There are a lot of mods (or “custom maps”) available for Starcraft 2, and a lot of them can be quite fun. But most of them have a feeling of amateurism and a lack of polish that fails to allow them to take full advantage of the mechanics they put into play – however innovative those mechanics may be.

Smashcraft is a mod that gained popularity the other day, when popular Starcraft 2 caster TotalBiscuit put up a 42-minute video of him being introduced to the game by one of it’s programmers. The “Smashcraft” chat channel in Starcraft skyrocketed in popularity over night as more and more users discovered TotalBiscuit’s video, and it has now reached quite a wide audience.
I started playing it two days ago, and let me tell you… It is by far the best custom map for Starcraft 2 that I’ve played yet. I’ve not played any arena fighting-style games before this, so I don’t have much to compare it to, but it has a wonderful presentation and awesome gameplay that make it feel like a game of it’s own, rather than a mod.

The idea is this — you’re on one of two teams, each comprised of up to three people. (Believe me, it’s much more balanced if you have a 3v3 match, so hop on the “Smashcraft” chat channel and gather a team.) When you load the map, you have to choose a character out of the sixteen available. There are four character classes –

Guardians, which are high-damage characters who have a large amount of health. They’re your brute-force characters, able to deal a good bit of damage to the opposing team while staying alive long enough to inflict even more.

Assault characters, which are primarily used to put pressure on the other team while dealing a good bit of damage. They can’t take as much damage as the Guardian characters, but they’re very powerful.

Psions, which have the lowest HP, but can deal unbelievable amounts of damage if used correctly. More finesse is required to use a Psion character, due to their inability to take a lot of damage, but in the right hands they can turn the tide of the battle in an instant, dealing out immense damage before retreating or repositioning in order to stay alive.

And Support characters, which are designed primarily to help your team, rather than to inflict great deals of damage upon the other team. A good Support character is always great to have on your side, especially if you have a Guardian character such as a Pyro, who can deal a lot of damage, but has to get close in order to do so. Because of this, a healer is very good to have by your side.

Inside of each of these classes are four characters, making, as I said, 16 total. Each of these characters have unique attacks and abilities, allowing for an insane amount of strategy when it comes to team composition. Some characters use guns, others use melee attacks or magic attacks… And while these are the general classifications for the means of attacking, they are broad terms, in that no two characters have the exact same attack. One character could have a shotgun, while the other has a rifle — both very useful in very different situations.
There are both hit-scan attacks and “wave” attacks. An example of a hit-scan attack is gunfire. While attacking, you have to keep your mouse cursor pointed in the direction that your opponent is in… It won’t automatically find them for you, and you can’t just click on them once at the beginning of the attack. Depending on the gun, the game’s engine draws lines for the trajectory of the bullets. If your opponent is directly within this line of sight, they will be damaged accordingly. A pistol or a rifle has a single line drawn directly from the barrel of the gun to the direction your mouse is pointing, whereas a shotgun has several different scattering lines, each with their own potential for damage. A physical object, such as a pillar or a tree, can stop a hit-scan attack, so it’s always smart to make good use of your environments. The height of your target can also be a factor… If you’re far back from the edge of a cliff and attempt to shoot somebody down below it, you won’t hit them. However, if your’e close to the edge and can conceivably see that person, your chances are much higher.
A wave attack is kind of hard to describe in text… It’s a magic attack that affects enemies in front of you, and as such, you must aim at them, as with a hit-scan attack. However, a direct line of sight isn’t as necessary. Where a hit-scan attack would fail from atop a cliff, a wave attack will still hit your enemy, as long as your aim is accurate. They still cannot penetrate trees or pillars, however.

Each character has some common abilities that are shared throughout, such as the ability to quickly dash in one direction in order to avoid an attack, or to slowly heal yourself if your HP is low and there’s no healer on your team. (This should, however, be used very sparingly, as it takes forever to recharge. Because of this, in many games, you’ll only have the opportunity to use it once.)

Each character also has a “Fury” attack. If you’ve ever played mostly any fighting game, you’re probably familiar with this idea… You have a Fury meter, which fills up a little bit whenever you deal or take damage. In some situations (such as when you successfully block an attack), you’ll gain extra Fury. Once your meter is full, you’re able to unleash a devastating attack on your opponents. Each character has a different Fury attack, and all of them have to be performed just right in order to be very effective, but it can be the deciding factor in a match.

