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Valve Tweaks Team Fortress 2

Shiva Stella — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:22:17 -0600

News of Valve releasing an update for its popular Team Fortress 2 is hitting the Web, and if you're interested in what gameplay tweaks have been made you can view them below or at the link.

Added new option for medigun beam to the Multiplayer-Advanced dialog. If on, the medigun beam will stay attached to the current target without the need to hold down the fire button
Added new option for the sniper rifle to the Multiplayer-Advanced dialog. If disabled, the sniper rifle won't re-zoom after firing a zoomed shot
Added "nextlevel" server cvar. If set to a valid map name, server will change to that map during the next changelevel
Fixed PerfUI being used as a type of wall-hack on servers without sv_cheats set to 1
Reduced Granary spawn advantage for capping the middle point
Fixed players turning into "Scout" model after lagouts (and a variety of related issues, such as disappearing doors)
Fixed obscure crash related to resolution changing
Gave machinima creators access to "tf_testvcd" and "tf_testrr"commands for playing scenes on characters
SDK Launcher now has a drop list of engine versions in addition to a drop list of games/mods. This eliminates the need to specify engine version as a launch option

Valve Invites Gamers to Suggest Improvements for Orange Box

Shiva Stella — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 16:25:50 -0600

In more interesting Valve news (Valve being one of the few developing houses who actually seems to care about what its fans think of its games), the company has invited Orange Box owners to suggest "changes and tweaks" in this forum post.

If you've played through Orange Box (which received GameBump's Game of the Year 2007 award) and had some ideas for improvements, now is the perfect time to let Valve know.

[GOTY] Best Game of 07: The Orange Box

Aaron Dunlap — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:37:52 -0600

Despite what some award-show winners have to say, this wasn't a very excellent year for games. Think of the biggest, most-anticipated games of 2007 and think about how they turned out.

Halo 3 was probably the most anticipated game, and while its multiplayer component is pretty expansive, the single-player campaign (you know, the reason most of us buy a video game) was mediocre and occasionally downright boring. Assassin's Creed was another hugely-anticipated game, and it had the graphics and control scheme we all wanted, but in the midst of making all that it seems that Ubisoft forgot to throw in an actual game. What about Crysis? One of the most-hyped PC releases by the Microsoft camp? It sold less than 90,000 copies in its launch window.

Only a few of the anticipated games of the year really met anybody's expectations. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is, well, it's Call of Duty 4. You guys seemed to really eat up BioShock, too. Super Mario Galaxy is amazing as well. Our Game of the Year award is supposed to be about innovation, though, and aside from being very well-made products, what this year has really innovated things?

What about The Orange Box? Was anybody really excited for that? Were leaked screenshots filtering onto the web and rumors flying like they were for Halo 3? Not so much. People weren't really lined up the block to get them some Orange Box. Without much fanfare, it just... arrived. And when it did, our eyes were opened.

The Orange Box has three primary components and two secondary components. The big ticket items are: Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. The not-so-big-deal items are Half-Life 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode One. That alone is pretty innovative. For your $50-60, you're getting 3 new (albeit short) games, one somewhat-new (new for consoles) game, and one game that happens to be one of the top-5 games ever made. How often does that happen, a game's expansion pack coming out and including the full game and the previous expansion pack plus two ancillary games that are downright genius by themselves?

Portal, though brief (for most people), is a brilliant game. At heart it's a simple puzzle game, but through unique means it is given more character than most full-sized games. The cake is a lie, I'm still alive, weighted companion cubes, this game has produced more internet memes per hour of gameplay than any other game could ever hope to achieve. It's complex and simple simultaneously, beautiful and ugly at the same time, charming and depressing in the same moment. The concept of portals is intriguing and a technological marvel, but it would be quite simple to make 19 levels of portal-puzzles become a boring heap.

Half-Life 2: Episode Two is another giant leap forward for the Half-Life 2 franchise. The Source engine has been spruced up with new dynamic lighting effects, a particle physics system, and a new graphics system to allow for beautifully expansive vistas to be rendered in real-time. The way the story unfolds around you and the ingenious-as-ever level designs are all top rate. People who haven't played Half-Life 2 get confused when people like me go on about how amazing the level design is, but once you've had a taste for Valve's work you can't stomach anything lesser. Play through Episode One, Episode Two, and Portal with the creator commentary system enabled and you'll understand just how much thought and work went into nearly every element of the gameplay design. Valve's games get months and months of testing and tightening before they see the light of day, and it all shows. The sheer level of quality in any of these games is just staggering when compared to the sloppy layouts, imprecise goals, and backtracking you find in most modern games.

It's a congested season for online multiplayer games. Halo 3 with its mega-millions user base is probably the most-played game right now and Call of Duty 4 with its perhaps-superior online element is drawing a lot of players, but Team Fortress 2 is still wedging its way into the market. Perhaps the longest-developed multiplayer game we're likely to see for a while, TF 2 has as much character as any other Valve game. It's not Counter-Strike in terms of repressed teenagers working out their social issues with actual guns, it's something better. It's something for everyone. Everyone who likes shooting folks, at least.

