Crave

Zombies now wear protective suits. Clever zombies.

(Credit: Valve Software)

Last week's launch of a certain game may have eclipsed the first-person shooter landscape for some time, but there are other gripping, visceral shooting experiences to be had at the tail end of 2009. Last year's Left 4 Dead found Valve adapting its skill at multiplayer online gaming to a co-op grindhouse-style horror genre, one in which cooperation played more of a factor than lone-dog competitiveness. While the original Left 4 Dead had only four campaigns and was a chiefly online experience, it sustained some criticism for being too short and for not having more multiplayer modes.

The new Left 4 Dead (we played the Xbox 360 version) has only five campaigns--one more than the original--but they proceed through much larger, far more interesting zones, all set in the deep South. Heavy thunderstorms, a bizarre carnival, and lots of swampy backwaters add great environments. On top of that the game features additional infected zombie types, weapons, and items to acquire, all of which make the game more unpredictable and diverse--our one complaint with the original was that it started to get a little repetitive over time. Shoulder-riding Jockeys are the best of the new, while fast and cruel Chargers seem to pummel too quickly. The new Infected can also be controlled in Versus mode, adding new playable characters.

Left 4 Dead 2--photos

Also new are a collection of chainsaws, frying pans, and other hard-core bludgeoning weapons. They aren't always the most efficient tools, but they feel great to use and can cut through Left 4 Dead 2's zombie swarms better than rifle-butting. There are also new items like the adrenaline boost to speed up play.

We had as much fun, or more, playing the sequel than we did the original, although the graphics and general feel don't fall far from the zombie tree. ... Read More

(Credit: Steam)

Update: Left 4 Dead is currently discounted on Steam's website at 40% off (from $39.99 to $23.99), but just for this weekend only.

If you haven't tried playing Left 4 Dead yet because of the price, or aren't sure about the game in general, that's OK. Valve has decided to let you try it out for free.

At 5:01 p.m. PDT Thursday, you'll be able to download and play the game for free via Steam for a whole 24 hours. Better still, to get your full 24-hour allotment of play time Steam allows you to preload it to your account right now.

This isn't a free-forever offer, nor is there going to be a discount available afterward (as with what happened with UT3 in March). Alas, the game will be locked again the following night, but at least it will give you a chance to play and decide for yourself. Obviously, Valve is hoping you'll love it and send some cash their way to keep playing.

(Credit: Valve)

If you enjoy (legally) downloading PC game content over the Internet, then you're most likely familiar with Valve Software's Steam, a platform for the delivery and management of PC games.

On Tuesday, Valve announced an upgrade to "Steamworks," a suite of publishing and development tools available to, well, publishers and developers for free.

The first of the new notable features include Custom Executable Generation (CEG) technology. According to Valve, CEG makes unique copies of games for each user, allowing them to access the application on multiple machines without install limits and without having to install root kits on their PC. Players that like to play from multiple locations (home, a friend's house, and definitely not work) should find this news heartening.

Another new feature is the in-game downloadable content (DLC) and matchmaking system. Developers can now deliver new content from inside the game itself. Users can now make new content purchases and immediately experience the new content in the same same game session. Without necessitating a restart.

The new "Steamworks" matchmaking system utilizes the same lobby system used in Left 4 Dead.

These new additions are good news especially for smaller developers that need this kind of regular support from Valve, when using Steam as a distribution system.

Much more information can be found in Valve's "Steamworks" brochure.

Also, check out the Games for Windows - LIVE announcement made by Microsoft today to see if you can pick out the similarities.

For some time now I've only been a two-console owner, the PlayStation 3 and the Nintendo Wii. I received a lot of flack from co-workers and friends for not having an Xbox 360 and was even referred to as a "Sony fanboy."

Then Valve released Left 4 Dead and a group of us from the office downloaded the demo and had a little PC LAN party. From that moment I knew I had to add that game to my library; however, it was only available for the PC and Xbox 360. I was never a big PC gamer. So that left me only one option: get my hands on an Xbox 360. As fate would have it, I got one for my birthday.

I purchased Left 4 Dead. And played the hell out it; most of my friends list is compiled of people I met during online play (only the ones who healed me, and didn't leave me behind).

After a week of play and finally surviving all the campaigns, I wanted more. For some time now we've heard about an update coming as early as March or April that would bring some new life to this living dead shooter. But Thursday, IGN did a hands-on with the developers of Left 4 Dead, learned a few tricks, and posted actual game play video. First is "Survival Mode," and it's just that: the game will throw hordes and hordes of zombies at you until you die. Before the unending assault begins, players will have time to collect health kits, weapons, gasoline tanks, and other items. There's no time limit for this; the timer doesn't start until someone hits the button. Once that's done, be ready for a furious zombie onslaught.