A game is a best three out of five battle, and in order to win, you have to kill the entire opposing team. However, I’ve had rounds that have lasted an hour or two with the same group of complete strangers, as we just kept rematching. (My team kept losing, but it was a good time with good people, so we kept playing.) This is a game that can certainly be picked up for short amounts of time, if you only want to play a match or two, but it can easily be entertaining for long periods, especially if you’re playing with a fun bunch.

Speaking of the players, the community, or what I’ve seen of it so far anyway, is fantastic. Everybody is generally very nice. I’ve yet to see any bad-mannered players. At this point in the game, a lot of the players are new to it, so there is a very high tolerance for beginners. As such, I don’t think that your inexperience with Smashcraft should prevent you in any way from dipping your toe in it. The community has been incredibly helpful to me in learning how to properly play, and how to construct a team with the best strategy in mind.
The complexity of this mod is outstanding, and I very much look forward to playing it a lot more. For more information, watch TotalBiscuit’s video, and visit the Smashcraft forums. It can be intimidating at first, but it doesn’t take long to learn the basics, and from there you’ll likely be hooked.

Related posts:

1. Starcraft 2 Released To Mac User Animosity
2. Starcraft II Beta Launched!
3. Super Meat Boy PC Released – Problematic, With Potential

Today, while browsing Reddit, I came across this post, outlining a service called “Desura.” (You’ll notice I also shamelessly stole the title from that post — I couldn’t think of any better way to put it.) I looked into it, downloaded Desura, and gave it a shot.

Let me just say — This is pretty sweet. If you’re really into modding your PC games, I’ll consider this application a must-have. It’s a fantastic resource. And besides the modding, it’s also got an awesome indie game marketplace similar to Steam, but with some titles that aren’t available on the latter. A whole lot of the games are super cheap, and there are a lot of great looking games on here that I haven’t even heard of. (Of course, some of them look… Less than good, but you’ll get that anywhere.)

Desura also actually ties in with your Steam account pretty awesomely. If you open the application and go to the “Play” tab, you can have it automatically detect games that the service is compatible with and put them on your list — this allows you to launch them from inside Desura, as well as quickly find mods for the games you already own. While going through this process, it asks about your Steam account, and proceeds to add the games that you’ve got on Steam.

Downloading and installing mods is incredibly simple, and I think this is going to be great for the community if it kicks off well. A lot of people choose to ignore the mod scene because they don’t understand how it works — moving files to game directories is, for some people, too confusing, or just not worth the effort. Desura automatically downloads and installs the mods for any games you have. All you have to do is click a button to start it. After it’s done, you launch it, and that’s that. No moving files, no finding directories. It’s all incredibly streamlined and makes the entire process so incredibly simple, and I’m looking forward to seeing some non-modders get into the scene and get even more enjoyment out of the games they’ve bought.

The layout for the application is very reminiscent of Steam, which I find nice. It’s all very familiar. Everything about Desura just feels like an Indie Steam, which makes it so great. There are even groups that members can join, just like in Steam. One feature that I find really cool, and will probably help build an awesome community, is that users can all have their own blogs. This is a really cool aspect that could definitely help the service gain popularity… Everybody likes to post on blogs. (I know I do.)

I really like the design for Desura, but I’m finding one major flaw with it… Where the hell is the search bar? I can’t find a search bar in the “Games” tab or the “Mods” tab. I’m not sure if I’m completely blind or it doesn’t exist, but either way, that’s a big flaw in the design. Even if, somehow, it’s in there and I’m just missing it… It definitely needs to be more evident. The fact that I’ve had to search for a search bar for this long, and still haven’t found it, is enough to say that there’s a problem here.
You can browse by genre, you can browse by popularity, by sales, but… I just can’t find the search bar. Please fix that, Desura. It probably doesn’t seem like much, but little things like that can make or break a first impression.

Regardless of that, I think Desura has huge potential. It can definitely bring a much wider audience to the modding scene, which will help everybody — Players get more enjoyment out of their games, and mod developers get a bigger audience for their work. Not to mention the indie developers who have their games listed in the service. Exposure is key with indie games, and Steam doesn’t accept all of them — having a service that accepts a wider range will help more indie devs get more customers. There’s even a “Development” tab in the application that outlines how Desura can help indie devs. It contains things like a wider audience, mods and DLC, auto patching, a community, and so forth. Everything that an indie dev could dream of.

