The PC Centric Extravaganza 3rd June 2008
Posted by Chris Evans on 06.02.2008
Previews, Reviews, Steam and Ubidays!
The PC Centric Extravaganza 3rd June 2008
Welcome!
Welcome to another edition of the PC Centric Extravaganza, the best place on the entire web (disclaimer: may or may not be true!) to keep in touch with the latest PC goings on! This week we have some interesting Valve and Steam related news, videos and reviews and previews. Lets get on with it!
Steamcloud
I read two fantastic pieces on Rock, Paper, Shotgun this week, the first is a live-blogging of a mini-conference at Valve and the second is the more detailed roundup of the first piece. The premise is that Valve invited a select group of PC journo's to their HQ to talk about some stuff. Boy is it clear that Valve love the PC as a platform and are willing to stand up and fight for the PC against the recent claims that PC gaming is dying.
Steamcloud is evidently the most interesting and exciting piece of news to come out of this Valve event. Steamcloud takes the idea of being able to play your Steam games anywhere and evolves it, big time. Steamcloud is going to provide save games, control configurations and pretty much any player controlled information is going to be available anywhere and anytime. This will start off with Half-Life and Left 4 Dead will also feature Steamcloud on launch. Imagine picking up Half-Life again in a few months time after getting distracted by Left 4 Dead and pick up from where you were on any PC. That is great.
Driver Auto-Updating and System Checking are two other big things to emerge. While information is still sparse right now basically Valve are going to include driver updates into Steam and include a system checking tool which will analyze your PC and recommend whether a game will be playable on your system or not.
Selling wise it emerges that Valve boss Gabe Newell is actively pursuing developers who do not make their games available worldwide and that they feel many are still nervous about Steam and its potential. Gabe and Jason Holtman are keen to see whole back catalogues of games appear on Steam if only they can convince developers it is a good idea. There are also plans to allow games to be bought in local currencies to bring improvements to the shopping cart and much more.
Those are just some of the key features I have picked out, read the RPS Live Blog and Full Overview for more details.
Pretty much this is all great, Steamcloud is the perfect next direction for Steam to go, people will always be connected to their game no matter where they are or what machine they are on. A really logical and greatly desired new feature, I personally can't wait. It is also great to see Valve really standing up for the PC.
Trials 2 – Patch'd and Steam'd
The Patch
Ahh Trials 2 how I loved you. Alas I have left you these past few months, left you by the wayside and ignored you, ignored you until I went back to your website today and lo! I read that you have been patched again.
It has been a while since I last talked about Trials 2, in that time the game has been taken on by GamersGate and has an 84 on Metacritic.
What does this new version bring us then? Apart from the usual bug fixes and other small tweaks there has been a massively overhauled tutorial mode. There are now seven purpose built tutorial tracks designed to teach new riders the basics of the game. Alongside these new tutorial tracks are two new downloadable tracks available. Trials 2 now boasts 51 tracks!
The full list of changes can be found here and the demo can be grabbed from the website.
First impressions of the latest patch = good! The tutorial mode is much improved and everything seems more polished.
The list of changes between the normal and the new Steam version follow.
- Steam UI integration (open Steam UI popup with shift + tab). Steam automatically handles features such as managing your friends, and displaying a info popup when a friend logs in and out or starts playing Trials 2.
- Steam friends list and the Trials 2 profiles of your Steam friends accessible in game (Teams & Friends menu)
- Track record list filtering by Stream friend list.
- Steam player custom avatar icon is visible on Trials 2 profile screen for Steam players.
- All achievements gained in Trials 2 and your Trials 2 playtime and experience show in your own Steam user page, and is visible to all other Steam users.
- Our current (licence key based) activation system has been replaced by Steam DRM system. Also on Steam version we release new tracks using the Steam content upgrade feature. Same tracks will be available on both versions.
I think it is time for me to download this on Steam to enjoy all these new benefits! Can't wait to show off how many bones I have broken in Trials 2 to everyone on my Steam list!
Ubidays 2008
Far Cry 2 – Ubidays ‘Preview' Video
This following trailer was released prior to Ubidays 2008 and is just a teaser of what was to come. In the trailer a 'Reuben Oluwagembi' talks to us about the nature of the game world we will be entering in FarCry 2. This Reuben chap has a blog here which throws some interesting insights into the FarCry 2 world.
Ubidays Proper
Ubidays 2008 has been and gone and there has been some great new stuff that has emerged from it. I guess the biggest news for many is the following trailer which is showing off Beyond Good and Evil 2. Watch it, now!
That is pretty much it for BG&E2, I never played the original, though I probably should find time to do so soon as it is said to be very, very good. Seeing as BG&E arrived through my door earlier today I think I will need to get cracking and give it a play. Should be good!
In other Ubidays news we have this stunning Tech Demo for Far Cry 2. Just look at those fire effect, they are gorgeous!
Creative Director Clint Hocking talks about the development and story of the game.
This goes hand-in-hand with this CVG interview with a group of leading men on the Far Cry 2 project. In the interview they reveal that we can expect over 50 hours of singleplayer action though there will be no co-operative play. It also emerges that they have managed to play the game on a four year old PC, this scalability was helped by the development of the console versions of Far Cry 2.
We also have new footage for Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway. This footage looks fantastic yet brings back memories of the first Brother in Arms which I just could not get the grip of. Will I check it out if there is a demo? Yes. Will I be rushing out to get it? No, it just does not get me in the same way Far Cry 2 does.
If this weeks column seems a bit light, well I apologise but I have been doing some hard grafting! I have got things sorted out with GAME here in the UK so hopefully some more of my work will be going up on their website, I also did a preview of Race Driver GRID for 411 and you can expect another review of something to appear later this week.
If you just want to see some wrecks, then drive into anything and everything, smoke, wheels, bodywork and glass will appear and fill the screen. The cars all take realistic damage in real time and they look like they have taken a beating. Even if you crash by accident then you can use the nifty Instant Replay feature which allows you to rewind time, Prince of Persia style to before the incident allowing you to avoid that spectacular crash.
After much tooing and frowing and back and forth'ness my review of Dawn of War: Soulstorm has finally been published on GAME.com
Due to some issues of not being a GAME employee it has been published as a 'Featured Customer Review.' But don't worry it is mine! I say things such as:
The latest 'expandalone' from Relic and Iron Lore in the Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War series, Soulstorm is the third expansion for Dawn of War and is potentially the biggest one yet. Introducing two new armies and a massive new single-player campaign this is an immense proposition.
Soulstorm builds on the same basic principles of all the games in the Dawn of War franchise, build your base, attack using cover, capture control points and crush the enemy. Subtle differences in gameplay arrive with the introduction of the two new races and the addition of flying units.
