Total Half-Life

An update for the Steam Client has been released. Changes will automatically take effect when you restart Steam:

Steam Client
• Added Czech and Hungarian language option
• Optimized where clients get the list of available applications and subscriptions
• Under-the-hood Steamworks API improvements for future titles
• Changed desktop .ico files and games list .tga files to be downloaded on demand, instead of being a blocking download during startup
• Fixed serverbrowser not refreshing the internet list the first time it was displayed if it was right on startup
• Fixed hardware survey not always saving that you said you did not want to participate
• Fixed IMs from popping up while in-game
• Fixed the bug that removes one character per line of copied text when pasting into a chat text entry
• Fixed a crash on shutdown in some Source engine games
• Fixed some bad text in Polish in the Friends list

Remember to restart your Steam!

The Empires Mod is an FPS Half-Life 2 modification set in a futuristic world. We've broken it down into pieces, reviewed it and then put it back together for your eyes. Have a look:

The concept of the mod is very similar to BF2 and other similar titles. At the start of each round the team elects a commander who will lead the team during the battle. Now you would expect me to give a nice run down of both aspects of the game; this is not possible when you are a recruit and nobody wants to vote for you to be commander. Hence why there is little content on the commander game play. The infantry side of it (being the commander’s slave) is OK at best. The times that I did get to play under the commander’s instructions I had no idea what he needed doing. The maps are absolutely huge and if you actually want to attempt to kill anyone you need to catch a ride on one of the vehicles, if you can find one. The vastness of the maps is compelled by the characters running ability. All jokes aside, every class has the stamina of a fat person that has just experienced multiple heart attacks. As a result, you can sprint about 10 meters before ending up slowing to the pace of a disabled turtle, and panting like an old person after trying to blow their 90 birthday candles out.

You can read the full review here, only at Total Half Life.

Many hail it as an excellent alternative to Day of Defeat and the guys at Resistance & Liberation have released their second Alpha of the WW2 realism mod for Half Life 2. The release has loads of fixes, adds new effects and a whole new map:

Resistance and Liberation Alpha 2
• New Map - St. Marie
• New Visionblur effect
• Morale System tweaked
• NCO Map fixes
• Crash bugs fixed
• Ragdoll handling altered
• Bullet near miss effects created
• Capture zone logic fixed
• Weapon adjustments
• K98 bolting altered
• Viewmodel angles and fields of view tweaked
• Respawn Entities fixed
• Removed slow movements in prone causing weapon posture changes
• Respawn teleporting fixed
• Added Autokick and Ban system for team killing
• Added Crouch sprinting
• Fixed bugs in toggle crouching
• Tweaked grenade damage
• Tweaked concussion effects
• Improved weapon resting
• Improved damage reports
• Added round limits
• Fixed allied rifleman animation speeds
• Various Map fixes for Dumont and La Fiere
• Initial Spawn area protection in Dumont and La Fiere

To find out more about the mod and give it a go, visit the Resistance & Liberation site.

We have seen Day of Defeat Source receive Steamworks support, but now is the turn of Counter Strike 1.6. If you are an owner of CS 1.6 you can install the beta version now.

Counter-Strike 1.6 Beta
• Integrated Steam Community features into Counter-Strike
• In-game player name now automatically uses player's Steam Community name
• Avatars are displayed on the scoreboard)

Other Fixes
• Prevented some cvar exploits (thanks to AnAkIn for pointing them out)

Remember to get your hands on the beta now!

Left 4 Dead, the Xbox 360 version, will use dedicated servers for all 360 gamers. They indicated to 1UP that "when you played online, you'd be on a dedicated server, period."

The 1UP crew did sneak away a few other tid-bits from the Valve crew about Left 4 Dead. Here's a quick rundown.

• Local multiplayer can have either a horizontal or vertical split along the screen
• They want to get DLC out the door more quickly than what they've been able to do with TF2
• Additional campaigns, weapons, and new boss infected are already planned.
• A flamethrower idea is being tossed around
• Quick turn-around button on the 360 version
• Very subtle aim-assist for the 360 version
• Hospital level is based on Philadelphia
• A level is based on Pittsburgh
• Two achievements include:
1. "Bite Your Tongue" - Kill a Smoker before he can pull you in.
2. "Sharp Shooter" - Complete a co-op chapter with no friendly fire

Left 4 Dead is on track for its November 18th release in North America on both the PC and Xbox 360.

Source

A post on the Official Team Fortress 2 blog has revealed the stages in the design process from the Demo man character. Keep reading:

The path to arriving at a final design for a character is sometimes a long and winding one. This was especially the case for the Demoman and we thought it would be interesting to step through that process and shed a little light on how we arrive at our final designs. Early on in the process, soon after we decided that we were going to start a new, more stylized direction for TF2 it opened up a whole range of possibilities in terms of what that meant visually. One of the first (albeit short-lived) ideas that was being thrown around was to try to recreate a look of claymation for our game. The idea was to make the world look like a miniature set built for clay figures which animated and gibbed into chunks of clay.

