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Rumor: Bethesda Looking to Buy Valve?

Nathan Grayson — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 23:11:29 -0500

If you just dropped a massive chunk of change on Doom creator id Software, what would you do next? Huh? Did you just say “Buy Valve”? No? No takers? Yeah, we’re not exactly waving our hands about and shouting “called it” on this one either. But, according to the latest stink-raising piece of scuttlebutt over at Eurogamer, Bethesda could very well be in the market for the house that Gordon Freeman built.

“However, it's also worth watching closely what happens to Steam in the coming months. Unconfirmed industry scuttlebutt suggests that Zenimax - the parent company of Bethesda, which made headlines back in June when it acquired legendary PC studio id Software - is still on the acquisition trail, and has been making eyes at Half-Life creators Valve across the bar,” reads the article.

We’ve contacted both Valve and Bethesda for comment, but so far, our questions remain unanswered. We’ll be sure to let you know if we hear more.

The Game Boy: From Space Invaders to Mothership Zeta – Why Videogame Aliens Suck

Nathan Grayson — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:34:24 -0500

Fallout 3: Mothership Zeta’s opening scenes were absolutely out of this world. Within a span of ten minutes, I was torn from the Wasteland, poked and prodded with 100 haystacks’ worth of needles, stripped of the near-impregnable safety blanket I call “Power Armor,” and unceremoniously tossed into a prison cell. Upon awakening, my ragged, desperate human cellmate cowered in fear as some unknown force approached our cell, only to change course at the last second and perform its unspeakable act on some other hapless sap. The poor guy emitted a blood-curdling howl as his frail flesh clunked around in what sounded like a super-powered dryer.

I was absolutely thrilled. Fear, curiosity, and vulnerability hooked me. Adrenaline reeled me in. “Who are these unseen, all-powerful beings?” I wondered. “Why are they doing this?” My interest piqued when my cellmate mentioned our captors’ penchant for tampering with people’s brains. Then I actually saw them. Tiny, green, big heads, round eyes. Beaten and beamed up by God after only two strikes from my pithy 23 unarmed skill. Thrill and intrigue, it was nice knowing you.

What followed was roughly four hours of good old fashioned alien-blasting. Fun, but nothing special. No mind-blowing ulterior motives, no unsettlingly foreign alien culture; the mean, green abducting machines were just a new skin for everyday Fallout 3 enemies. Really, there was nothing "alien" about these aliens. After such a promising opening, I felt more than a little let down.

Upon further thought, though, I realized that Mothership Zeta’s extraterrestrial approach simply mirrored that of nearly every sci-fi videogame since Space Invaders. See, when gamers whine about “ANOTHER sci-fi shooter,” they think they’re doing it because aliens, lasers, and outer-space are played-out. However, like the final frontier it so often focuses on, I think the topic of aliens in videogames could use a whole lot more exploration. We just need to approach it from a different angle, is all.

Since the dawn of the gaming industry, “you = good guy, alien = bad guy” has been the guiding line of thought. And what do we do to baddies? We blast ‘em, of course – no questions asked. Halo, Half-Life, Gears of War, Quake, Metroid – you name it. If it’s not of this world, we like keeping it that way. Sadly, it’s only once you start asking said questions that things get interesting.

Hugely influential novel (and personal favorite) “Ender’s Game” puts forth a great example of extraterrestrial ground videogames have yet to traverse. (Note: Ender’s Game spoilers follow.) The book presents a world semi-recently ravaged by a bug-like alien species, with humanity gearing up to withstand an anticipated second trouncing by these “buggers.” Interestingly, though, the reader never actually encounters a real, exoskeleton-and-blood alien until the latter half of the book. The enemy’s unseen, with only hearsay and propaganda to fill in the blanks. Thus, curiosity propels you through the story. What’s the deal with these aliens? Why did they nearly destroy earth, only to flee when victory was at hand? Where are they now? Etc. I’d love to see this kind of masterful, mystery oriented build-up attempted in a videogame setting.

“Dawn,” by Octavia Butler serves as further food for thought about aliens in videogames. Here, we find main character Lilith Iyapo spirited away from a devastated earth by – what else – aliens. One major problem, though: these aliens are about as far from human as one can get. Little green men these ain’t. Instead, these things are practically made of creepy crawly tentacles, swap genetic information and meld with whatever species they come by, and can be any one of three genders. They are, to put it mildly, hideous, by human standards. Their very existence is an affront to ours. The whole book, then, is about integration with a truly otherworldly culture. What I think games could take away from this isn’t necessarily a totally non-violent alien-based game, but rather, the notion of a world completely unlike our own. Too many games depict aliens and alien cultures as humans with funny skin colors and human-like sets of value to match.