Let's not forget Half-Life 2 and Episode One and the fact that The Orange Box is available for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, so for the people who aren't PC gamers, this could be their first chance to play these games. That in mind, there's dozens of hours of offline gameplay in this box. It's easy to discount an "old" game as not being worth anybody's time, but Half-Life 2 should be above such trivialities, being again one of the best games ever made.

If I can talk for a moment about the endings of Episode Two and Portal, sure they're not exactly the definition of "closure," but they're also not shameless, unsatisfying, "Buy the sequel" endings we're getting from nearly every game this year, from Assassin's Creed to Unreal Tournament III to Crysis . There's a difference between leaving the people wanting more and simply forgetting to include an ending. The Valve products leave you wanting more, the other games just destroy any sense of finality to the ending and kick you in the shins for having the audacity to become attached to the story.

So our Game of the Year is a compilation of 5 other games, partly because each game is an amazing product on its own, partly because the whole concept of packaging them all together is pretty innovative, and partly still because it's one of the few games of the year that didn't leave me disappointed or annoyed after it all. If I could instigate any change to the gaming industry, it would be more play-testing.

Most games these days are only play-tested while they're being developed to make sure there's no glaring bugs preventing the game from working, and as soon as the game is done it's stamped on a disk and rushed to stores via overnight shipping. Some games get a few weeks of post-completion play-testing, if there's time. Episode Two and Portal were play-tested for six months, deadlines and launch windows be-damned. They're not just looking for bugs and glitches, but seeing how people play the game, making sure they understand what they're supposed to be doing. If a goal is ambiguous, or if people are frustrated by an element, they change that part of the game to make sure everything is as clear and as fun as possible. Play through the games with the commentary enabled to hear just how much work goes into each element.

If Assassin's Creed had been play-tested for six months, I imagine I would hate it a lot less. They might have had time to realize that the gameplay is extremely tedious and overly-repetitive , that the game spends the first 6 hours telling you to avoid sword fights and the last hour putting you in nothing but sword fights, that the plot is ridiculous and impossible to follow, and that everybody is talking way too much. If Kane & Lynch: Dead Men had received any play-testing, they might have been able to do something about the entire game being a train wreck.

If anything, The Orange Box and Valve deserve Game of the Year just for striving for quality in a time when doing so is unfashionable, but they're getting it for reaching quality in a time when it's seen as too much work.

[GOTY] Best Shooter of 07: Call of Duty 4

Aaron Dunlap — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:49:18 -0600

Our Single Player Review (*****)
Our Multiplayer Review (*****)

Why It Won: Call of Duty was already an established series by the time Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare came around. After Treyarch's Call of Duty 3, many had thought the series had caught the "sequel syndrome" that plagues almost any big studio franchise that gets a new installment each year, each game becoming just another iteration of the previous with one or two features interesting enough to be mentioned on the back of the game's box. Boy were we ever wrong.

Call of Duty 4 isn't a greatly ambitious game. It didn't have the mega-millions advertising budget of Halo 3, it didn't have the Ayn Rand-ian objectivist overtones of BioShock, and it didn't really require that you go out and buy a new $4,000 computer to run it like Crysis. The scale of the game itself is somewhat large but it's no Earth-vs-Aliens. What the game lacks in scope, however, it makes up for in pure quality. Call of Duty 4 is a fun game, a well-made game, and a rewarding game. From the first mission you're sucked into the world of modern Special Forces and you're never let go.

The single player mode may be relatively brief but there are no dull moments. This game doesn't sag during the middle and the ending doesn't disappoint. You can't say that about many games these days. There's no backtracking or boring missions stuck into the middle to give the game length, and there's no abrupt, "Buy the sequel!" ending. How refreshing is that?

The multiplayer mode, something that could be easy to overlook, is so amazingly intelligent that it rivals and, in my opinion, tops Halo 3's online mode. I've waited my whole life for a game that rewards experimentation with multiple weapons and playtypes instead of letting people get stick to one tactic and dominate anybody else. It's here, and it's fantastic.

Call of Duty 4 is what I want from future games. It shirks trendy gameplay gimicks and instead focuses on being the best at what it does.

Why You May Disagree: I've heard some complaints about the lack of tactical elements, such as the ability to issue commands to squad members or a cover system where you can press against walls and fire around corners. You know, like every other game made in the last three years. Some Halo kids take offense to our claims that Call of Duty 4's online play is better than Halo 3's.

But We Say: Just because the only way to get a military shooter not set in 1940s Europe used to be in the form of the a Tom Clancy tactical squad-based game, it doesn't mean things have to stay like that. Call of Duty has never been a tactical game, so why should they start now just because that's what everybody else is doing? Some people don't like those kind of games. Some people just want a straightforward shooter where the only weapons aren't an M1 Garand and American pride. Too often games have these features and ride them to death. The Brothers in Arms games that featured squad commands, how many times did they shove it in your face? Rather than becoming a one-trick pony and a slave to one or two gimmicks, Call of Dut 4 focuses on overall quality and not marketing bullet points. To the multiplayer naysayers, I suggest they give the game a fair try. If anything, they probably find it too difficult because they can't jump around and obliterate an entire enemy team with a shotgun and an oversheild.

