Steam Addicts

Steam Addicts Anonymous: Weekly Roundup 43

Walter McDaniel — Fri, 18 May 2012 19:03:45 +0000

Diablo 3 is out, and crashing. So let us look at some other things:

Worth mentioning again, Gamestop has pretty much given in with their Steam Gift Cards.
They are still working on Meet the Pyro, and we can expect it this year.
Treant Protector was released in Dota 2. People are also asking for Ogre Magi, but they do not seem to want to release him.
PC Gamer has brought some information on the legal troubles surrounding Call of Duty. Huge cases here.
Eurogamer has detailed that the structure of Valve is changing, but the management is there.

What an odd week. What I’m personally wondering is whether you will be able to get on Impulse (Gamestop’s online service) and order a card for Steam. Only time will tell. As usual, be sure to leave us feedback on what you would like to hear about next edition. Help us help you!

Daily Deal – Delve Deeper

Danny Scot — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:05:25 +0000

Today’s Daily Deal is a repeat from last September…

Delve Deeper is a turn-based Adventure/Strategy game for Windows that combines HD pixel art, tile placement, and RPG elements in a bright and humorous atmosphere. Up to four players take command of Dwarf mining teams in this fast and furious dungeon adventure meets devious puzzler, building the map as you play for an ever-changing, endlessly replayable strategy experience for you and your three best friends, or three devious AI teams.

Gorgeous HD Pixel art, quirky humor, and the ever-present King of Dwarves!
Pick your own team of 5 Dwarves from Fighters, Scouts and Miners
Battle 20 powerful Monsters including Goblins, Evil Dwarves, and huge Dragons!
New! Level Builder allows you to create and share your own designs!
Challenge your friends in up to Four Player Hotseat Multiplayer
Collect over 100 relics to power up your Dwarves, and view them later in The Royal Gallery!

Buy Delve Deeper today for $1.69 and save 66% off the regular price of $4.99. Includes 50 Steam Achievements.

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Daily Deal – Take On Helicopters

Danny Scot — Thu, 17 May 2012 17:24:01 +0000

The brand new helicopter game from independent developers Bohemia Interactive – creators of the award-winning military-Sim series Arma 2. Built upon over 10 years of experience in cutting-edge simulator development, Take On Helicopters immerses players within beautifully rich landscapes and an authentic flight model.

The player takes on the role of a civilian helicopter pilot. Harry Larkin’s aviation business has fallen on tough times. Built up over decades, it’s now only days away from closure. His sons face an uncertain future, struggling to save the company their father spent his whole life building. Together, they must take on contracts and competitors; together, they take on helicopters!

Take your first steps towards mastering rotor-wing flight across a massive range of enjoyable challenges, or create your own missions using the powerful easy-to-use mission editor.

Take to the air above two beautifully rich and expansive environments, based upon real-world North American and South Asian terrain-data.

Take on cutting-edge technology, helicopters modeled in stunning detail, a large-scale, open-world sandbox and authentic flight dynamics…

High fidelity flight dynamics modelling
Richly modelled helicopters & cockpits
Expansive & detailed environments
Powerful & intuitive mission editor
Multiplayer – co-op & competitive scenarios

Buy Take On Helicopters today for $24.99 and save 50% off the regular price of $49.99.

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Retro Game Wednesday #12 – Myst: Masterpiece Edition

Daniel Casey — Thu, 17 May 2012 01:05:58 +0000

Every week, Retro Game Wednesday reviews a well-aged game available for digital download on Steam.

–

Title: Myst: Masterpiece Edition
Genre: First Person Point and Click Adventure
Developer: Cyan
Release Date: 24 September, 1993
Price (at time of review): $5.99

Remember how amazing the graphics on some of these games were (or would have been) back in the 90’s? It’s funny how standards change so quickly. The technology does as well, of course, which makes possible the absurdly higher standards we have in the present. People could be impressed and games could be sold by such complex and groundbreaking features as enemies that could look in directions other than towards you. It seems terribly silly now but back then they were actually new and interesting features.