I would definitely give it a look if you’re really into mods (or want to be), or if you’re into indie gaming. Or if you just want to be a part of a new gaming community. Regardless of your interests, this is probably worth a look. It’s free, it’s a small download, and there are hours upon hours of free entertainment by the way of mods available therein. Unfortunately, it’s only currently available on Windows, but with any luck they will soon branch out.

Related posts:

1. Indie Games To Check Out
2. Pay What You Want For Six Indie Games
3. Indie Gaming Club – Treat Games Like The Book Of The Week

Everybody, ever, looks forward to the Holiday Sale on Steam every year. It’s always a spectacular show of incredibly low-priced games. It never ceases to amaze me, and nothing empties my wallet quicker.

Today marks the first day of the 2010 Steam Holiday Sale, and boy is it fantastic. Let me list some of the sales for you…

- Super Meat Boy is $3.75 (75% off the normal price of $14.99)
- Portal is $3.74 (75% off the normal price of $14.99)
- Battlefield Bad Company 2 is $6.79 (66% off the normal price of $19.99)
- F.E.A.R. Complete Pack, includes F.E.A.R. 1 & 2 and expansions / DLC, is $9.99 (75% off the normal price of $39.97)
- Deus Ex Complete Pack, includes Deus Ex: GOTY Edition and Deus Ex: Invisible War, is $2.99 (85% off the normal price of $19.98)

Those are just SOME of today’s deals. There will be more each and every day until the sale is over.

But wait, that’s not all! There are also stupendous packs that have an unbelievable amount of games for cheap, such as

- Valve Complete Pack, EVERY Valve game, for $49.99 (72% off the normal price of $180.82)
- 2K Mega Pack for $79.99 (81% off the normal price of $424.65)
- Epic Games Unreal Deal for $14.99 (79% off the normal price of $69.95)

And more. Those are where the real savings are… Some fantastic deals. I’m running out of adjectives here, people!

There are also a bunch of Indie game packs, which all have amazing games. They’re all $5 for 5 games, all of which pertain to a certain genre or theme. Then there’s also the Indie Heavy Hitters Pack, which is eight particularly awesome games for $19.99. It’s normally $102.92.

There are also entire publisher catalogs on sale, including Valve, LucasArts, PopCap, Codemasters, and THQ.

If you flip to the last page that is the virtual magazine that is currently Steam’s home page, you’ll find deals for Mac-compatible games. Braid’s only $5 (although that’s also in the Indie Heavy Hitters Pack), Torchlight’s $10, and The Orange Box is an amazingly low $14.99. That’s Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half Life-2 through Half-Life 2 Episode 2. Five of the best games ever made for $3 each. Can’t beat that.

Of course, a lot of the deals seem like that. “Well, can’t beat that!” But the fact of the matter is, they very well might. Every year, somebody buys a game that they think is priced the lowest it could be, and then it gets marked down even further the next day. It’s all a gamble that you could lose a few bucks on, but some of these games are absolutely worth the regular price, let alone the current sales price.

Now go buy some games and break the bank. This is what you’ve all been waiting for. Plus, if you’re lost as to what to get your gamer pals for Christmas, well… You’ll never find anything better than some of these games. Hours upon hours of cheap entertainment lay ahead.

Related posts:

1. Get Machinarium on the cheap ($5) in their Pirate Amnesty Sale
2. Valve Announces Portal 2 Delay (Again)
3. Steam for Mac Released – First Impressions

This is the first I’ve ever heard of this website, and I’m a tad appalled. I normally stick to writing about games themselves here, but I feel this is relevant, seeing as it’s a happening in the gaming community. Well, the owner of Aussie-Gamer.com took a negative comment from Reddit user mathewferguson way too personally, and has acted out in a quite despicable way.

Mathewferguson posted a comment on Aussie-Gamer’s article titled “Federal Minister Doesn’t Care What You Say About R18+ Rating for Video Games,” saying that it’s a “terrible article, poorly written hype.” Tynan Muddle, owner of Aussie-Gamer.com, then began to harass him over it.

Since his comment was posted, mathewferguson been insulted personally, has received a cease and desist email (which can be read here, basically tells mathewferguson to remove any and all information about Tynan from his own personal website, including links to aussie-gamer.com and his Twitter account, or he will inform the police), and has been stalked to a degree. Tynan emailed him asking “How’s the weather in Moonya Rd tonight?” which is where mathewferguson used to live.

