Alien-Swarm posts

So that Portal 2 pre-launch dealie seems to have shaved off about an hour from the game's planned release. Something tells us that the release date won't be too early.

• Steam has new automatic updates for the Steam client along with Team Fortress 2, Killing Floor and Alien Swarm.
• PopCap Games is doing well for itself, apparently.
• Battlestar Galactica Online has reached the 1 million user mark in just six weeks.
• The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle is close to reaching the $600,000 revenue mark.
• There are rumors of a January 2012 release date for the still unannounced Grand Theft Auto V.

So we are getting a graphical remake of Defense of the Ancients with some enhanced community features. But will Valve continue to support the original DoTA? How much will DOTA 2 cost? Will the game be a downloadable only title? Will it support third party mods? There are still lots and lots of questions.

• Want to read Jordan Mechner's script for the Prince of Persia movie before the Hollywood types got a hold of it? Now you can.
• New Stream updates to Alien Swarm, Recettear, Shattered Horizon, Lead and Gold, Team Fortress 2, Worms Reloaded, and Booster Trooper have been released.

Columbus Day is close to being over. Did you "discover" a new land today that really was found by other groups long before you showed up? We bet you did.

• Stardock plans to announce a new producer for Elemental on Tuesday. Yes, it's an announcement of an announcement.
• A new update to Alien Swarm has been made via Steam.
• World of WarCraft players get ready for a major new update to the MMO starting tomorrow.
• The Minecraft web site has a single screenshot showing off more of this month's big update
• Speaking of which check out this new user made video. Neat.
• GDC Online was attended by over 3,000 people in Austin last weekend
• Arcania: Gothic 4 is now available on Steam for European gamers.

Hard to believe we will be getting both StarCraft II and Civilization V in the same year. It will be interesting to compare sales of the two games when Civ V comes out next week.

• PC Gamer's week of Valve Software interviews makes for some interesting reading even if all the newsworthy stuff was leaked beforehand.
• From now until 1 pm Eastern time on Monday Direct2Drive has BioShock on sale for $9.95 and Supreme Commander Gold Edition for $14.95.
• A still-in-development notebook with duel touchscreens where the second screen takes the place of the keyboard? Wild.
• Gratuitous Space Battles' creator Cliff Harris gives a timeline for his upcoming projects including the mysterious "Game IV".

It's hard to complain about a game that's completely free to download and play online but there have apparently been those folks who want more out of Alien Swarm, the recently released free top-down shooter from Valve. Some players wanted more of a variety of gameplay modes. So the Alien Swarm team has added Onslaught which dynamicly generates swarm of aliens to shoot in a manner similar to Left 4 Dead's AI Director.

And if you have played the game thinking it's just not that hard to complete, Alien Swarm has now added a new Brutal difficulty mode that is so hard, "nobody on the Alien Swarm team has managed to complete a mission on it." There's also a new variable called Hardcore Friendly Fire that makes full damage possible when your buddies "accidentally" shoot you, among other things.

It's yet another busy Gamescom kind of a day today with lots of PC gaming reveals. It should be interesting to see how Paradox Connect works out. Do we really need yet another "achievements" feature?

• Steam has launched a new arcade shooter called Swarm Arena which you can get for 10 percent off for a limited time.
• A new Booster Trooper update on Steam adds two new maps to the game.
• Check out the unboxing of the Elemental: War of Magic Limited Edition.
• Apparently staring at the virtual Playboy magazines in Mafia II may generate its own stats.
• Rumor is that more layoffs may have occurred at Krome Studios.

Welcome to Freeware Friday, a weekly column showcasing excellent games that you can play free of charge!

We always love it when a mod team is brought into the game industry to make a retail-quality game. It's even better when said retail game is free. Continuing its extension of good will to all us PC folk, Valve has released a Source engine remake of the classic Unreal Tournament 2004 mod Alien Swarm. Developed by the original mod team, it's fascinating in that the entire game and code base are completely free. All you need to play is a copy of Steam and a Steam account. While some may dislike opening their computer to a DRM platform like Steam, Alien Swarm is such a fantastic game that it's hard to resist its siren call.

Ah, Comic-Con. In the last few years its turned from being fairly PC and video game free to a place where most of the major publishers are holding court. Who would have thunk it?

• The free Alien Swarm game from Valve has gotten a new update, mostly for bug fixes.
• Can you guess what the next game from indie developer Mousechief will be?
• Kalypso Media sent over word that the expansion pack Tropico 3: Absolute Power, previously released via download, is now available in retail stores.
• Steam is offering the fantasy action-RPG Dimensity on sale for a 10 percent discount.
• Steam is now offering for sale the previously released DLC map pack for The Settlers 7.
• Someone created a custom StarCraft 2 map that looks and plays like the artsy PS3 game flOw.
• Check out this video from last week's Develop conference. No words; just watch

As promised, Alien Swarm has been released as a free PC game download by Valve via their Steam service. The sci-fi themed top-down co-op shooter comes with both the game as well as the source code for developers to use as an example of how to make a stand alone game using Valve's Source Engine. It contains co-op suppor for up to four players, four player classes, over 40 weapons and items and a map generating tool.

As we reported last week Alien Swarm started out several years ago as a mod for Unreal Tournament 2004 that won many prizes during Epic Games' original Make Something Unreal mod contest. The mod team, collectively known as Black Cat Games, then announced plans to release a stand alone version of Alien Swarm using the Source Engine. Valve silently brought in the Alien Swarm team members to work for their company and in between working on major Valve games the team continued to develop Alien Swarm.

A while back a group of mod makers called Black Cat Games created a top-down sci-fi shooter total conversion for Unreal Tournament 2004 called Alien Swarm. After the mod was released the mod makers announced plans to release a stand alone Alien Swarm game using Valve's Source Engine. However there's been little info about the status of that game's progress.

What we didn't know at the time was that Valve decided to hire the members of the Alien Swarm team two years ago. Since then the team members have worked on Valve's games like the Left 4 Dead series and the upcoming Portal 2. However the team never forgot about Alien Swarm and continued to work on the game in between their official Valve duties. Today Valve announced that the game will finally be released on Monday as a free download. In addition the game's source code will also be released for free.

Alien Swarm will feature co-op gameplay with up to four players, four player classes and eight unique characters. There will also be 40 weapons and items to use and a title based map generation tool. It will also support Steamworks features like achievements, matchmaking, Steam Cloud save game storage and more.