According to IGN, "there are all sorts of personal records you can accumulate. The most obvious one is trying to get a best time for each of the 16 Survival levels in the game. There are extra incentives as well. You can earn bronze, silver, and gold medals if you survive long enough. Though the medal times for each map will be tailored for each map, right now the basic idea is that you need to survive for at least 4 minutes to get bronze, 6 minutes to get silver, and 8 minutes to get gold. Of course, online leaderboards will also let you compare your times with those of our friends for bragging rights." (In our play session, the best we ever got was within a minute of earning silver.)

The other new addition is a Versus mode for both the Death Toll and the Dead Air campaign. This allows two teams to take turns playing the survivors or zombies, in an-all out "who's the best" competition. When Left 4 Dead originally shipped, only two of its campaigns were playable in Versus mode. The upcoming update will be free for the Xbox 360 and PC,and expanding the killing fess with the addition of Death Toll and Dead Air to versus mode.

Later this week Valve Software, makers of the popular Half Life series, and the Steam software distribution system are releasing the first version of the Steam Cloud service in the demo for the upcoming cross-platform title Left 4 Dead. The service will keeps things like game saves, mouse and keyboard settings, and player profiles the same across multiple PCs.

Up until now the Steam application, which lets you use the same game license on multiple computers, required users to take and make these changes across all their devices. Announced back in March, Steam Cloud puts the onus on Valve instead, and syncs up any per-game settings changes between sessions.

In addition to the Left 4 Dead demo, which will be available this Thursday, Valve is adding Steam Cloud functionality to its entire back catalog of games, making it easier to ferry settings back and forth in case you have multiple gaming rigs. No word yet on when you'll be able to do this with (now) classics like Portal and Half Life: Episode 2.

Randy Stude, president, PC Gaming Alliance

(Credit: Intel)

Q&A At the Game Developers Conference in February, Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia, and other companies that sell PC gaming hardware and software announced the creation of the PC Gaming Alliance, an organization whose specific purpose is defending the PC as a gaming platform.

Its goals include defining an accurate scope of the PC gaming market and establishing a hardware baseline for developers to use as a reference point. We spoke with PCGA President Randy Stude, who also works for Intel as director of the Gaming Program Office, about these topics and other plans the PCGA has for the future.

Q: I think there's some confusion about what it is exactly that the PCGA intends to do.
Stude: Are you familiar with how the PC industry gets together in consortiums and sorts things out? In this case it's not really a standard necessarily. But like the Wi-Fi Alliance and other initiatives, we've got to come together as an industry. Otherwise we've got a bifurcated industry that doesn't have any consistency whatsoever and creates consumer confusion that doesn't lead to mainstream success of anything.

That's basically the elevator pitch for why everyone is sitting at the table and having this discussion. It's a little bit unique in that the focus is on a use model not a standard, and coming together and aligning to make sure that the interests of the PC game industry are heard and that consumers who may have certain issues with the PC as a platform for gaming may have those issues heard by the PC industry and dealt with as best possible.

Q: It's harder to define a usage model versus a standard, isn't it?
Stude: Very much so. It definitely strains the imagination of each of these companies that are participating. But when you start to level-set on what we're trying to do, it starts to make more sense. You have an industry that's being beat up in the Western press in terms of its health or its perceived lack of health, so we in the industry who sit back and pay for analyst reports and take a look at the numbers didn't really like the perception that we were hearing that PC gaming is on a decline. When in fact while certain markets of the PC gaming industry might be in a decline, others are sky-rocketing like never before.

So that became one of the key charters that we wanted to tackle to make sure that the data was being reported by someone in an authoritative fashion.

Q: And it's primarily this year's NPD sales figures that are behind that perception?
Stude: I chuckle when I read through the articles or opinion that say that PC gaming is in a decline and they continue to quote NPD's North American retail sales figures as the reason why they believe they're in decline.

The reason why I chuckle is that NPD decided in the first quarter of 2008 to attempt to quantify North American MMO subscription revenues. And lo and behold, after just a quarter of research, they found--under a rock that they hadn't looked at before--a billion dollars. So what does that tell you? I think they were very limited in terms of the number of games that would even support their research request, so it's not even a comprehensive review of the entire industry. A certain number of companies self-reported to NPD and the rest of the numbers were extrapolated from press releases and figures that were publicly available.