Mathew has contacted the police about the incident. Tynan has deleted comment posts, forum posts, and has now threatened legal action to stop this from spreading, but his website does not deserve a good reputation. A post on his Twitter account says that Aussie-Gamer is a bully-free zone, and the owner then proceeds to track down a negative commenter and harass him via email. This is unacceptable behaviour. And it’s not like Tynan can even defend his website — he’s even got those annoying advertisements that appear when you hover over certain words. *Shudder*

Mattaugamer has assured us not to have a bad taste in our mouths about the whole Australian game blogging community about this.

Do with this information what you will. I, however, will begin avoiding this website (instead of just being unaware of it) and downvoting any links to it that I see. (That’ll teach ‘em.)

UPDATE: Tynan Muddle, owner of Aussie-Gamer.com, has come forward with his side of the story.
With this new information, I apologize to Tynan for being so forward and negative toward him in this post. It seems that both sides are to blame in this altercation. If you’re interested in what’s happening here, I highly suggest you read the blog post I’ve just linked to, as well as his update here. Looks to me like both of them just got kinda caught up in the moment, which lead to heated discussion, and mistakes were made on both sides. Unfortunately, with some information on one of their blog’s and more information on another, we don’t really have an impartial look at this. We can’t, since private emails were exchanged. But with the information we have now, it seems that it’s calmed down.

Related posts:

1. Starcraft 2 Released To Mac User Animosity
2. Assassin’s Creed 2 DRM Is Excessively Ridiculous

Yesterday, Super Meat Boy was released on Steam. It’s going for $15, but if you preordered, it was only $10. There was a whole lot of hype surrounding this release… It’s one of the most loved downloadable console games of the year.

Unfortunately, upon release, many problems were found. Problems ranged from crashes, to bosses not appearing, and some display issues. There was also some complaint about control issues — this is because the game clearly states in the beginning that it should be played with a gamepad, but currently only supports the Xbox 360 controller. Luckily, Team Meat said they’re going to add more support soon. (And from what I’ve heard, the keyboard support isn’t bad at all.)

As for all of the bugs that have been found, Team Meat is on the ball. They made a blog post earlier, laying out the issues that people had been having with the game, and saying that a patch to fix them would be released today. (I’m not quite sure if it’s hit yet, but if not, it should pretty soon.) I’m truly impressed at how quickly they’re reacting and getting rid of all these problems. Team Meat is comprised of only two people, and they’re getting stuff done really quickly.

With all the bugs aside, this game’s pretty awesome. I haven’t picked it up on PC yet (plan to really soon), but I’ve played on a friend’s Xbox 360. The music is great, the graphics are awesome, and the gameplay is freaking amazing. I can see why it’s got so much love.
The PC version has several characters that the console version doesn’t. They’re all from PC games… Seems Team Meat’s trying to centralize some of the character choices to give you a better experience depending on the platform you’re playing on.
The PC-specific characters are…

Steve (also known as Mr. Minecraft) (Minecraft)
Captain Viridian (also known as The Captain) (VVVVVV)
Josef (Machinarium)
Headcrab (Half-Life)(Steam version)
Goo Ball (World Of Goo)(Non-Steam version and Steam version via code)
RunMan (RunMan: Race Around the World)
Naija (Aquaria)

I’m most excited about Steve, Captain Viridian, and the Headcrab. All awesome choices from great games. (Except RunMan. Well, I mean, it’s probably a good game, but I’ve never heard of it. So I can’t really say that it is.)

There are, however, some characters that shall remain exclusive to the Xbox 360 version of Super Meat Boy. These characters are…

Alien Hominid – Can shoot downwards to increase jump height or slow descent
Gish – Can stick to walls and slide across ceilings
Tim (Braid) – Can rewind time three seconds
The Spelunker (Spelunky) – Has an explosive jump
Ninja (N/N+) Can sprint fast
Pink Knight (Castle Crashers) – Can perform a flutter jump

It’s a shame, really. All of those characters are awesome. I would very much like to play as Ninja, or The Spelunker. But, you win some, you lose some.

