Displaying items by tag: Valve

After a couple of rumors popped up on the internet that Valve had entered into an exclusive agreement with nVidia for their Seam Boxes we finally have an answer from Valve themselves. It seems that they have no intention of being exclusive to nVidia, but plan on future boxes with AMD and even Intel at the core of their graphics. However their initial run of Steam Boxes will feature nothing but nVidia GPUs and primarily Intel Haswell CPUs. In 2014 this will change although we do not have any details on what GPUs will be featured in the full product line.

After the Games For Windows LIVE Marketplace was closed in August, many titles were left without adequate support, including BioShock 2. Therefore, the developers made some changes over the past few months and from yesterday BioShock 2 is available through Steam, including all content related to multiplayer and DLC Protector Trials.

Support from most popular video card manufacturers for the Linux operating system was often weak and lousy. However, it seems that this will change after Valve announced a new operating system SteamOS based on Steam, the popular digital distribution platform for games.

After the announcement of both the SteamOS and the Steam Machine (most call it the Steam Box) we read more than a few naysayers that were claiming Valve would have a hard time competing in the market. The theory behind these arguments is that the incumbents, Microsoft and Sony, are so entrenched in the market that gamers and regular consumers will not want to move away from those platforms. The problem with that theory is that many consumers are not too happy with the current state of the console gaming market. Anyone that watched the furor that unfolded after the launch of the Xbox One or the mass complaints after the PSN (Play Station Network) knows that this market is not a happy one.

In the second of three planned announcement Valve has confirmed that players will from next year be able to buy special equipment to play in living rooms based on the recently announced SteamOS. Devices, however, will not be produced by Valve alone, but they will do it in cooperation with several hardware manufacturers to offer a variety of configurations that will satisfy all types of players.

Not all that long ago we reported on the fact that the gaming community was making a shift away from Microsoft (and Apple) and considering Linux as a viable operating system for gaming. One of the leading proponents of this was (and still is) Valve. For those of you that do not know Valve is the company that created HalfLife and many other very popular games. They also have one of the most popular content distribution services on the market.

The franchise Bioshock has often be described as the spiritual successor to the original SystemShock Series. Because of this there was a high expectation to meet simply because of the quality of both the original and the follow on to SystemShock. Fortunately for us the team (some actually worked on the original at Looking Glass Studios) was more than up to the task and we have had three excellent games from this team. Now, we are both excited and a little worried about Bioshock as they are talking about moving to an “episode” model for this great game.

Valve's  designer John Guthrie has confirmed that the Half Life: Episode 3 is in the early phase of making, and it's release is planned for 2014, according to Portal NSS. The game will appear in versions for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3, as well as for next-generation consoles (PS4 and Xbox One).

Valve as a game development company has been a big hit in the past. Titles like Half--Life (and all the follow-ons) Day of The Ancients, and more have made them a name that still is respected by gamers. At least that was the case until they teased the gaming community with the third installment of Half-Life too many times. Now the consensus is that Valve cares more about getting Steam Working for Linux out of spite for Microsoft than it does about releasing games. In fact the whole thought of seeing Half-Life 3 in the foreseeable future has become something of a joke in the gaming and development community.

The saga of Gordon Freeman is one that is legendary in the gaming world. The original Half Life represented a significant shift in the way that games were designed. Valve put an enormous amount of thought and time into the development of Half Life and then did it all again with Half Life 2. Fans ate up the new set and characters hungrily and once they were done with that helping they sat at the table waiting for more. Sadly, after a few mini-games called episodes Gordon Freeman has dropped off the face of the Earth. We have not heard anything about him and his famous crowbar in a number of years.