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In a recent interview with CVG, Valve writer Chet Faliszek blasted mainstream developer’s current obsession for mini games and crowbarred motion control, urging teams currently tinkering with hardware like Microsoft’s Natal to “get some real interaction going” rather than “mak[ing] sh*tty games I wouldn’t want to play if I had to use a joystick”.
Despite making an open admission that he thinks that Natal is “really cool”, Faliszek promised fans that Left 4 Dead would never resort to asking players to “make the arm movement of sawing off a zombie’s head in some tiresome mini-game”. Although he sidestepped around offering a solid answer as to whether Natal would play a part in future Left 4 Dead development, his assertion that developers have technology now that lets us interact in “really exciting ways” and should “do something with it” offers a certain community reassurance. “I’m sick of that”, said the writer, waving his arms in now patented Wii simulation, “that’s not a game for me anymore”.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that members of Valve, a developer consistently happy to cater for the salivating hardcore, would berate existing motion control use with such caustic common sense. Remaining personally non-plussed by the current swathes of forearm jiggle offered by the Wii, I implore wholeheartedly Faliszek’s challenge to all developers: “Impress me.”
A sense of humour
though awkward, hand cramped control.
Do Valve even mind?
You know what I learned this Black Friday (my first whilst being in the US)? Steam, Valve’s highly praised digital distribution platform, hates foreigners.
I have a UK steam account with several games on. This account is linked to my UK PayPal account which I have used every time I’ve bought a game via Steam. Upon loading the Steam application I downloaded and installed whilst in the UK, it displayed the US store. Oooh, Black Friday deals! Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for $2.49? Yes please!
“Your billing address doesn’t look like it matches up with your current country” Read more →
Three new infected,
the Jockey is my favourite.
Riding Wardrox rules.
As well as letting us get our grubby mitts on upcoming titles, Eurogamer Expo ‘09 was packed with developers telling the stories behind their games. Here’s the next in a series of posts about what they had to say.
It’s safe to say that last year’s Left 4 Dead was a total hit, with millions of gamers banding together to survive the zombie apocalypse. When Valve announced an uncharacteristically quick sequel, many gamers were upset. Is it too soon for Left 4 Dead 2?
Judging from the queue for the game’s developer session, Valve don’t have too much to worry. The Negative Gamer crew showed up an hour before it was due to start, and we weren’t the only ones. By the time Valve’s Chet Faliszek stepped up to begin, the conference hall was packed with hundreds of Left 4 Dead fans eager to learn more about the new game. He showed us Hard Rain, one of the four new campaigns. Unfortunately it was screenshots only, but Faliszek had a lot to talk about. Read more →
Spitters are too strong
It is really bright and nice
Guitar is the best
The full unedited version Left 4 dead 2 has once again been rejected by the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC). The board has stated (.pdf of the verdict here) that there is “insufficient delineation between the depiction of general zombie figures and the human figures”, meaning that the zombies look too much like humans.
Australia bizarrely only has up to an MA 15+ classification, meaning that overseas games that are 18+ have to be censored. In this case the Australian board seem to have a problem with decapitation, wound detail and piles of bodies. This is the second time Valve has failed to get the full version of the game saleable in Australia.
In a glowing open letter of support for Valve Software Tripwire Interactive President and Co-Founder, John Gibson, puts the kibosh on claims made last week by Randy Pitchford that Valve “exploits” smaller developers with their Steam marketplace. Gibson explains that before talking with Valve they reached out to traditional “brick-and-mortar publishers” who offered them painfully low profit margins and contracts that were filled with “land mines”. The contract they were offered by Valve was clear, with no “gotchas” and very fair. Gibson goes on to explain that he feels Tripwire wouldn’t be in the games business, let alone be the growing success that they are currently enjoying without Steam.
Ask the Tripwire Interactive employees if they feel exploited, as they move into their new offices paid for by the money the company has made on Steam. Or me, as I drive away from the company that was built from the royalties we made on Steam, in my sports car paid for by the royalties we make on Steam, to the home that I pay for with the royalties we make on Steam.
If that’s exploitation, I’ll take a little more.
It seems that the members of the Left 4 Dead 2 boycott group have finally come to their senses and are planning to disband on October 21. The group’s 41,000 members will just have to find something else to complain about now that they believe that their goal has been accomplished. A group admin, Agent of Chaos, commented on the closure of the group:
Our goal wasn’t to steer people away from L4D2, it was to get Valve’s attention and have them support original L4D. We succeeded and that’s where our mission ends; nothing more or less.
Towards the tail end of an interesting interview with Maximum PC, Randy Pitchford, Gearbox’s CEO, has some things to say regarding the conflict of interest with Valve owning one of the largest PC distribution channels; Steam. He said some other things in the interview too, and if you’re interested in PC gaming or Borderlands, go check it out.
Talking to MPC Pitchford says:
I’ll tell you what. Steam helps. As a guy in this industry though, I don’t trust Valve.
[...]
I, personally, trust Valve. But I’m just saying, honestly, I think a lot of the industry doesn’t.
[...]
It would be much better if Steam was its own business. There’s so much conflict of interest there that it’s horrid. It’s actually really, really dangerous for the rest of the industry to allow Valve to win.
I never really thought too long or hard about this in the past, but he has a very good point. Imagine how many posts we would publish if Activision owned something on par with Steam?
Whilst right now I’m not too worried, after all Valve come across as a “nice” company, I think he makes a very interesting point worth keeping in mind.
Via: GamePolitics
Better yet, Valve have said that if the unedited version has a successful appeal, the game can be patched. Nothing like some free gore upgrades to brighten your day. Unless you’re on the Xbox, where Microsoft will probably call it a feature and tack on an extra $5 for fun.