You unlock these characters by collecting bandages throughout the levels. They’re sometimes quite hard to get to, but they’re incredibly satisfying to collect. (Especially if you’re a hardcore completionist — this game will take you forever to beat.) You can also unlock them by finding “Warp Zones” in the levels, which make it look like you’re playing Super Meat Boy on an SNES. It’s pretty freakin’ awesome. The different characters not only change what you look like, but also how you perform. Many of them have special powers that affect gameplay, and give you different ways to beat levels. The good part about this is that it feels like every single level was built with every character in mind — it never feels like you’re at too much of an advantage or a disadvantage, or that you’re out of place. It always just feels “right,” with different styles of playing.

This game is freakin’ packed with content. There are “about 350 levels,” according to Wikipedia. As I mentioned earlier, if you’re a completionist, this will take you forever, with all the warp zones and bandages you have to collect. But even non-completionists will be more than pleased by the longevity of this title — Super Meat Boy is incredibly difficult at times, and it takes a good while to get through some levels. That said, it never really gets too frustrating… It remains charming and fun no matter how many times you’re turned into ground beef. But the difficulty does its part to lengthen the playthrough time, and makes everything much more interesting. If this was an easy game, it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.

To further extend how much content there is to an unreal degree, there will soon be a level editor available for PC gamers. Level editors lead to limitless gameplay options — take a look at N! It’s one of the most popular indie PC games of all time for a reason, which is the fact that its level editor really took off, and now there are thousands of user-made levels. I’m, personally, really looking forward to the level editor. I love stuff like that. Creating levels is loads of fun, and adds lots of play time. And then, I can hop online to download other people’s masterpieces to extend play time even further! It’s a fantastic cycle that results in me (or you) being perpetuously entertained with the cost of a single (cheap) PC game. In essence, you get a whole lot more “bang” than you give up “buck.” (This seems to be very common when it comes to indie games, which is why indie developers deserve our support. The games may not be as popular, but you get much more fun for your money, and in the end, that’s what really matters.)

There’s not much to the story, but it’s just enough to remain interesting. You play as the title character, Meat Boy. Your girlfriend, Bandage Girl, is kidnapped by the crudely evil Dr. Fetus. Dr. Fetus shows up after every level to snatch up Bandage Girl just as you reach her. Then every now and then he battles you. It’s just kind of a back-and-forth kind of thing, much like… *Gasp!* Super Mario Brothers! Super Mario Br… Super Meat B… SMB! Coincidence? Pretty sure I read somewhere that it’s not. For now we’ll be unsure, together.

I personally think the soundtrack alone is worth the asking price for this game. It’s got fantastic music. It all does a great job at replicating the retro gaming feel that Super Meat Boy goes for. Some of the music from Super Meat Boy will be released for Rock Band 3 in January, which is pretty sweet.

The gameplay in Super Meat Boy is better than most platforming games I’ve ever played. Meat Boy controls fantastically, the wall jumps add a lot to the gameplay, and the different character choices do wonders for the variety in this game. You can choose how you want to play. It’s pretty awesome. I feel that this game is one of the best that has come out this year. My friend was having trouble tearing me from his Xbox after he handed me the controller. It’s a game where the saying “easy to pick up, hard to put down” is very much true. You’re started off with a few tutorial levels and gently eased into the core meat of the gameplay. The learning curve isn’t very steep, but it is definitely hard to master, especially when it comes to getting everything out of this game that there is to offer (including all of the bandages. Believe me, some of them seem impossible. It’s like Vini Vidi Vici in VVVVVV all over again), and once you get accustomed to it, you likely won’t play much else until you beat it.

If you picked it up pre-launch on Steam, awesome, you got a discount. Otherwise, this game is well worth the $15 that it’s selling for. It’s actually worth a hell of a lot more than that, with how much game time you’ll get out of it, and with the impending release of the level editor, you’ll get an insane amount of user-made levels. Well, most likely, anyway — this game’s fairly successful for an indie game, and lots of people love level editors. Let’s just hope that level creation catches on. A lot of the time, community-made levels can be much better than any levels that the developers themselves made. It’s amazing what gamers can do with the proper tools.

You can go and pick it up on Steam now for $15. It’s also available on the Xbox 360 for the same price, and will soon be available on the Wii (via WiiWare) and Mac OS X (via Steam), as well as Linux. Release dates for those versions have yet to be announced. I’m hoping that they make Tux a playable character on the Linux version. (Unfortunately, they’ve even come out and said that there will, beyond any doubt, not be a Playstation 3 version.)

