The GameShadow Blog

Valve has a large army of fanboys out there, so for me to say what I’m about to is quite brave!

Valve really ain’t all that! There I said it…

I can forgive Counter-Strike and Half-Life (1) for being “floaty” they’re old games and at the time making a good game was still revolutionary. Left 4 Dead on the other hand doesn’t have the same excuse. It’s a brand new title and should be ‘next-gen’ which graphically it might be, but avatar-physics-wise is just dreadful.

A while back I played the demo for Turning Point: Fall of Liberty and I instantly hated it. The reason was you don’t feel like you are, or at least in control of, the avatar at all. Instead you feel like you’re some sort of bomb-squad-robot that moves on super smooth tracks and can spin faster than my new (second-hand) washing machine. Turning Point was terrible, but it was the way you move that I really didn’t like. Valve games have the same problem.

Don’t get me wrong I loved Portal like everyone else, possibly a bit less than some, but even that had the same problem. When walking, the most basic of things, a humans head bobs, if you are holding an object that too will move as you do. I’m not saying Valve need to add Mirror’s Edge avatar-physics into their games but please move away from the avatar-physics of Doom and Wolfenstein!

Valve seem to come up with great ideas but without the very basics of immersion it will always feel like you’re just… …. …. well, playing a game.

[Amendment: In hindsight this wasn’t the most well thought out post. I just felt compelled to have a little rant as I found myself quite disappointed with the movement and feel of Left 4 Dead. I personally didn’t like the feel of Team Fortress 2 and had my fingers crossed Valve weren’t going to use the same for a more realistic looking game. Either way the post was only ment to be a bit of light-hearted fun and a bit tongue-in-cheek. P.S. I don’t think Valve or Steam are really shit, I just liked the pun.]

For the first time, Valve’s Doug Lombardi has mentioned the possibility of the publisher / developer’s sale.

Valve’s “happy to have that conversation,” he told Gamasutra.

“By the same token, the company’s doing pretty well, and we’re really happy with what we’re doing,” he added.

“So we’ll see. I mean, anything is possible.”

He went on to stress that the firm’s continuing involvement with EA is purely on a distribution level, though I’d be inclined to read between the lines.

EA has two principles right now (besides making a profit): the company wants to acquire a major player, and it wants to reinvent itself as a promoter of quality and innovation.

With only 15% of Take Two shares in the publisher’s pocket, it’s clear that plan isn’t quite working out as EA would like. Valve, however, would prove to be almost as strong a prospect: the developer has an unrivalled reputation for quality and dedication to the art, while control of Steam would indisputably put EA at the number one spot in the digital distribution war.

For Valve, the deal would provide a massive support infrastructure for the continuing growth of the firm’s digital and physical distribution services, allow for substantial staff investment, not to mention provide a nice influx of liquid wealth.

As to whether or not this is something for gamers to be concerned about… well…

On the one hand, EA seems sincere in its desire to become a more quality focussed publisher (or at least to appear as much), and acquisitions of studios like Bioware have yet to turn sour. It seems unlikely the firm would look to stifle a powerhouse developer like Valve (just as Activision is content to allow Blizzard free reign).

On the flip side, Valve is one of few independent developers with any real clout, while its publishing platform offers other independent devs the most palpable medium via which to reach their audience. While EA may have no wish to limit Valve’s own output, a more mercenary approach to Steam’s publishing services may well become a greater threat to innovation. Also of concern is the strength Valve has gained from incorporating teams like the Narbacular Drop / Portal guys, and Turtle Rock (working on Left 4 Dead). Acquisition would see purchases like these become EA’s problem, which reverts Valve’s emphasis on innovation into a question of profitability.

Early days, but expect to hear more on this at some stage.

…but I still remember just the way you taste.

Yes, I’ve been AWOL for the last month travelling around Central Asia, leaving the ever capable Paul to keep you up to date, but it’s back to business as usual now.

Seems I’ve missed a lot - the entirety of E3, for instance (check out the best of it here). Still, sounds as if the entire thing was a bit of a write off this year (images from E3 back in the day, and in 2008). All the same, there’s been a series of major reveals… Star Trek Online, FFXIII, confirmation of Bungie’s Halo game, Medal of Honor: Afghanistan, GTA IV for Windows… and plenty of quotable comments from the likes of Ken Levine and David Cage at Develop, Brighton, that I’ll drop into later. Plus QuakeCon and a heap of Doom 4 (it’s more Doom than Doom 3) and Quake Live details.