Runners Up:

Halo 3 - One of the most advertised, best selling titles of this year-slash-lifetime, Halo 3 has a lot of quality features. Unfortunately, none of them are in the campaign mode. It's reasonable that Bungie figured everybody would be buying the game for the multiplayer, but all twelve of us who were more interested to see what a bloated, runaway development budget could do for single player games were rather disappointed. This category is about the overall shooter experience, and a good multiplayer mode with a mediocre campaign mode does not a Best Shooter make.

The Orange Box - Valve's amalgomated parcel of gaming value known as The Orange Box is an extremely good gaming experience, but unfortunately the definitions for the Best Shooter category nearly exclude it. Portal is more of an adventure/puzzle game than a shooter, and Half-Life 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode One all released before this year. For new content, that only leaves Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Team Fortress 2. Those two are great, but compared to Call of Duty 4 they don't quite make it.

BioShock - This steam-punk underwater adventure is a critical and financial success, but not many of the staff here at GameBump were quite as impressed as everybody else. Personally, the ridiculously short supply of ammunition early in the game when enemies are attacking you from all sides is what broke the experience for me. Sure it had storytelling, and impressive visuals, but I didn't have much fun finding them. Managing Editor Shiva Stella says the game isn't even a shooter and that I'm wasting my time writing this paragraph.

Check out the Game of the Year 2007 Homepage.

Games Radar's Worst Box Art of 2007

Aaron Dunlap — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:28:31 -0600

For those of us who don't obsessively follow the gaming industry and have a list of all upcoming titles stapled to the insides of our thighs (by "us" we mean "our parents), a game's box art can make or break the game. It's what draws the consumer to pick up the box and turn it around to see what it's about.

Sometimes publishers will either forget that, or not care enough to put any effort into the design. Perhaps they throw a generic-looking robot under a logo and drown it in Photoshop flare filters.

Games Radar has compiled a list of 15 of the worst box art designs of 2007, which includes everything from that John Deere game to The Orange Box. Grab your eye bleach and take a gander.

Spike VGA 2007 Award Winners

Tim Grube — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 10:47:04 -0600

The 5th annual Spike Video Game Awards show doesn't air till tonight at 9pm EST, but the winners have "somehow" made its way into my inbox this morning. The show is being held in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Events Resort and Casino. I honestly thought Halo 3 would hit the Game of the Year, but I never expected Skate to be in the best Sports game category.

But anywho, check out the full list below!

GAME OF THE YEAR
BioShock

STUDIO OF THE YEAR
Harmonix

BEST SHOOTER
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision/ Infinity Ward)

BEST RPG
Mass Effect (Microsoft Game Studios/ BioWare)

BEST MILITARY GAME
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Activision/ Infinity Ward)

BEST INDIVIDUAL SPORTS GAME
Skate (Electronic Arts/ EA Black Box)

BEST HANDHELD GAME
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo/ Nintendo)

BEST GRAPHICS
Crysis (Electronic Arts/ Crytek)

BEST GAME BASED ON A MOVIE OR TV SHOW
The Simpsons Game (Electronic Arts/ EA Redwood Shores)

BEST RHYTHM GAME
Rock Band (MTV Games/ Harmonix)

BEST DRIVING GAME
DiRT (Codemasters/ Codemasters)

BEST ACTION GAME
Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo/ Nintendo)

BEST TEAM SPORTS GAME
Madden NFL 08 (Electronic Arts/ EA Tiburon)

BEST SOUNDTRACK
Rock Band (MTV Games/ Harmonix)

BREAKTHROUGH TECHNOLOGY
The Orange Box/ Portal (Valve/ Valve)

BEST XBOX 360 GAME
BioShock

BEST WII GAME
Super Mario Galaxy (Nintendo/ Nintendo)

BEST PS3 GAME
Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (Sony Computer Entertainment/
Insomniac Games)

BEST PC GAME
The Orange Box (Valve/ Valve)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
BioShock

BEST MULTI-PLAYER GAME
Halo 3 (Microsoft Game Studios/ Bungie Studios)

MOST ADDICTIVE VIDEO GAME FUELED BY DEW
Halo 3 (Microsoft Game Studios/ Bungie Studios)

New Orange Box Demo Today

Shiva Stella — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 14:48:36 -0600

Reports are surfacing that a new demo for The Orange Box is releasing on the Xbox Live service.

The demo features Half-Life 2, Episode Two and should be available sometime today. For the ignorant among the masses, The Orange Box contains the following:

Half-Life 2, Episode One
Half-Life 2, Episode Two
Portal
Team Fortress 2