So if you add the billion dollars they claim to have found in annual subscription revenues on top of the $920 million that they were previously reporting in retail, suddenly the PC game piece of the pie is closer to a quarter of all software revenues generated in North America. That's one platform out of eight that's generating a quarter of all the revenues. There isn't another platform generating that big of a share of the pie. And that is woefully underreported at a billion dollars. That's why we're here. That's why we're trying to course-correct the research and reporting problem in PC gaming today because there are decisions that are made based on the results that NPD publishes. It impacts where publishers invest their big budgets to develop new games.

Q: Can we expect a public statement from the PCGA soon?
Stude: In August, we will announce at GCDC (Games Convention Developers Conference in Leipzig) or IDF (Intel Developers Forum) the first set of financial research for global hardware and software sales, as well as lay out the time line for when the minimum system requirements committee will have their first guidance out of their work. Those are the first two key milestones that are coming out this year. The research results will come out in August and shortly after that the system requirements.

Q: You mentioned minimum system requirements. If the PCGA comes up with a standard, what does that mean for gaming spec programs from hardware vendors, such as AMD Game?
Stude: (Nvidia's) "The way it's meant to be played," (Intel's) "Runs Great on" and "Play to Win"--you can keep going on this list, right? Just about every member of the PCGA has their own marketing program. And that's what we all agreed was potentially a confusing direction for the PC industry. If the association with PC gaming became a certain company's brand or logo and it was one logo, maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing as long as it was the right one company for us all to fairly compete with. But that isn't happening. There's enough logical resistance to every one of those brands that we just discussed to continue to create confusion within the industry.

You can't tell Blizzard, for example, that they have to be "Games for Windows" compliant. They have no reason to follow that recipe. It isn't going to impact their success with World of Warcraft. Maybe in a future title, but not today. I'm not slamming Microsoft, but there are people like that in the industry who are not going to go in that direction.

Now if the industry came out and said, "We've collectively decided that in order for a game to have a good experience on a PC this is what it should play on," then you can say that's a more ubiquitous approach. It's not any one company out for the betterment of their brand, but the industry trying to prop up one of the key areas which creates consumer confusion which is the area of minimum system requirements.

We chose that first strategically because that's what starts to define a platform. If (a game developer) wants to support this year's spec, or the first spec--we haven't decided how we're going to market that yet, the marketing committee is hard at work trying to figure that one out, too--if you look at it like "here's your starting point," if this is the lump of consumers that you're going to go after, that helps solve the confusion in video game development and it's no longer a guessing game.

The industry comes out (and) we're going to say there's this many gamers, and we're going to make a recommendation of a certain spec, and at a certain point in time we're going to say there are x number of hundreds of millions of gamers who have that spec or better.

Q: Will the various vendors need to dial down their own brands to make this work?
Stude: I don't think anyone needs to think about dial down their branding at all. I think if those who are making PCs and those who make software agree that this is the right place to start with video gaming, then what we've done is shorn up the wild wild west of the PC gaming industry that currently exists, which is "no one knows where to start." No one's coming to them as one voice saying, "Here's where PC gaming should start." Just start.

We're still going to compete for scale. There's still going to be a better and a best code path for PC gaming. That's going to be incumbent on each of the members and their desire for the developer community to decide where that better and best will end up. That's not going to change. We're all going to compete in the next two or three code paths above that. That's what defines each of our companies and our capabilities. So that will continue and everyone on the PCGA agrees that that will continue.

But there may be some games like console ports for example that previously didn't know where to go. That just say we're bringing this game to PC on the same day and date as the console release, and just to simplify things so that those who own PCs can play at the same day and date, we're just going to do a straight port, one code path, just like we do on console. And perhaps at some point in time they'll say (the) PCGA spec is the right one, the only one to port to, because they'll know there's a substantial audience and there's a consistency that the PCGA spec will bring.

Q: Do you imagine that the PCGA spec and other branding programs will co-exist?
Stude: Absolutely.

Q: Can we expect a badge for that minimum spec, like you might see on the exterior of a desktop?
Stude: The beauty of the organization is that everyone has an opinion on the way things should appear and there's open and spirited debate on multiple sub-committee and sub-sub-committee calls each and every week. Marketing the new PCGA brand, which we have settled on (as) an actual brand, or I should say a logo right now, is one we're registering as a trademark. But we're not settled as an organization yet on whether that should be a marketed brand, whether that brand should appear on game boxes, whether that brand should appear on hardware that's sold as PCGA compliant hardware. That's all in the to-be-determined stage. Right now what we're trying to do at a very minimum is make an alignment that doesn't exist today, which is to say here's what the majority thinks the minimum system requirements are, and here's how big PC gaming is. Now support PC gaming.