Meanwhile, the long dreaded cuts have kicked off at Vivendi, following Activision’s full acquisition of the publisher. Staff, studios and games are all coming under a very large knife, check the post for more.

The other major piece of news that’s caught my eye has been talk at Valve of the company’s acquisition. Big stuff afoot? I’ll keep you posted.

It’s that time again: when Valve showers us with gifts in a way few other developers are prepared to do.

Today’s update is centred around the Pyro, where the last one was aimed at the Medic, and will see 35 new Pyro achievements, three new unlockable weapons, a new alt fire for the flamethrower, the bundling of two community developed maps, and the release of the Meet the Sniper vid. Quality, the lot of it.

Valve’s ongoing support for TF2 makes a lot of sense, but it’s still outstanding in comparison to some of the other online shooters out there - no names mentioned, EA. The weapons are hilarious, the achievements giving new life to a game still in its prime.

I used to love the Pyro, but I went off the little bastard in favour of the Heavy, and Sniper. Something tells me I might be paying him a little visit this weekend.

You can find more details here, and don’t forget, if you’re not yet a TF2 convert, the game’s free to play all this weekend on Steam.

Kotaku has a SPOILER RIDDEN story on an ad they’ve noticed from Valve looking for a voice actor for the next Portal game.

Voice work’s due to start in a month, which is altogether rather soon - despite the game not being due until 2009. I’ve not read that Kotaky story myself, just in case there’s anything destructive in there, but feel free to go for it yourself.

I’m happy to wait til 2009.

After a wait of suitably Valve-like proportions, the first major update for Team Fortress 2 went live today.

The update includes a new map type - Goldrush - and three achievement-based unlocks for the medic class - one for each weapon.

I could tell you all about it, or wax on about the gameplay implications, but you may as well just read about it, then play it.

Oh, and the whole shebang goes free for this weekend only, so if you’ve not yet bought TF2, now’s the time to jump in.

Doug Lobardi has told Eurogamer that there’s to be no more Portal until 2009, in Valve’s usual quest for brilliance.

“In typical Valve tradition, it won’t be Portal with different colours,” he said. “I think that when you hit something like that, you have two choices: you can quickly replicate it and stick it out there - do the opportunistic thing and cash in on it; or you can do the crazy thing like we did after Half-Life was so successful and go off and try and say, ‘Okay, that was revolutionary, so its successor has to be equally as revolutionary.’

“That’s the spirit I think we’re approaching it in,” he added. “You won’t see a new Portal at retail this Christmas because of that. That’s the trade off. People want more, but we don’t want to give them more of the same right away because that would just be boring.”

Personally, I figured the original Portal was short enough and sweet enough to justify a few more chunks of the same thing, but I guess Valve’s standards are higher than mine. What’s more, since character was so central to the game, I suppose there’s more work to be done on that front than meets the eye. Simply chucking in more GlaDOS wouldn’t really be enough.

Here’s hoping there’s a full length commercial release on the cards. I can wait til 2009 for that.

It’s in the works, and Episode Three in addition to more Portal will be on the way. Counter-Strike 2, sadly, will not feature, presumably because it’s a lot further off. Then again, I suppose we should wait and see how much slippage we see before making that call.

On the subject of Episode 3, Gabe Newell himself said, “From our point of view, there’s enough newness in there that we want to spring it on people and say, ‘Here’s a bunch of things you’ve never seen before,’ and have multiples of those. There’s stuff that visually hasn’t been in games before. There’s certainly a number of game elements, on the order of Portal, that have never been done before.”

“We’re really happy with how the Orange Box did, and we’ll do an Oranger Box next time,” he added. When asked if the new package will contain Counter-Strike 2, Newell said, “No.”

Valve’s Doug Lombardi:

“With Counter-Strike 2, there’s a big question between, do we go start over from scratch and build a whole new game, do we do something that looks more like Team Fortress 2 that is rooted in the old game but has a ton of new stuff, or do we just sort of take everything that’s new that we’ve released and put that out in a new box.”

“I think we’re leaning more towards the two more radical places than just sort of rolling up the new box and re-skinning the box and putting out all the new stuff.”

