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If you didn’t backflip while juggling in Half-Life: Alyx, did you really play it at all?
I was gearing up for a second playthrough of Half-Life: Alyx this weekend. I really wanted to use the physics engine to have a little fun this time around, so I took a peek at some inspirational Let's Plays to see what I could try. Then I uninstalled Alyx and put my headset away. I can't even juggle in the real world, never mind doing…
Team Fortress 2’s Soldier voice actor has passed away with coronavirus
Rick May, the voice of Team Fortress 2’s Soldier, has died after contracting Covid-19 virus. He was 79. He voiced several game characters in his career, notably Peppy Hare in the Starfox games, but he was best known as the growly, rocket-toting military man in Valve’s online shooter.
Now you can beat Half-Life: Alyx without VR thanks to this mod
It was only a matter of time. Shortly after Half-Life: Alyx's release, modders were already tinkering with ways to play Alyx without VR. Now there's a mod that will actually let you complete the game entirely with a regular display, though it sounds like a slightly finicky experience. This likely won't be the end of the road for VR-less Alyx, but it's certainly a milestone.
Sandboxes are made for playing in and it's no wonder players are eager to get their hands dirty. Half-Life: Alyx has some of the most satisfying physics, and the level-editing tools Valve had planned to release with the VR game are sure to inspire some creativity. The Hammer editor didn't launch with Alyx as intended, but a Valve member has shared that it's the team's…
A month before Half-Life: Alyx, Valve’s Index headset is still sold out
Half-Life: Alyx is barely a month out now, scheduled to release on March 23rd. When it was originally announced as a VR-only title, Valve's own Index VR headset quickly flew off physical shelves and was entirely sold out online by mid-January in all 31 countries where it's sold. As reported by Road To VR, the Index is still all but sold out globally.
F-Stop, the secret mechanic of Valve’s unreleased Portal prequel, has finally been revealed
Just after Portal 2 was released, Valve and Geoff Keighley also released The Final Hours of Portal 2, an interactive book about the making of 2011’s best potato-based puzzle game. The most revealing story in the book was about how Valve had spent some time making a game that was Portal’s follow-up in name only. It was set in the past, without Chell or the…
Feature: Death of a gamepad
Right now, there’s a room in Buffalo Grove, Illinois that's as quiet as a grave. The power is off, the robotic limbs are becalmed, and the once thumping presses are depressed. The Steam Controller assembly room is assembling no more, and with the recent Steam sale clearing out all the stock, the grand experiment is over. It’s the final part of Valve’s great Steam Machines…
Feature: Is there such a thing as too much Freeman?
We've seen how much damage one theoretical physicist can do. Sven Co-op lets you unleash the vortex of chaos of a dozen Free Men (and women) upon Half-Life. Once just a mod enabling you to play the classic FPS with pals, it received Valve's blessings to go free and standalone on Steam in 2016, bundled with a free copy of the original Half-Life re-tooled for multiplayer.…
Dota Underlords, Valve’s take on Auto Chess, is now free for all
With today's exceptionally quick launch of Dota Underlords, I finally understand Valve Time. When unhurried, the studio takes longer, compressing the excess time for use later. When they need to hustle to get a game out of the door before the competition heats up? They reverse the valves and work like demons. At least, that's how I'm explaining it. Underlords is a turn-based tactical deckbuilder…
Feature: The mods are waiting for you, in the test chamber...
Half-Life 2 is nearly fifteen years old now, and despite Valve's sequel plans seemingly fizzling out, it doesn't look a day over ten thanks to the efforts of modders. Chances are that Half-Life 2 and its expansions have been gathering dust on your Steam account for years now, so here's a quick refresher -- mostly focused on the past five years -- on what's available,…
Steam dusts off some free weekends for the Spring Cleaning Event
Valve are joining all those great internet thought-leaders and telling you to clean your room, or at the very least to play the games that you've bought on Steam. Running this weekend until May 28th, 6pm GMT, the Steam Spring Cleaning Event provides a front-page checklist of games to try or return to, and rewarding the diligent with goodies to decorate their account page with.All…
Valve on Assassin’s Creed, Notre Dame and “positive” review bombing
When Valve implemented Steam's anti-review-bombing policy in March - manual exclusion of "off topic" review clusters from a game's overall score - they'd not given much thought to what a 'positive' review bomb could look like. Just one month later, Notre Dame cathedral goes up in holy smoke and Ubisoft bring in a flood of positive press (and reviews) for Assassin's Creed Unity through a…
Feature: Points win invites to win prizes!
With the biggest event in the competitive Dota 2 [official site] calendar – The International 2017 – due to take place next month, it might be a little early to start thinking about The International 2018. Unless, that is, you’re Valve, who have revealed a massive overhaul to how the entire next professional season will play out. Here's an in-depth look at why these changes…
Feature: Something fishy
Remember how Dota 2's current seasonal Battle Pass/money pit has an under the sea theme? WELL, my Battle Pass is now sufficiently levelled up that I can swap the usual map with its trees and woodland wildlife for an underwater variant called Reef's Edge! After booting up a game replay I swapped to the free camera mode, ditched the HUD elements that were getting in…
Ooooh! The first part of Dota 2 [official site] co-op campaign, Siltbreaker, has arrived! Act 1: The Sands of Fate is the game's first co-op multiplayer campaign (unless you count crowding round a screen with a friend to take turns playing Warcraft 3 or something).
Hot on the heels of his hero Erik Wolpaw, Valve's VR top-dog and grizzled bossman Chet Faliszek has announced that he's leaving the company. Amicably, he claims, but anyone who's ever met him will know that's not possible.
Here's a joke you can borrow for when you're necking jars and dropping bantbombs with the lads tonight:Q: What do Gargamel and Dota 2 Ranked matchmaking have in common? A: They both hate smurfs.Steel yourself for some jolly vigorous high-fives from the lads there.To crack down on Doters playing across multiple accounts, Valve will soon start requiring players register a phone number to play Ranked…
It looks like Valve are experimenting with machine learning to deal with cheating in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site]. The snippet of insight comes from a Reddit thread about spinbots in Valve's first-person shooter. The gist is that Valve are investigating using an artificial intelligence system capable of constantly retraining itself to spot cheaters and try to stay ahead in the cheat creation/cheat detection arms…
Valve has announced that the iconic Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site] map, Dust2 will be removed from active duty and replaced with the Inferno map. Dust2 will still be playable, but it exists as a separate map group for the casual and deathmatch game modes. As a result of this swap, you'll no longer see Dust2 in professional esports tournaments.
We can all agree that the Christmas season doesn't begin just because John Lewis tries to punch you in the heart or because Ian Starbucks cracks open the syrups again. That's crass commercialism denigrating the season where people buy me presents. No, the only corporation I trust managing Christmas is Valve Corporation, who each year put cute little festive jumpers on the chickens in Counter-Strike:…
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