In this respect, I see ACE Team’s Zeno Clash as a step in the right direction – at least, as far as creating a totally foreign, yet shockingly believable world goes. Between the curvy, organic-looking aesthetic, inhuman characters, and oddball philosophy behind it all, Zeno Clash was not a typical first-person videogame. It pulled off its shtick so convincingly, in fact, that multiple people told me that the game scared them, despite the fact that nothing explicitly “scary” ever happens in the game. Why? Because it’s different. Just as non-humanoid creatures like spiders and scorpions unsettle us, so to do utterly strange worlds.

My ideas, of course, are only the tip of a very large iceberg. So, how about you? How would you like to see aliens and other such sci-fi themes handled in modern videogames?

New Half-Life Remake Trailer Looks Freaking Incredible

Nathan Grayson — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:57:32 -0600

Black Mesa, a Source engine recreation of the original Half-Life, has sported an unwavering "in development" status for the past four years. After a while, we just started lumping it in with Duke Nukem Forever, Alan Wake, and the apocalypse as signs that God does exist -- but that He's one hell of a procrastinator. After checking out the latest Black Mesa trailer, though, we're belting out a different tune. Or at least, we're trying. The cascading tidal waves of drool blasting out of our mouths -- fire-hose style -- make it kind of difficult.

Fortunately, the mod will apparently scale the walls of development hell within our feeble lifetimes. According to a post on the official site for the unofficial remake, "the days this mod stays in development are truly numbered. Hang tight, because at long last, it is coming."

And then they prompt readers to GO WATCH THE TRAILER NOW. Which we think is a pretty good idea.

Happy 10th Birthday to Half-Life!

Andy Salisbury — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:10:14 -0600

That’s right Valve faithful, just this week Gordon Freeman celebrated his valiant service at the Black Mesa Research Facility for the 10th time. That’s a whole decade of butt that Mr. Freeman has been kicking, and he’s opened up the door for tons of other great games.

It was the release of Half-Life that really put Valve on the map, and the video gamer’s world is a better place because of it. Games like Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Team Fotress (2!), Natural Selection and Left 4 Dead have all come out thanks to Half-Life's humble beginnings. If it weren’t for the release of Half-Life 2 and the extremely flexible and stable Source engine, much of the landscape that we all love to shoot up from the first person wouldn’t be here today.

So give your best wishes to all the fine folks at Valve that have kept a strong decade of gaming alive. Without them, without Steam, without Gordon, we wouldn’t be spending so many countless hours (well, counted on our Steam profile pages) blowing out zombie brains and cursing those clever Spies.

Image Credit: Valve

Valve's Steam Cloud will Keep Your Savegames Forever

Norman Chan — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:24:02 -0500

Valve announced today that Steam Cloud will be the next major update for the digital distribution service, allowing gamers to store not only their profiles and key bindings online, but also all of their savegames created through Steamworks-supported applications.

Steam has had 114 client updates since their launch in 2003, but the biggest one is yet to come. Steam Cloud is Valve’s plan to further engage PC gamers with their games, and is one more step to Steam becoming the core of the PC gaming experience.

Community enhancements include improved event planning – RSVP, calendar functions, and official communities are all part of the feature list. Gamers will be able to coordinate tournaments, use calendars to check up on their friends, and join communities set up by game publishers and developers.

The biggest news is that game-generated data will now be stored with your Steam accounts in Valve servers. This includes game profiles, configuration settings, and even savegames! Valve will first be rolling this feature out to existing games like the Half-Life franchise, TF2, Counter-Strike. Left4Dead will be the first new game to remotely save your progress.

This system will be completely transparent to the user. The files cache locally, and will upload when Steam detects an internet connection. There will be no restrictions on users – no save quotas or file management – the system will “just work.”

Any Steamwork game will be able to support these features, and it’ll be FREE for customers and developers. Steam Cloud is set to launch in the “near future.”

The next step is enabling the system to save other types of game-data remotely, including deathcam screenshots in TF2 and game demo recordings of your online matches. Other possible updates may include user-created annotations in-game (similar to the commentary tracks in Portal and Half-Life 2) that gamers can use to share gameplay strategies.

Steam will also deliver automatic driver-updates for hardware and integrate a system requirements checker for games (which will provide useful feedback to gamers), which developers can also incorporate with the Steamworks development suite.

Valve also announced that "Meet the Sniper" will be the next Team Fortress 2 video.

