it; e.g.

Time played in the past two weeks (a couple of nights ago, to be precise about it)
...does not reconcile at all against last-played date:
Anyone seen such things before?

Have you been playing offline? That will not record game time, for all I know.
If not, it might be a problem with the game, some file out of sync, all guesses.

An attempt to capitalise on the reignited interest in the Alien franchise due to Prometheus.

Actually, this is a game that's been in development for a long time. I played AvP2 to the extent of league play, so any new similar games have been of interest to me. In late 2006, Gearbox announced that they were working on a new game(this). Then, sometime in 2008(?) the title was announced and that it'd be co-op, which made it sort of less interesting but still worth it to follow, for me. Since then there's been rumors of delays and whatnot, which probably happened. They had a trailer at E3 2011 which was to me, sort of meh. Just a few days ago they had to bump release again(!) from spring to fall in this year.

What I'm trying to say here is that, it's very unlikely this is a tie in to Prometheus as this has been in development for far too longer than(I assume) the script for the movie even got started on. Now, they might've delayed it to fall for somewhat of a tie-in, considering both things are supposed to go back to the roots, but at least it's not just a run of the mill adaption. I hope.
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
Actually, this is a game that's been in development for a long time. I played AvP2 to the extent of league play, so any new similar games have been of interest to me. In late 2006, Gearbox announced that they were working on a new game(this). Then, sometime in 2008(?) the title was announced and that it'd be co-op, which made it sort of less interesting but still worth it to follow, for me. Since then there's been rumors of delays and whatnot, which probably happened. They had a trailer at E3 2011 which was to me, sort of meh. Just a few days ago they had to bump release again(!) from spring to fall in this year.

What I'm trying to say here is that, it's very unlikely this is a tie in to Prometheus as this has been in development for far too longer than(I assume) the script for the movie even got started on. Now, they might've delayed it to fall for somewhat of a tie-in, considering both things are supposed to go back to the roots, but at least it's not just a run of the mill adaption. I hope.

I didn't say nor intend to imply that Colonial Marines is a tie-in to Prometheus. It clearly isn't as the game expands upon Aliens, and Prometheus is a prequel (or more accurately, an origins story). What I'm saying is that the timing aligns almost perfectly - Colonial Marines is scheduled for release soon after the aforementioned film hits cinemas mid-year. Despite being at polar opposites of the chronological spectrum, both projects do exist within the same universe, so it makes sense to have Colonial Marines ride on the wave that Prometheus will and has generated.

As for which of the two came first, well, both projects date back to the early 2000s. It's impossible to be certain, at least for us. :p
 
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