If you’d like to, you can check out the original Meat Boy flash game on Newgrounds. It was the beginning of Super Meat Boy, but don’t use it as a sole source with which to judge SMB — it’s a good bit different. Although it is still a fantastic flash game. (And a pretty big hit on Newgrounds, apparently. They even have a t-shirt.)

Related posts:

1. Super Meat Boy Review
2. Super Mario Galaxy 2 Released to Wide Acclaim
3. Steam for Mac Released – First Impressions

It’s been a while since I’ve made a post about Sonic 4, but I’ve been incredibly excited about it this entire time.

Well, to my incredible schoolgirl-like surprise, Sonic 4 was officially released for iPhone and iPod touch just earlier today! I didn’t even know it was supposed to, as far as I knew the release date was still “2010,” so when I saw it on the App Store, it absolutely made my day. (And was, of course, an instant purchase.)

Unfortunately, it won’t be coming out for consoles until next week — I’m assuming so, anyway. The Playstation Network updates every Tuesday, and the Xbox Live Marketplace updates every Wednesday, so that’s probably when you’ll see Sonic 4 for those consoles. (Not quite sure what the Wii’s updates are like…) But if you’ve got an iDevice, you’re in luck — You can get it now for for $9.99 USD (App Store link).

I’ve played a good bit of it today… I hooked my speaker-less first-generation iPod touch into my 5.1 speakers for the occasion. And I’m, personally, not disappointed at all. It’s met every expectation I held, and has completely blown me away, and reinvigorated the essence of my childhood in this game series that has been frowned upon so frequently and so vehemently in these years past.

To start with, the gameplay is very familiar. With slight alterations and some added features, it’s identical to old-school Sonic games — and I welcome all of the alterations and features. I see this as nothing but the continuation of the Genesis Sonic games, not a simple rehash, and all sequels are expected to have additions.

Audio-wise, I was also very much blown away. The music helps capture the essence of the series much in the way it used to, and many of the original sound effects were kept on-board, much to my delight (as well as, I’m sure, other fans). I can very easily say that I don’t just love this game for the nostalgia — that is most definitely a fantastic aspect, and my memories are very much kept intact with this great addition to the series — but even as a standalone game, it’s absolutely fantastic. It focuses just as much, if not even more, on speed than previous iterations, and now puts a large focus on score with the easy ability to play and replay levels, looking to beat your high scores. This could potentially be a very fun pass-and-play game with friends and family, even more so once it hits TV screens.

The one thing, and believe me when I say that it’s minor, that I dislike about Sonic 4 is… Eggman. Not the character. He’s great as ever, coming up with these ridiculous contraptions to kill a hedgehog when he could easily just invent a gun. No, the name is what I find issue with… This is the one thing that does not quite help my nostalgia. I remember him as Dr. Robotnik. This is how I will always refer to him… I don’t understand the renaming here, and it just bothers me a bit that they cater to old-school gamers in every way but this.

However, as I said, that’s very minor. Doesn’t affect much, it just… Irks me, is all.

This game is very much worth buying, especially, but not only, if you’re a big fan of the old Sonic games.

Related posts:

1. Sonic 4: Returning To The Second Dimension
2. Plants vs Zombies On The iPhone Makes Devs Rich
3. Sonic Unleashed Coming This Christmas

Couldn’t really make a decent headline that wrapped everything up, so here we are.

There’s a good bit of Left 4 Dead news today. Let’s start with the sale! Both Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 are on sale for only $6.79. That’s 66% off, each, and it’s an awesome deal for some awesome games that just got a little better.

Left 4 Dead 2 is now available for Mac OS X. That wraps up the last Valve game series to make its way over to the Mac platform, and it’s pretty awesome. (It’s a shame they didn’t bring over the first Left 4 Dead…)

All of this is coupled with the release of new Left 4 Dead / Left 4 Dead 2 DLC, called “The Sacrifice.” That’s right, it’s for both games, so whether you own L4D, L4D2, or both, you’re in for a treat.
It’s a prequel to the “The Passing” campaign in Left 4 Dead 2, and will fill some gaps that people have been curious about (such as the one that Valve themselves pointed out — how did Bill die?).
This will be, as I said, available for both games, and Left 4 Dead 2 gamers will now get the “No Mercy” campaign from the first Left 4 Dead. That’s a pretty sweet deal right there. If you play these campaigns in Left 4 Dead 2, you play them as the characters from the original Left 4 Dead, albeit with the new weapons, infected, and items from Left 4 Dead 2. It’s a really interesting way to bring the two worlds together.