Q: You also have a piracy sub-committee. What kind of piracy initiatives are in the works?
Stude: What I can tell you is that we're collecting research on PC game piracy that doesn't exist today. That's the first thing we're doing, trying to have some understanding of how big it is, and then hopefully quantify the economic impact to the PC game industry. If we get to the point where we see it being an overwhelming challenge for the industry--and I would say off the top of my head that I think it is an overwhelming challenge for the industry--but if we find that we need to make certain recommendations for the future based on the size and scope of the problem, we'll go there.

We don't intend to become the police force for PC game piracy. We're not the RIAA, we're not going to become the RIAA. Rather we're a group that's trying to look out for PC gaming, and if there's a problem with it, we're going to make industry recommendations to all the members.

Q: Microsoft has made it clear that it intends to compete with Valve Software's Steam service. Do you think the industry can support two distinct download-and-community services like Steam and Games for Windows?
Stude: I've been in gaming a long time and I'm very familiar with GameSpy and their relationship with the industry for years and years, and certainly there was a lot of complaining on their part for what Microsoft was attempting to do with Games for Windows Live in particular. But how many games are supporting Games for Windows Live? Are they really a competitor? Is Games for Windows that big of an issue? Why can't they just compete? Do we really need a standard for achievements and online servers?

As long as you plug it in, the game works, and you find the service you need to find, I don't think consumers will really care. Xbox Live is a closed dance card for the Xbox platform. I don't think that methodology works on the PC. Consumers like going to Yahoo and Google. Consumers like going to ABC's Web site and NBC and CBS. Once you touch the Internet realm, I think you need to throw away your notions that everything has to be sealed and closed and locked down tight in order for it to work. That's an excuse. And that's what I consistently hear from Valve, that if developers developed games that just worked, there wouldn't be as many issues with PC gaming right now.

Q: What do you make of Valve's nonparticipation in PCGA?
Stude: I actually expect Valve to join at the right time. That what I dialogued with them about.

Kevin Unangst, Microsoft Senior Global Director, Games for Windows

(Credit: Microsoft)

Q&A Kevin Unangst, Microsoft's Senior Director of Global Gaming, hit the interview rounds starting in April, with the goal of working to dispel the myth that PC gaming is in trouble.

That idea came about in the beginning of the year following a report from NPD research showing that U.S. retail sales of PC games trailed those of games for the various consoles. As Unangst and others have pointed out since the NPD report, those figures do not take into account subscription-based PC gaming, like the World of Warcraft juggernaut, nor do they factor digital distribution from services like GameTap and Valve Software's Steam.

Over the course of Unangst's interviews, he made some interesting points about the perception of PC gaming, the adoption of DirectX 10 hardware, and Microsoft's plans for its Games for Windows Live program. We followed up with Unangst earlier this week.

When you spoke to the game blog Kotaku, you mentioned perception as one of PC gaming's biggest problems right now. Valve Software's Doug Lombardi said the same thing in an interview with Shack News. Can you elaborate?

The perception is really what's being written about in the press since the console battle began anew with the Xbox 360, the PS3, and the Wii. When the PC's written about it's "oh, wow, the PC's not selling as many copies at retail so it must be dying." That's the story that's been written about for so long and that's where the root of this perception issue comes from. And it does get a bit frustrating for folks like Valve and Microsoft, and Intel and Nvidia and others who are investing time and money and seeing new gamers and seeing PC sales increasing and seeing Direct X card sales increasing and seeing these huge revenues in online. We've seen a growth in casual games. MSN Games and PopCap are doing incredibly well on the PC, but you're not seeing a lot of coverage about that. So that's where I think the history of the perception point comes from and it's not true.

Has there been any progress towards more balanced reporting of PC gaming's financial landscape?

NPD has a new study. They're actually taking an assessment of the online space and starting to aggregate. DFC (Intelligence, a video game market research firm) has done a bunch of work there. As you look at the DFC numbers for 2007, the PC is ahead of any other platform, with $8.2 billion in worldwide game sales, with about $5 billion of that online. So in terms of raw numbers, we think the PC is still by far the leading platform when you look at the entire picture.

What do you make of the fact that 2007 was the same year Microsoft's Games for Windows retail branding program was in full swing?

I'd be interested to see what the decline might have been had we and our partners not invested. I think there is a natural shift to online that we're seeing in the PC space, and I think we still feel like with a billion-dollar opportunity sitting at retail we needed to continue to invest in building out dedicated, branded shelf space. I can't peek into what could have been, I certainly think that our investment has kept publishers and retailers devoting shelf space to the PC that they may not have otherwise, or at least attention on the PC that they might not have otherwise.