Of course, nowadays games that were sold on the appeal of the new technology of the 90’s alone don’t necessarily hold up. When a little adventure game called Myst came out in 1993, it was hailed as one of the best and most beautiful games on the market and helped push sales of then-new CD-ROM drives.

Will it hold up to modern criticism? Probably not, but let’s find out anyway.

SUMMARY

So you find a book and when you touch it you get pulled to a strange island known as Myst. Then you find some other books that have people trapped in them and they want you to let them out. But all is not as it seems. Also there are a lot of puzzles and very little in the way of help.

THE GOOD

If you ARE a puzzle person, then you will quickly find that the puzzles range from obscure to obtuse in their solutions and require all manner of exploration and experimentation and lateral thinking. This game can really strain your brain if you’re the kind who refuses to look at a guide – you actually need to think a little.
The story and background information is scattered throughout the world and the designers expect you to find it on your own – the game is full of books and cutscenes that you can skip through, but you need to have been paying attention to know what choice will lead you to the optimal ending.
The game makes effective use of background sound effects and music to really pull you into the locations you’re exploring.
Innovative and immersive first-person adventuring done well for the first time outside of a ‘dungeon crawler’.
You can’t die at any point until the very end, so you’re free to explore the world and experiment without penalty as much as you care to.

THE BAD

If you’re NOT a puzzle person, then you will quickly find that the puzzles range from obscure to obtuse in their solutions and require all manner of exploration and experimentation and lateral thinking. Except because you’re not a puzzle person you will not enjoy that at all and will quickly long for death.
The game does have a hint button, but it serves only to mock you and prolong your suffering.
You can’t die at any point until the very end, which if you don’t like puzzles means you are essentially trapped in your own very personal hell, progressing only in the pursuit of sweet, blessed release.
Myst more than any of its sequels just doesn’t hold up graphically – while you can tell it would have all been quite impressive in 1993, nowadays it’s obviously a series of low resolution slides and low resolution QuickTime movies.

THE VERDICT

Again, the games that came after it were far more refined and hold up better today. But if you can ignore dated graphics and you like getting lost in immersive, full-formed worlds, this game could end up being worth your time. This game was revolutionary when it came out, but you might want to try out one of the later games first (all of them are available on Steam) to see if you even like the style of gameplay it pioneered. 5/10

THE IN-DEPTH

Computers started as oversized calculators that used to fill whole rooms. I don’t think anyone ever envisioned at their inception that they would end up being used as portals to whole other worlds. I’m not talking about the ones they had hooked up to the Stargate, either, as I have recently been informed that Stargate is not actually a documentary.

Before Myst, games didn’t really try very hard to immerse you. Whether you made a character or were assigned one by the designers of the game, nobody put very much effort into keeping up the illusion that it was you who was there in the game experiencing the events first-hand. In Doom, your character wasn’t you, it was the stoic and possibly constipated space marine whose face adorned your status bar. In other games, like Monkey Island, you were placed in a third-person perspective and could see at all times that the character you were playing was clearly not you at all, and even if you tried to pretend otherwise you would know deep down inside of you that no matter how hard you lied to yourself you would never have adventures like that, and no matter how much you hoped to be taken into a world full of pirates and other things that are cool, you were still all alone, sitting at a desk in front of one of those harsh glowing screens that serve to this day as your only real friends.

Myst tried to change all that. It was one of the first games that actually put effort into letting you play you. The very few characters in the game addressed you directly, avoiding names or any details about your appearance, so that you could insert yourself into the formless void that was the protagonist. And apart from that you were alone, left to wander empty worlds solving puzzles to bring you closer to your goal.

And it worked, or it did back then. Part of it was the fact that, unlike other adventure games of the time, there was no secondary narration or accompanying text descriptions for anything you happened to see. You had to look at the world, examine the mechanisms and contraptions that made up the puzzles, and draw your own conclusions. You couldn’t just click ‘look at device’ and have a convenient popup tell you what its purpose was – you had to look at it and try to figure that out for yourself.

