alien-swarm-free-pc-game posts

Even though today was technically a "slow" news day (for once no major game announcements were made) it was still plenty busy for us. Here's some of the smaller but still important news items for the day:

• The promised Elemental "day 0 update" should be going live right about now on Impulse. Here's a full patch list of what's included.
• Impulse also has the first patch for the new space strategy game Star Ruler.
• Direct2Drive is giving folks a $10 discount on all of its games that are priced at $49.95 and up if you put in the code SchoolSucks at checkout.
• Steam has new bug patches for Counter-Strike Source, Garry's Mod, and Swarm Arena.
• Steam also has pre-orders for the PC version of Dead Rising 2.
• The cover for October's Game Informer magazine will be revealed at a PAX Prime panel next weekend.
• Check out a video with game developers and publishers talking about the future of digital distribution of games.

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.

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.