Less than a day after Valve announced they were appealing the banning of Left 4 Dead 2 in forward thinking Australia, the classification page shows the game now has an MA 15+ rating. This isn’t because those in charge realised the error of their ways, instead simply reflecting the fact that a toned down version of the game has been given the green light. Read more →
Like, a real one and everything. Well, it’s Chelsea. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, some would say it’s great to be Chelsea. Umm… oh, podcast. We (being the usual crew minus Brandon) also talk about:
As always your kind reviews and other such sexy things are always appreciated!
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You may have heard us talking on the latest NGCast about Valve flying out of the heads of the L4D2 Boycott group to play the game and get them to shut their stupid pie-holes. (As a quick aside wasn’t it fantastic to see the boycotters eat their words?) One intrepid modder named Joe emailed Gabe after seeing that Valve were flying out trolls and asked why he hadn’t been flown out so Valve could play his campaign for the original L4D.
Of course this is all in good fun, as Joe is a huge Valve supporter and seems to even be on rather close terms, perhaps even closer than The GHost, with Gabe Newell. As Valve are hilarious and do lots of cool things, Gabe decided he would reply to Joe, stating that they are boycotting his mod.
“It’s hard out here for a peeump..” Especially if you’re a “peeump” who loves him some Valve but owns a PS3. Our favourite lover of cake, breasts, and creating loosely-related connections with technology and gaming, kotaku, reported this weekend on Gabe Newell’s latest dissing of the PS3.
During an interview with Geoff Keighly of Gametrailers, the inevitable question about Valve’s avoidance of the PS3 architecture came up. Now, I have to respect Newell in the sense that he doesn’t mince words about this stuff. He could have waffled and led us on a bit. But, he didn’t. Note to the world: Valve is not working on ANYTHING for the PS3.
Maybe Gabe should consider that the boys and girls from other studios such as Insomniac, to say nothing about Criterion and Infinity Ward who also seem to manage fine on Sony’s hardware, seem to have little or no trouble developing games for the PS3. And, they have made a fair bit of money as well doing so. Now that Valve is going to milk franchises like Left 4 Dead on an annual basis, I would have thought that they might budge a bit on the PS3. Apparently not.
After more talk than I care to remember, Left 4 Dead has finally seen a new, totally free campaign added to it’s roster. That is unless you play L4D on the 360 in which case you have to pay 560 MS Points. That’s right; you have to pay extra for the Xbox 360 version of Left 4 Dead DLC, even though previous DLC was, and the PC version is, free.
You can get some details on the new, shorter (around 30 minuets) campaign right here with my BFF Jim Sterling’s Destructoid’s exclusive first look. For me the interesting part is less the new two chapter level, and more the bit where if you have the (arguably gimped) console version, you’re now paying for the privilege.
Read more →
I’m a huge fan of Gabe Newell, as much as I may appear to criticise Valve for their shenanigans. At E3 he spoke to Good Game and said some interesting things about getting the community to fund a game, rather than having to get money elseware. Whether these things are a perfect mesh of the Open Source mentality and realistic game design business, or just lunacy, I’m not too sure.
Kotaku AU have a full transcript of the interesting part, but the key section is this;
What I think would be much better would be if the community could finance the games. In other words, ‘Hey, I really like this idea you have. I’ll be an early investor in that and, as a result, at a later point I may make a return on that product, but I’ll also get a copy of that game.’
It seems that no game today can make it by without some controversy. This time, we have Left 4 Dead 2 being accused of racism. The post written by Willie Jefferson, asks if racism is “the new norm” in games.
Citing the new Call of Juarez primarily as the reason for the post, he had a lot to say about Left 4 Dead 2:
One of the games that comes to mind is “Left 4 Dead 2.” Though the game isn’t out yet, it’s already causing an uproar. Set in New Orleans, players will have to fight their way through hordes of zombies – with several of them who appear to be African-Americans. When I saw the first trailer for the game, all I could think about was Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. Setting the game in a city that was scene of dead, bloated bodies floating by so soon afterward was a bad call, IMHO. The city has had enough to deal with — Valve, you should have spared them, even if it’s just a video game.
We all have an opinion on it. Left 4 Dead 2 is coming out sooner than expected and some people aren’t too happy about it. The original game was said to come as “a service” rather than a game. Valve, the game’s makers, suggested regular updates were in the pipeline on par with those their other multiplayer game, Team Fortress 2, is enjoying. With the announcement of the game’s sequel, doubts have been raised over whether that content is still coming to the original game.
Fans were none too happy about the news and soon a Steam group titled L4D2 Boycott was formed, a group that passed the 20,000 members mark today. To get to the root of the issue and to get reactions to some of the criticisms aimed at the group, I spoke to one of the group’s admins, Mr.Pancakes. Read more →
As you have probably heard by now, Valve has announced and plans to release a sequel to Left 4 Dead this year. I for one love Left 4 Dead however will probably not buy this game. Details are scarce for this game, but it will be set during the same outbreak as the original game. Only now you will play as Uncle Phil from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, or other sundry characters. The biggest new addition is different melee weapons such as a chainsaw, a baseball bat and a frying pan. There are also new special infected, an improved AI director and a more story-driven plot. Enough to merit a sequel and not just DLC? Some fans, and I agree, say no. (Other people, like Brandon, say yes) Read more →
Read more →
As you have probably heard by now, Valve has announced and plans to release a sequel to Left 4 Dead this year. I for one love Left 4 Dead and I will buy this game regardless of the cost. Details are scarce for this game, but it will be set during the same outbreak as the original game. Only now you will play as Uncle Phil from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, or other sundry characters. The biggest new addition is different melee weapons such as a chainsaw, a baseball bat and a frying pan. There are also new special infected, an improved AI director and a more story-driven plot. Enough to merit a sequel and not just DLC? Some fans say no.
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