That contributed a lot – you had to think for yourself, the game told you you were playing as yourself, and so, if you didn’t think about it too hard, you did. You let yourself get lost in the world they had created and solve the puzzles the way you would, not the way an assigned character in the game world would.

It was a hell of an experience for 1993. And no, it doesn’t hold up anywhere near perfectly today. But it was a big step in the right direction, and as games become more and more focused on the immersion aspect, trying to pull us wholly into the worlds they create, it can be quite educational to go back and see where it began.

Of course, you could also play the sequels, Riven or Myst 3: Exile. They’re both on Steam, and they’re prettier, and they do most of the same things. But if you’re a real retro games enthusiast, this game is still worth a playthrough. Or at least a play-until-you-get-frustrated-and-delete-it.

TECHNICAL NOTES

I also didn’t end up having any trouble running Myst on my machine, but if you have trouble you can feel free to contact me and I’ll tell you what you should type into Google.

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Daily Deal – CID the Dummy

Danny Scot — Wed, 16 May 2012 17:27:59 +0000

Not surprisingly, the Daily Deal repeats have been more frequent. Here’s a retread from last June…

In a world obsessed with safety the once lowly Crash Impact Dummy has risen to a position of great importance amongst us. Their day job – crashing, smashing, checking, re-checking and re-rechecking everything from lemonade to escalators to make the world a better place.

Now, the Crash Impact Dummy inventor, Dr. B.M.Werken, has lost his daughter and has choosen CID THE DUMMY to rescue…err…find her.

A chance to rescue the most beautiful girl in the world? Could be…a chance to crash and smash with real purpose? Definitely!

CID THE DUMMY is a platform game that grabs you straight away with its amusing blend of action and puzzle-filled game play. Based around the multiple opportunities for a Crash Impact Dummy to get into mischief, the game blends classic platform elements such as timed jumps, collecting pick-ups, defeating enemies, and challenging boss battles with more cerebral elements such as puzzles, clever weapon use and route finding.

20 game levels including stunt car driving levels and end of level bosses
In-depth game play to solve puzzles and defeat enemies with force or stealth
Tutorial levels to learn CID’s skills
Sophisticated enemy AI used to create a full range of monstrous enemies each with unique attack tactics

Buy CID the Dummy today for $1.24 and save 75% off the regular price of $4.99.

Daily Deal – Mini Ninjas

Danny Scot — Tue, 15 May 2012 17:06:40 +0000

Mini Ninjas is back on the Daily Deal again almost exactly one year later, but still boasting one of the shortest game descriptions seen on the Steam store…

Mini Ninjas is a game that combines furious action with stealth and exploration for an experience that appeals to a wide audience across age groups and preferences. It’s an action-adventure with a strong focus on allowing the player freedom to explore the world and has the depth to allow for very varied gameplay and approaches to getting through the game.

Buy Mini Ninjas today for $3.74 and save 75% off the regular price of $14.99.

Daily Deal – Lucid

Danny Scot — Mon, 14 May 2012 17:24:23 +0000

Lucid makes an encore appearance in today’s Daily Deal…

Discover a new way to match blocks in this otherworldly, Zen-like, relaxing puzzle experience. Lucid is the world’s first Match-All puzzle game, in which you clear areas by combining all the blocks of an area. Enjoy the stunning visuals and relaxing sound effects as you make combos and hunt for the next perfect area to clear. Gain score multipliers by chaining Color-Tasks and earn Lucid-Blocks to use later on for clearing up the whole playfield to get you out of a tough situation. Come up with new strategies to get high-scores. Earn additional special Area-bonuses for square shaped areas, inside the group you have cleared.