Now that we were back to the drawing board an effort was made to first think of these classes as full characters with a history, distinct personalities and even nationalities. Short biographies were draft which helped the artists concept characters which they imagined would match these biographies. For the Demoman, although the angry Scotsman was already an archetype common in media we decided to embrace that. The short bio was:

"A fierce temper, a fascination with all things explosive, and a terrible plan to kill the Loch Ness Monster cost the six-year-old Demoman his original set of adoptive parents. Later, back at the Crypt Grammar School for Orphans near Ullapool in the Scottish Highlands, the boy's bomb-making skills improved dramatically. His disposition and total number of intact eyeballs, however, did not."

With this bio to springboard from and constant meetings between the artists and feedback from the team, a number of concepts were created:

At this point, the 3D model for the Demoman was being built and we were preparing to move on. However, there were still some who didn't think he was quite there. A nagging feeling that perhaps the embracing of the archetype was a little to generic. Perhaps a little too much like a groundskeeper in Springfield. We needed a twist to make him more interesting. We didn't want to lose his personality but felt like visually he needed something that broke the cliche. A suggestion was made to have him of African descent and we ran with it.

With a few modifications to his overall shape we soon arrived at the final concept and what you all see and play in the game today:

You can read the full blog here.

With the release of Eternal Silence 3.2 the Half Life 2 mod iminent, the team have given us information on what the update will bring:

It has been quite a while since I've had the opportunity to update the site. We're still working on 3.2 and we hope to bring you it along with other goodies soon. We are not entirely sure when it will be released, but we can give a feature list so far:

Version 3.2
•[ADD] - Added the Control game mode (cp_ maps)
•[ADD] - Added the CTF Game mode (ctf_ maps)
•[ADD] - Added Demolish game mode (de_ maps)
•[ADD] - Added new map: cp_warpath
•[ADD] - Added new map: ctf_spaceinvaders
•[ADD] - Added UTF Heavy Fighter
•[ADD] - Added NGM Interceptor
•[ADD] - Added the possibility of a shield corvette (hook up a capship-shield on a corvette)
•[ADD] - Improved Corvette death explosion
•[ADD] - Added spawn protection (3 seconds invulnerability)
•[ADD] - Added location to voice commands
•[ADD] - Now receive points for capturing subsystems, damaging corvettes, hacking, capping flags
•[FIX] - Made it impossible to damage yourself from flamer primary
•[FIX] - Permanently turned off fall damage (no longer a server setting)
•[FIX] - damage_forward entity doesn't disappear at a distance anymore
•[FIX] - Gave passengers space radar
•[FIX] - Game returns to Team menu at the end of a round
•[BAL] - Increased Melee attack and bullet force on hacker turret
•[BAL] - Evened clip sizes for both teams
•[BAL] - Ships are only visible on radar within 400 meters when engines cut
•[BAL] - Added anti team-stacking mechanism (mp_autobalance)
•[BAL] - Reduced Carbine Damage

For months UTF flight regiments took the casualties. The UTF fighter was no match for this NGM Heavy Fighter behemoth with its deadly flak and thick armor. UTF Command ordered the creation of a new ship class to combat the foe and even the odds. Quickly UTF engineers put together parts from the UTF Fighter in a much larger hull and fitted the craft with stolen flak cannons. The larger hull allowed for new weapon possibilities, which the engineers planned to work on in the near future, as the salvaged cannons were quickly running out.

The team is unsure of the release date yet, but you can read the full story here.

A small update to TF2 has been released. Changes include:

Team Fortress 2

• Fixed a bug that prevented the correct Arena stats from being uploaded

The update will automatically take effect when you restart Steam.

Originally due November 4th, Left 4 Dead is now scheduled for release on the 20th November Gabe Newell has told Gamekings.tv.

"Left 4 Dead is going to be released on the tenth anniversary of Half-Life, our first game," said Newell. "That will be on November 20th, the third week in November."

Roll on the 20th November!

Valve's Doug Lombardi mentioned to Kotaku that they will be bringing Xbox 360 owners the updates made to the PC version of Team Fortress 2.

The update will come later this year, but it will come at a forced cost.

Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi got that piece of business out of the way just before our latest Left 4 Dead demo, saying that the developer wanted to build up a massive update for Xbox 360 users before delivering. Given that Valve is being forced to charge for the update, they wanted to ensure that 360 owners were getting their money's worth.

So, how much? The price isn't final, but Valve is hoping to go as low as possible, aiming for a ten dollar price tag.

There may also be additional content added that hasn't even been released yet for the PC version. Given the time frame, more class unlocks, maps, and fixes may very well see the light of day and may be included in this mega-update on the 360.

You can read the original story over at Kotaku.