I’m guessing that the release being available for the original Left 4 Dead is in part due to the community complaining about a lack of updates for the original title, but also due to the fact that the campaign features characters from the original game. I would imagine that a release such as this solely for the sequel would bring even more outcry in the community (and nobody wants to deal with that).

There are also a few new achievements to go along with the campaign, which are always welcome. In classic Valve style, a few of them have silly names. When nothing but the name of an achievement can make me chuckle, they’re doing something right.

If you haven’t picked up either of the Left 4 Dead games, now is really your best chance. $6.79 is a really, really good price for either of these titles. (In fact, I’m thinking of picking up Left 4 Dead on Steam, even though I’ve already got Left 4 Dead 2 and have played Left 4 Dead countless times on the Xbox.)

Did I just hear you say, “But I already own these fine games sir?” Well of course you do friend, you’re one of the educated ones. But what about your unsophisticated friends? You may have friends that do not have five dollars. You may have friends who have not yet purchased said items because until just recently they were unable to play these here games due to their choice of computational machines.

- Official page for this news

Related posts:

1. Almost All Valve Games Now On Mac
2. Red Dead Redemption – First Impressions
3. Fable 3 Confirmed for PC

Minecraft has a Halloween update coming up, on the exact day of Halloween. (Who woulda guessed?)

You can find the information about it here, but allow me to lay it down for you and elabourate a bit…

First off, there will be teleporting. It’s described as “Portal in, move ten meters, portal out, and you’re hundreds of meters away.” Not quite sure how that’s exactly going to work, but I hope that it’s not overdone or anything… Traveling around the world is tons of fun in Minecraft.

Notch is also adding new monsters… Nobody’s sure what they’ll be yet, but I’m pretty scared, especially since now, “the deeper you are, the brighter it [will have to] be to stay safe.” I’m assuming that this means, as you go deeper, monsters will require less and less darkness to spawn… They will rely on either abundant darkness or depth, depending on which comes first. This will add a lot of tension to spelunking, and I’m guessing will make the death toll rise significantly.

Now, one update that I’m not sure how to feel about is that torches will die out over time. The time hasn’t been specified yet, and you will have the option to reignite with flint + steel, but it will still be weird to not be able to use a torch to light up an entrance to a cave to tell future me that this area has been explored.
Luckily, however, Notch said there will be a different craftable light source (a lantern) that will never die out. We don’t know what it will cost. I’m just really hoping iron isn’t involved.
One interesting idea I’ve seen around the Minecraft subreddit (/r/minecraft) is to convert all pre-placed torches into lanterns, so that your areas of light won’t die out after the update. I hope that this is done, if possible, as it would greatly reduce stress.

Notch also speaks briefly of the fishing capabilities, saying “Catch scary fish! Or possibly just catch regular fish.”
Not sure what you’ll be able to do with these yet… You’ll probably be able to eat them, and some even speculate the possibility of pet fish; putting them in an aquarium for decoration.
I’ve also seen brief speculation of sea monsters. While this would be awesome, it would also be… Know what? Yes, please. I can’t even imagine how sweet a sea monster would be.

There will be work done to the online play, hopefully bringing it closer to the quality of single-player. Jack-o-lantern helmets will be available — useless, but possibly neat.

Oh, and one of my favourite updates — a watch. Now you’ll be able to tell the time even mid-spelunk. Minecraft is climbing up the tech tree, and it’s a really neat progression to witness… The watch is a pretty huge step, in my opinion.

There will also be better sounds, more music, and… Biomes!? Yes!!
No longer will a world be filled completely with snow or completely lack it. Biomes will add areas of different weather patterns, among other things (such as deserts), I would assume.

This will be an absolutely huge update, and has quite a few features that have been talked about, speculated, or planned for a while now. Here’s to hoping Notch can get all that finished by the deadline he’s set for himself — I’d hate to see the outburst in his blog comments if he misses it. (In fact, I’ll just ignore them altogether anyway. They’re never very insightful.)

Related posts:

1. Today’s Minecraft Update – Multiplayer Improved (So Much)
2. Minecraft Video Review
3. Skylands for Minecraft – A Custom-Built World Filled With Adventure

The Playstation 3 has long been the unhackable console of the current generation, with the Xbox 360 and the Wii being modded from early on. However, ever since a jailbreaking utility was released roughly a month ago (and then went open-source so you can jailbreak with all sorts of devices, including different phones and even calculators), the homebrew community has taken off, adding more functionality to the console in a way that can only be described as “amazing.”

