steam posts

Monday Night Combat for the the PC just got a new free automatic content update via Steam. The multiplayer shooter from Uber Entertainment has added a new Crossfire map, Uncle Tully's Funland, to the game. The map comes with a new spawn creature, Chickey Cantor. And yes, he's a chicken, a GIANT CHICKEN! (Cue Warner Bros. Animation theme song).

Chickey Cantor can give your team big single-life buff if you shoot him and make him fly away. He can also be ridden for eight seconds for extra money. New bot spawn buttons have also been added for Jackbots, Black Jacks, Slims, Scramblers, Gremlins, Gapshots and Bouncers. The full patch list can be seen at the Uber Entertainment web site. You can also check out a trailer showcasing the features after the jump

So no Portal 2 DLC yet but knowing Valve we will be getting regular content updates for this game for a long time.

• Steam has new automatic updates for Post Apocalyptic Mayhem, Left 4 Dead 2 (with the repeat of the Survival Versus mutation gameplay mode, Dino D-Day and Portal 2.
• A newly added trademark may be the name for the next Hitman game.
• Who is the bald guy that is pictured in one of Valve's intro movies? Reddit has the answer.
• In the "This is a real product" category, the Garbage Truck Simulator 2011 game is coming this May.

Good Friday is tomorrow so we expect that the PC gaming news flow may be on the slow side. That's ok; more time to go through Portal 2 again for the developer's commentary. Why don't more games have that feature?:

• Steam has new automatic updates for Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes (with 10 new Steam achievements), Men of War: Assault Squad, Garry's Mod, and Counter-Strike Source.
• Super Meat Boy for the PC is getting a UK boxed retail release this summer.
• The Elder Scrolls 5 Skyrim will be getting some big Hollywood voice actors (so far unnamed).
• The King Arthur Collection, with the original game and its many expansion packs and DLC releases, will be released by Paradox Interactive in late May.

Today is the last day of the work week for some as Good Friday is celebrated tomorrow. Why not save some money while you take some time off?

• Steam has Metro 2033 on sale this weekend for just $9.99.
• Impulse has a number of games on sale this weekend including 50 percent off all Company of Heroes games.
• Impulse also has Defense Grid Gold on sale for today only for just $3.49.
• Direct2Drive has Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic on sale for today only for $7.49.
• Direct2Drive is also taking 25 percent off all orders $19.95 and over this weekend with the promo code "Bunny" entered at checkout.
• Games For Windows Marketplace has Resident Evil 5 on sale for the next week for $14.99.

Valve is pretty notorious for keeping most of the hard sales numbers from its Steam PC game download service to themselves. So it's not a shock to learn that Valve won't be providing sales figures from Steam to an upcoming UK-based sales chart for PC game downloads.

Speaking to MCV, Valve's Jason Holtman called the idea of such a sales chart "old" saying, "The point is, it's not super important for a publisher or developer to know how well everyone is doing. What's important to know is exactly how your game is doing – why it's climbing and why it's falling. Your daily sales, your daily swing, your rewards for online campaign number three. That's what we provide."

While Valve may not believe it's important, it has been frustrating to not get a better idea of how PC game sales are really impacted by digital download sales when that information is kept secret.

So we suspect a lot of you lost some sleep last night to try to complete Portal 2. Don't worry; we feel the same way.

• Steam has new automatic updates for a number of games including Team Fortress 2, King Arthur The Roleplaying Wargame, Audiosurf, ProtoGalaxy, the Mac version of Civilization V, and Garry's Mod.
• Retailers in the UK are breaking the embargo on the planned Friday launch of Portal 2 due to the PC game being released early on Steam.
• As promised the fourth DLC pack for The Settlers 7 has been released.
• How much work has been put into Duke Nukem Forever? Between 6,000 and 7,000 man months, according to Gearbox's Randy Pitchford.

The switch from Games For Windows Live to Steam may have helded Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II Retribution's overall sales, according to reps from the sci-fi RTS game's developer Relic and its publisher THQ. In a new interview over at The A List Daily, THQ's Director of Global Brand Management Georgina Verdon said, "Going exclusive through Steam helped drive awareness with their millions of users by way of banners and message support so by the time we opened the beta up to all Steam customers, we had a huge number of people playing."

Those effots, along with some others like streaming beta matches with top Starcraft players, ended up being very successful for the game, with Verdon saying, "This hype and activity helped us exceed our digital pre-order forecast by 129 percent."

The game's Last Stand multiplayer gameplay mode is now available to purchase and download via Steam, under the title The Last Standalone, for a mere $10.

Tuesday brings us some more price cuts on PC game deals plus a beta giveaway:

• Steam has a mid-week madness sale on the strategy-RPG Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes from now until Thursday for just $5.
• Direct2Drive has Magicka on sale for today only for just $4.95.
• Direct2Drive also has three casual games (Air Strike II, Obulis and Cake Mania) on sale for $1.99 each for today only.
• Impulse has Cultures on sale for today only for $4.99.
• Amazon.com has Starcraft II on sale for today only for $39.99.
• Curse.com has a bunch of Age of Empires Online beta keys to give out today.

It looks like the final time for the launch of the PC version of Portal 2 via Steam will happen at 12:36 am Eastern time on Tuesday or basically less than an hour after this news post goes live. The GLaDOS@Home efforts by fans have closed the gap by completing the computations of two more of the Potato Sack PC indie games.

There are two more games still to be completed but it doesn't look like the player efforts will be enough to complete them before the new launch time. Overall the GLaDOS@Home efforts have shaved off over nine hours from Portal 2's original launch time.

Update: And that's all folks. The final two games have been completed and Portal 2 is now unlocking for those folks who have pre-order and pre-loaded the game on Steam.

It's another manic Monday but the PC game sales cycle just begins yet again. We have the highlights:

• Direct2Drive has a one day sale for The Sims 3. You can get the game now for $19.98.
• Impulse has put the pro hockey game NHL 09 on sale for today only for just $4.99.
• GamersGate has put a number of games on sale all this week including Supreme Commander Gold Edition for just $6.80.
• And just a reminder: This will be the last day for Steam's The Potato Sack bundle of 13 indie games that now all include some kind of Portal 2 content. Each game is on sale for 50 percent off or you can get all 13 in one bundle for 75 percent off.