ARMA 2 Update Released

Updates to ARMA 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Engine

• New: Functions getPosATL and setPosATL to allow controlling position relative to terrain.
  
• New: command line option -showScriptErrors introduced to show errors in scripts on-screen
  
• New: Direct analogue throttle and brake for airplanes now available.
  
• New: More flexible configuration of Flares in the config (brightness, size)
  
• New: Mission name (with * indicated unsaved work) displayed in the mission editor
  
• New: Keyboard shortcuts in the mission editor
  
• Improved: better handling of gravitation for shots (esp. for grenades)
  
• Improved: Building destruction
  
• Improved: Better airplane HUD visibility both night and day
  
• Optimization: Reduced frame stutter near map borders.
  
• Hotfix: Players are forced to reconnect after MP Load on server.
  
• Fixed: no particles effect when hit object with destructNo
  
• Fixed: grenade could destroy a building just by impact
  
• Fixed: grenades may explode only on the final impact
  
• Fixed: when a grenade bounces on a ship deck, the proper particle effects is shown now
  
• Fixed: missiles should pass through vegetation
  
• Fixed: Player connected to loaded game was sometimes frozen.
  
• Fixed: Game crashed when launched on a system with more then 8 CPUs/cores.
  
• Fixed: Possible crash with laser designator active.
  
• Fixed: Sometimes crew of a close vehicle was visible through the vehicle.
  
• Fixed: Infinite looping of commands 'Stop' in radio.
  
• Fixed: Leaning 'limits' do not work in TrackIR.
  
• Fixed: Clients were often endlessly stuck in 'Receiving...' window after MP Load.
  
• Fixed: Rainbow could be visible even with sun below horizon.
  
• Fixed: 3D Editor - civilian and resistance units did not work correctly
  
• Fixed: Sea surface was not rendered in NE area out of map.
  
• Fixed: Terrain surface was sometimes using wrong parallax map.
  
• Fixed: Grenade could sometimes destroy a building just by impact
  
• Fixed: Radio messages sometimes echoed
  
• Fixed: Team switch did not work when player died
  
• Fixed: Reduced AI detecting slowly moving enemy vehicles by ear.
  
• Fixed: Prevent killed AI units reporting who killed them.
  
• Fixed: After respawn in MP, player's tasks, diary content and skills are transferred to the new entity
  
• Fixed: Leaning 'limits' did not work with TrackIR
  
• Fixed: MP client frozen in Receiving... screen sometimes
  
• Fixed: Problems with saving and loading games in cooperative campaign
  

Missions

• Fixes and improvements in most of the campaign missions (Into the Storm, Harvest Red, Bitter Chill, Manhattan, Badlands, Dogs of War)
  
• Improved: autosave logic to not save when it was not safe
  
• Improved: Eye for an Eye in Scenarios
  

Modules

• Fixed: Warfare fast travel on clients was not using logistic values
  
• Fixed: Warfare money sending
  
• Fixed: Warfare HQ multiple reports
  
• Fixed: First-Aid: Action module caused healing scripts to run twice
  
• Fixed: Supply drop not ending (wrong vehicle class)
  
• New: First-Aid modules work with respawn
  
• New: First-Aid ability to stop healing
  
• New: Added ability to add Support Requests that do not expire.
  
• Improved: First-Aid modules more robust and faster
  
• Improved: Better support for side Resistance in SOM / ACM.
  

Data

• Fixed: Invisible driver in UAZ (MG and GL)
  
• Fixed: AI soldiers were able to hear extremely well
  
• Fixed: various minor problems on buildings
  
• Fixed: rocks destruction effect changed
  
• Fixed: penetrability of some vegetation
  
• Fixed: collision geometry of A_BuildingWIP
  
• Fixed: react FSM core conversations
  
• Fixed: cargo animations in LAV25
  
• Fixed: indicators in Ka52 when using NVG
  
• Fixed: cargo animations in BTR
  
• Fixed: Warfare keypoint on Chernarus

Planned Downtime on Thursday, August 6th

Beginning at 6:00 pm Pacific time Thursday August 6th, we will be performing software maintenance on some Steam servers. We expect the resulting downtime to last three hours at most, putting the end of the window at 9:00 pm Pacific time. Some Steam services will be offline during this time. Affected services will include the Steam Community, in-game matchmaking or lobbies, downloading games from Steam content servers, and making purchases from the Steam store. Games that do not rely on Steam matchmaking services should remain playable.

News updates and any further information will be posted in this space. We will work to make this downtime as short as possible. Thank you for your patience!

Now on Steam - Foreign Legion: Buckets of Blood - Save 25%!

Foreign Legion: Buckets of Blood is a cartoon-style third-person shooter that looks like a lot of fun! Fill buckets, earn Steam Achievements and move up the Leader-boards.

Sakari Indie is releasing Foreign Legion for the PC and you can only get it on Steam. To celebrate, save 25% until August 11! That is a lot of buckets of cartoon blood for not a lot of money.