The main functionality is obviously playing backed up PS3 games. Legally, you shouldn’t install any game to your Playstation 3′s hard drive that you don’t own. You can install a game to your internal hard drive on the PS3 using an application called “Backup Manager.” You can also get games off of the internet and place them on an external hard drive to play directly from that, or even transfer the games via FTP (using another PS3 utility) directly to the internal drive.
However, this is far from the only benefit of jailbreaking your console. A week ago, an SNES emulator was released for the PS3. It was even updated just today, to add a new feature.
Just a few days ago, we saw the release of a Sega Saturn emulator. There’s also a Dreamcast emulator in the works, although current performance is spotty (as shown in the video).

All in all, it’s shaping up to be a pretty awesome homebrew community. If you want to get in on the fun, as I mentioned earlier, it’s possible to jailbreak your PS3 with a wide variety of devices. There’s no hardware mods necessary — it’s all done on the software side.
I personally jailbroke mine with my first-gen iPod touch, which was a surprisingly quick and painless. I normally have all sorts of problems with this kind of stuff, but this flew right by.
With some modding skills, you may not even have to have anything other than your PS3 and a controller — a video of a jailbreak using nothing but the sixaxis controller was released yesterday, with a tutorial posted shortly after. Unfortunately, you do have to modify the hardware of your controller, but a mod like this would make life much simpler, as you have to plug in your jailbreak device every time you start up your PS3 (and it’s a bit of a pain to have to do so with an iPod or a phone).

So far, there’s unfortunately not a whole lot of custom homebrew games — just a Pong clone, but at least there’s potential. If nothing else, the emulators will keep coming, which has been my favourite thing about having a modded PS3 so far.

The one downside to modding your PS3 is that it’s currently only supported with the 3.41 PS3 firmware. This means if you’ve updated to 3.42 or 3.50, you’re out of luck. Even if you haven’t, though, you won’t be able to once you jailbreak, if you wish to keep it modded. This means that you can’t connect to the Playstation network to play games with other people, or make purchases on the PSN store.
But if you weigh the benefits with the downsides, I think you’ll find it worth trying. The emulators alone are worth jailbreaking for. (Unless, of course, you play online a bunch. Then I’d skip this until the current firmware is supported.)

Related posts:

1. PS3: To Update, Or No?
2. Geohot Follows Through (Playstation 3 Custom Firmware Demoed)
3. Sony’s PlayStation Network Plagued by a Y2K-like Glitch

NPD released the results of a survey today, wherein we are able to learn trends in the acquisitioning of video games for the PC. The results were somewhat of a big shock to me — it’s something I’ve known will happen in the future, I just didn’t think we were already at this point.
According to their survey (emphasis on survey — they’re not using actual sales statistics, but were able to survey a very wide range of people), full videogame downloads are selling more units than boxed copies. According to the survey, this is largely due to the fact that Steam exists, as it is listed as the top digital distributor, right above Direct2Drive. This is in the frontline digital retailers category — when it comes to casual digital retailers, BigFishGames leads the pack.

I’m personally wondering if this is a trend that will continue. Could this be the beginning of the (inevitable) fall of PC games being distributed physically? I guess we’ll have to wait and see, but this definitely shows that video game downloads are gaining traction.

Let me know in the comments what your preference is. Personally, I’d much rather hop on Steam and buy a game to download instantly than have to leave the comfort of my lair to make a purchase. It’s convenience over all, even if it does mean that I miss out on some of the cool stuff, such as the physical game manual and box.
And while that is my stance on the subject, I still do somewhat miss the old days where those things meant something. Even if I did prefer buying a physical copy, game manuals have decreased in quality so much in recent years. Could this have to do with the fact that digital sales are picking up, so publishers see less of a reason to spend the extra money making a spiffy manual?

Anyway, a total of 8,000 people were surveyed, which “is [then] weighted and projected to be representative of the U.S. population ages 2 and older.” Very interesting results, to say the least. Let’s see if this trend keeps up.

Related posts:

1. What Steam’s Hardware & Software Survey Tells Us
2. Ipad reaches first Milestone in sales
3. Desura – A Steam-Like Service for Indie Games and Mods