Exciting stuff. I think it’ll take significant balls to take a radical approach - every step so far has an evolution of the original mechanics, so there’s a lot of fans to be lost. However, let’s be honest - we’ve been playing the same game for ten years now, why not consider it something completely new, and see what these guys can come up with? I’d rather what they came up with wasn’t CS Source with TF2 visuals, but there you go. That’s the price of genius I guess.

TF2 today receives its first new map since launch (if you don’t count the recent CTF version of Well). Badlands is a remake of the classic TF map, and accompanies the usual range of tweaks and fixes.

A large overhaul is planned for release in the coming month, introducing unlockable weapons as achievement rewards, and a further new map / game mode.

But what do we care, there’s a new map to play! What am I even doing here?! Heavy-a-hoy!

(I also play as a sniper, vive la difference!)

Valve has launched a new, free suite of software tools based around the Steam network to help ease the burden of developing and publishing PC games.

“Developers and publishers are spending more and more time and money cobbling together all the tools and backend systems needed to build and launch a successful title in today’s market,” said Valve president Gabe Newell. “Steamworks puts all those tools and systems together in one free package, liberating publishers and developers to concentrate on the game instead of the plumbing.”

The tools include the ability to track sales and software activation in real time, voice chat, auto-patching, matchmaking and anti-piracy measures.

Is Valve a genuine do-gooder, or does the company just know how to comprehensively corner a market?

Having previously stated they had no intention of coming under the Valve banner any time soon, Turtle Rock Studios has been acquired by Valve.

Another one bites the dust?

Well, let’s be honest, probably not. Though acquisition rarely seems to pre-empt a burst of innovation, I feel in this case we need not fear. Favouritism? Certainly. But justifiable favouritism.

If we were being cynical, we could point out that Valve, unlike the other publishers, has a reputation to lose. That means they only need to pump out one rushed or low-quality product to mark the beginning of a backlash. On the flip side, there’s not an awful lot EA could do to further damage its self-esteem in the eyes of gamers - hence why that company endlessly pursues derivative, design-by-numbers titles.

If we were being idealistic, we could compare Valve’s Gabe Newell to a big cuddly teddy bear who just wants to give us fantastic games everyday.

Either way, Left 4 Dead can only benefit from its official affiliation with Valve - funding, pooled resources and a huge knowledge base will become available to the company.  Let’s not forget that Turtle Rock has been working closely with Valve for quite some time, and as Portal demonstrated, the publisher knows how to get the most out of external projects.

I’ll never cease to be impressed with the community following Portal has garnered in the short time since its release. User-made maps were always a given, but the wealth of goodwill and talent that’s seen plush companion cubes, Half-Life 2 mods and cut-out paper models rise in its wake is fantastic to be a part of.

The latest is Portal: The Flash Version.

It’s 2D Portal in your web browser. What more needs saying?

Yes, I go on about Portal quite a lot. That’s because it’s ace.

It’s not taken long for the first really decent community-developed map to appear for Portal, even if it is developed by a designer at Bethesda.

The map itself is difficult. Really difficult. Which serves a good purpose, given that Portal itself was fairly laid back in its challenges. The ‘Ren Test 2′ map is taxing in the extreme, featuring a smallish level that revolves, quadrupling the potential for mind-disintegrating complexity.

It’s worth checking out if the slush between your ears can take it. Download it from our high-speed servers.

I read a review today in a magazine I usually trust to be reasonably critical. It was a review of The Orange Box which placed Episode 2 as the headlining game.

Is it just me, or is Episode 2 the real black sheep of The Orange Box? Portal is contender for game of the year, and Team Fortress 2’s honed visual style and pitch-perfect teamplay make it a steal for even the counterstrike averse.

But Episode 2? Boring. It’s more of the same, and though that ’same’ might have been the height of FPS gaming three years ago, and still no dog today, it’s hardly probing the same heights as its Orange ‘peers’. It adds a couple of new enemies, no new guns, and larger, shinier environments. It doesn’t change the fact that when I’m standing in an arena with a couple of AI squaddies and auto-turrets, it’s pretty damn clear I’m about to enter a defence section with increasingly mundane waves of ant-lions coming at me. When Alyx gets speared in the chest, it’s pretty damn clear there’s going to be some vortigaunt magic saving her life. Again. And when someone needs to go find some generic ingredient to resuscitate her, it’s obviously not a job for the super-powered vortigaunts - let’s send the Freeman.

I’m not really complaining about the mechanics themselves. They’re good mechanics.

It’s just they were better the first time I saw them.