Unique Match-All Gameplay
Achievements
Amazingly detailed colorful animations
Relaxing Zen-like ambient music
55 Levels with unlimited replay value
Supports up to five player profiles to save your progress
Play for high-scores or just relax and get into the zone

Buy Lucid today for $1.24 and save 75% off the regular price of $4.99. Includes 11 Steam Achievements.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun interviews Black Mesa: Source’s project lead, Carlos Montero

Vic — Sun, 13 May 2012 23:12:36 +0000

If you’re into Half-Life modding, then you probably know all about Black Mesa: Source‘s protracted stay in one of development hell’s finest holiday resorts. In total, its development time has taken longer than the development periods of the original Half-Life and Half-Life 2… combined. Ever since they missed their 2009 release date, the BM:S devs have resolved to total radio silence, until immediately before they release the mod; and apart from a few interviews and minor media releases in the interim, this has mostly been the case.

However, things changed earlier this week, when the folks at Rock, Paper, Shotgun posted up Part 1 of their interview with Carlos Montero, project leader of Black Mesa: Source. The day after that, they also posted up Part 2 of the interview, in what is overall, a lengthy but extremely insightful interview. Carlos talks a lot about how the devteam really works, and it seems like these guys really do have a lot in common with Valve after all. There’s also some details on the infamous missed 2009 deadline, and what exactly caused that to happen. Later on, he also discusses the team’s current progress, provides new information regarding the mod (turns out you will need no games at all to play it; which makes BM:S less of a mod, and more of a free Source game), and even offers us a rough timeframe for some sort of playable release…: “soon-ish“. Well, soon-ish it is.

Until soon-ish comes around, feast your eyes on two never-before-seen screenshots from the mod, released alongside the interview:

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Daily Deal – Mutant Storm: Reloaded

Danny Scot — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:07:37 +0000

Mutant Storm progresses over 89 levels of twin-stick shooter mayhem! As you get deeper, you are ever more overcrowded with nasty beasties. This carnival of frenetic fun is showcased in a cutting edge graphics extravaganza.

Viewed from well above, you and your enemies can always be seen. Always be killed, and always be laughed at! There is no hiding. No tactics. No planning. No Net. Your enemies created this world and they sure ain’t gonna help you out!

You like to play hard? Then the game gets harder. Feel like you’re doing well? … Enjoy it while it lasts!

Survive long enough, and you get rewarded with score multipliers, doubling your score. Making your enemies even angrier, and that bit more determined to kill you!

Lose a life and watch your multipliers tumble, and the beasties slow down and relax, safe in the knowledge that you are just a big softy really!! After you conquer all 89 levels you’ll be awarded a ‘White Belt’. Progress to win all 8 belts until you possess the much coveted Mutant Storm ‘Black Belt’.

Key Features

89 Levels
Adventure & Tally gameplay modes
7 Difficulty levels
Over 20 unique enemies
Psychedelic 3D visuals and effects
Global Online Leaderboards
Local multiplayer
Achievements

Buy Mutant Storm: Reloaded today for $2.49 and save 50% off the regular price of $4.99. Includes 12 Steam Achievements.

Portal 2 Perpetual Testing Initiative: over 1.3 million tests

Danny Scot — Fri, 11 May 2012 00:20:10 +0000

Steam Workshop Sale On Now In Celebration

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the early findings of the Portal 2 Perpetual Testing Initiative.

Released just days ago, The “Perpetual Testing Initiative” has already resulted in the creation and publishing of over 35,000 user-created maps, collectively consumed via more than 1.3 million downloads.

To celebrate the launch, Steam is holding a Weekend Workshop Sale offering Portal 2 for 66% off, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for 33% off, and many of this year’s Team Fortress 2 Workshop Items available for 50% off their regular price.

The Perpetual Testing Initiative allows players to easily create, share, and play Portal 2 puzzles. The Initiative comes with a simplified Puzzle Maker that allows that creation of mind-bending puzzles without ever leaving the game.

The Puzzle Maker directly publishes maps to the Steam Workshop where users may browse, vote on, and select to play them. Selected puzzles are automatically downloaded and installed inside Portal 2.

For more information please visit www.steamgames.com

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