No BS Podcast #38: The Hard Drive Edition

Maximum PC Staff — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 18:00:13 -0500

This week, Will, Gordon, Dave, and Jeremy discuss. This week, the gang talks about

Solid state hard drives and Alienware
Patent problems with hard drive tech
Intel's new high-end X38 chipset
EA's purchase of Pandemic and Bioware

We also celebrate the return of Will, give updates on some new contests, and go into the Lab to discuss The Orange Box and MAME cabinets.

Do you have a tech question? A comment? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337. Also, get your game on with the editors of Maximum PC by joining our Steam group!

Modders, be sure to check out Mod Shop: submit and vote on the coolest mods around—and win prizes!

Subscribe: http://feeds.feedburner.com/maximumpc/1337

Modspiration: What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Chris Adcock — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:22:07 -0500

Of all of the things required to execute a great mod, inspiration is often the hardest to come by. Let’s face it – thousands of mods have been done on what is basically the same box. Being original requires a bit of real inspiration under that condition. But, inspiration cannot be bought or learned, and even generous souls can’t hand out any extra they may have. Newegg doth not have packages of five for sale.

While I cannot give any inspiration out – I can share how I received my latest batch.

For me, inspiration is easiest to find in places I rarely visit. Places like museums, strange towns, and the eye doctor. So I packed my bags and headed out to the Pacific Northwest coast for some sand, sea, and Sun. Well, maybe just sand and sea.

I love fog and mist. They clear the mind for me. And, they have the added benefit of being eerie (always a plus). But, site seeing only goes so far (especially in the fog)– so I had to build! Of course, vacation rule #17 (no working on computers during vacation) kinda got in my way. But, ever undaunted - I pushed forward.

Title: Half-Life BC. Medium: sticks and stone. Unfortunately, I lack the skills required to make an extensive prehistoric Half-Life game mod. So I moved on...after disassembling it so it couldn’t fire on me.

This is the CaveSys 54g. No mancave is complete without one! It never drops a connection (that would require having one). Peripherals are often overlooked modding subjects. That’s inspiration right there! Too many mods stop at the box and maybe mouse and keyboard. Why not mod the router and modem?

Behold…The iStone Nano (right)! Coming in at about the size of a quarter, all one has to do to hear their favorite tune is click the two stones together. Best of all, no DRM and all the music is free! And this thing has volume! Unlike Apple, I didn’t go for ear buds or shy from making noise – this one plays out load. Your co-workers WILL hear this – for hours on end. You can “rock” the house out!

This is my greatest discovery and inspiration! I call it the iPhish. Sure, laugh. Point out that while it has some interesting features, it’s not much of a fish. Of course, the iPhone….well, I’ll leave that to the other bloggers. I could see a router hidden inside a model of one of these. That would be cool!

NOTE: Do not put live iPhish up to ear (trust me on that one).

So it may be my inspirations are a bit odd. Then again, the most inspired mods I've ever seen seem to be a bit odd.

Next week I will be attempting to upholster part of a computer. This should be interesting – as I have never done it before.

‘Till then, Happy Modding!

This week’s bit of bling comes via YouTube via Paul Capello via The Best Case Scenario. Turn it up!

Black Box Cancellation Won't Affect ATI Bundle

Michael Brown — Tue, 22 May 2007 12:31:54 -0500

As you’ve probably heard, Valve has canceled Half-Life 2 Black Box, which would have contained Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. In its place, Valve will be selling the more-expensive ($50) Orange Box, which comes with those games plus Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One.

Our immediate question was how does this impact AMD, which is bundling coupons for the Black Box with every one of its ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT cards? The short answer is it doesn’t: Although the Black Box won’t be available as a stand-alone purchase, ATI buyers will still get the three games they’ve been promised.

What’s more, Valve’s director of marketing, Doug Lombardi, tells us those buying cards based on AMD’s new graphics chip shouldn’t wait for those games to become available prior to registering their product keys on Steam. “While they wait for the release of the three new games, Day of Defeat: Source is made available to them immediately upon registering the product code that comes in the box with their new videocard.”

Day of Defeat: Source is an additional $20 value—assuming, of course, that you don’t already own it. That’s always been the downside to game bundles, which is why I found it refreshing that AMD is bundling brand-new games with its top-end Radeon card.

Valve’s decision to force gamers to buy games they almost certainly already own in order to get boxed copies of new software is a whole other matter. My guess is that retailers objected to stocking two SKUs, so Valve decided to drop the cheaper package. In any event, you’ll still be able to buy the three new titles separately on Steam—provided you can live without the boxes. If you can't, the product codes for Half-Life 2 and Episode One would make a great gift.

Hmm, I wonder if the Orange Box will arrive in time for Father's Day?