You mentioned the installed base for Direct X 10 hardware earlier, and in your interview with Kotaku you said that there are 60 million DirectX 10 parts in the marketplace right now. Is that discrete graphics cards?

That is discrete as I understand it. And potentially laptop chips, as well.

Yet the numbers on Valve's PC Hardware Survey (which catalogs system information from users of its Steam PC game download and community software) indicate that of the 1.7 million systems it sampled, 80 percent still use Windows XP, and 90 percent do not have Direct X10-capable hardware.

That like all the others is just one more stat to look at when you're measuring adoption. You have to take into account that Steam and its installed base has been very focused on Half Life and other games that are Valve's first-party IP, and we believe those survey results skew heavily towards those customers. I don't believe that any of their titles take advantage of Direct X 10 at this point, so it doesn't surprise me that they haven't seen a strong adoption rate among their core consumers. I think the (hardware) sales numbers speak for themselves as well as the numbers of titles that are shipping and the investment that the publishers continue to make.

Speaking with the game developer trade site Gamasutra, you said that Microsoft would be working to compete with Valve's Steam software by way of Games for Windows Live. You also pointed to a public development document on MSDN.com outlining the requirements for Games for Windows Live. We didn't find that, but we did find a PowerPoint presentation from this year's Game Developers Conference called Games for Windows Live: Just the Facts. That document outlines features like digital downloads, automatic game patching, and remotely storing saved games, all of which are currently available in Steam. What kind of time table does Microsoft have for adding those features to Games for Windows Live?

I don't recall the document that you're referring to, but I can speak in general that things like automatic updates are available in Games for Windows Live offered today. Those features are all part of the infrastructure that we built and it's something that we're going to build on over time. It's really been our focus to bring over as much of the platform as we can. And then build on top of that the unique experience we think Windows gamers and Windows developers are going to want. So you're going to see even more significant investment from us on Games for Windows Live. Digital distribution and things like that are certainly areas that we have talked about, that we're looking at how we build on the infrastructure and support. But today the focus is on having an identity, having a common friends list, and being able to offer in-game updates. We also have things that other services don't offer like cross-platform support with Xbox 360.

In some ways, over time, there will be competition there as we both continue to deliver on feature sets that we think developers and consumers are going to want. That said I think what Valve is doing for the PC is a great service. They're delivering great games, they're delivering an interesting set of digital content to millions of people. They've done great things for the Windows gaming ecosystem and we hope that they continue to do that.

Valve's Steam service is perhaps the best digital distribution network for downloading PC games.

(Credit: Valve)

We love it when companies just get it. Valve Software and its announcement of SteamCloud is a prime example. As reported by John Walker at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, SteamCloud will let anyone using Valve's Steam PC game download and networking service carry over saved game files, mouse, and keyboard configurations and other player-specific info regardless of where you log in. In other words, if you're at a friend's house and you want to jump into a game of Team Fortress 2 on his or her PC, all you need to do is log in to Steam and all your settings are there.

Mr. Walker outlined several other features Valve is working on for Steam, including automatic driver updates and a hardware-compatibility check to make sure your PC can play the games you're interested in before you make a purchase.

We've heard a lot of noise from other vendors, Microsoft specifically, about making it easier to play games on your PC, but no one else has come up with a solution that ties in so directly to the games you want to play. Best of all, Steam, SteamCloud, and all of Steam's community and player matching services are free via a simple download.

(Credit: Crave UK)

When you hear the word "iTube," you're probably more likely to assume it's the name of a grossly self-obsessed version of YouTube. But you'd be wrong, as fans of Fatman--the company, not the game--would tell you. The iTube 452 is in fact Fatman's uber-stylish new valve amplifier and it comes with the ValveDock for seamless integration with iPods.

Valve amps claim to offer a warmer, more natural musical sound than that from today's common transistor-based amplifiers, and they're often favored by audiophiles. With the iPod's arguably good sound quality and support for lossless audio formats, combining them with a valve amp makes a lot of sense.

This iteration of the Fatman iTube incorporates nine valves, 45 watts of power per channel and weighs a whopping 23 kilograms (about 50 pounds). It also costs an equally humongous $3,000.

There are heaps of inputs around the back, so if you want to jack in that turntable, it won't be a problem. In fact, doing so will win you serious brownie points with the audiophile elitists, who would congratulate you for being so high-fiveably analog.

We'll have a review for you as soon as Fatman gives us an iTube 452 to play with. You can check out some extra specifications on the product's Web site, or if you're looking for a much more affordable door to the valve world, take a look at the attractive Philips MCD908. Watch this space, transistor haters.

(Source: Crave UK)