More Left 4 Dead DLC Announced

Crash Course Campaign Due in September August 4, 2009 - Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Half-Life,Portal, Team Fortress, and Counter-Strike) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced the next major downloadable content (DLC) update for its co-operative zombie thriller, Left 4 Dead (L4D), the #1 new game title on Xbox 360 and PC in 2008 Entitled "Crash Course," the latest DLC delivers new single-player, multiplayer and co-operative gameplay to both platforms. Targeted for release in September, "Crash Course" bridges the gap between the end of the "No Mercy" campaign and the beginning of "Death Toll" in the original game, expanding the game universe with new locations, new dialogue from the original cast, and an explosive finale

While containing both Survival maps and a Co-operative Campaign, the primary goal of "Crash" is to deliver a complete Versus mode experience in just 30 minutes, resulting in a streamlined version of the game's existing Versus campaigns. A recharge timer for infected teammates has also been added, and item spawn behavior has changed for more balanced gameplay. "Since the release of Left 4 Dead last November, the design team has been excited about creating new experiences for this world and allowing players to do the same, by releasing much of our internal toolset, like the Survival Pack and Authoring Tools," said Gabe Newell. "We're working with the fans toward the ongoing entertainment value of the product." Left 4 Dead is an action horror game from Valve that blends the social entertainment experience of multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike and Team Fortress with the dramatic, narrative experience made popular in single player action game classics such as the Half-Life series of games. Released in November of 2008, L4D has earned over 50 industry awards from outlets around the world and sold almost 3 million copies worldwide. Left 4 Dead: Crash Course is targeted for release in September and will be available free of charge on the PC and for 560 Gamer points on Xbox Live. For more information, please visit www.l4d.com

Left 4 Dead 2 Summer Tour Begins

First Stop: Comic Con

During the San Diego Comic Con gamers had an opportunity to visit us in our Left 4 Dead 2 room and try out two L4D2 levels from the "Swamp Fever" campaign. The response was overwhelming, with lines going out the door well before we opened. Throughout the four days that the demo was made available, there was never an empty seat.

Thousands of new L4D2 t-shirts were given out to players—some lucky gamers waiting in line even had their zombie portraits drawn by Andrea Wicklund, an artist on the L4D team. We also had an area on the show floor that was visited by NBC's Zachary Levi from Chuck. Zach was well versed in L4D and had no troubles leading his team to safety, even while being attacked by a costumed Smoker.

Thanks to everyone who visited during Comic Con. Next stop will be thePenny-Arcade Expo (PAX) on Sept 4th. If you want an early peek at Left 4 Dead 2, make sure to book your trip to PAX today.

Trackmania United Forever 50% off

For one week only, save 50% off Trackmania United Forever.

Drive at mind-blowing speed on over 250 spectacular tracks. Soaring jumps, loops, hairpin bends, turbo boosts, track-breakers, rails and ramps... every track delivers a new and intense experience, offering sensational gaming across single and multiplayer modes.

Order of War Demo Now Available

The official Order of War Demo is now available on Steam.

This real-time strategy game from Square Enix, Inc. is slated to release this September. Until then, be sure to check out the single-player demo, where you'll experience WWII warfare on an epic, cinematic stage that truly captures the intensity and scale of the battlefield.

Left 4 Dead Update Released

Updates to Left 4 Dead have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Left 4 Dead

• Added packet limit to help users with AT&T Speedstream routers sometimes getting disconnected
  
• Added mm_server_search_inet_ping_window convar, which can be used to further reduce packet burst when contacting Left 4 Dead servers

Pre-purchase 2 new sci-fi games from 3000A.D. - Save 10% - 20%

New Steam partner 3000A.D. is making two of its newest games available for pre-purchase today. All Aspect Warfare and Angle of Attack. Play the demos today for free!
Save 10% on each or 20% if you get both in the All Aspect War Pack before August 10th.

AssociatedPress: 'Left 4 Dead 2' Rises in November

AP's weekly Video Game Video previews the co-op zombie killing game "Left 4 Dead 2," set in the South and rising in November on Xbox 360 and PC. (July 31)

Left 4 Dead 2's... Racist Undertone?

A blog post on the Huston Chronicle website has sparked some controversy on the "rascist" label that the post's author, Willie Jefferson, had given to Left 4 Dead 2. The original post, posted a few weeks ago, states the following (in regards to Mr. Jefferson's views that racism is becoming "the norm" in games):

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.

The blog post goes into the author's views on how it's unacceptable to portray certain topics in gaming (i.e. the American Civil War, specifically in Call of Juarez 2) while others (i.e. Nazism and the Second World War) are acceptable. In a short interview withDestructoid.com, Valve's Chet Faliszek responds to the accusation as "utterly insane" and goes on to state:

"... As far as Katrina goes, if you go down to New Orleans, Katrina's still going on. I mean, it's messed up, it is crazy that the city is still in the state it's in, and we treat that with the utmost respect. Our CEDA thing is not some subversive commentary on anything. This is a videogame, those are real people's lives, we are not trying to make a statement with that ... It's a place we love, it's dear to our hearts. We would not cheapen it. It's not a brick-for-brick representation of New Orleans; it's a fictional version, and I love that city."

The full-length Faliszek interview will be published in the coming days at Destructoid, but until then you can click here to read what's been published and you can click here to read the Huston Chronicle blog post.

East India Company and new Downloadable Content, Pirate Bay Now Available and System Requirements

Play the Naval Strategy game East India Company today on Steam. Also available today - the Downloadable Content Pirate Bay.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

• Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP/Vista
• Processor: AMD® Athlon® 64 2.2 GHz or equivalent
• Memory: 1024 MB RAM
• Hard Disk Space: 300 MB Available HDD Space
• Video Card: Nvidia® Geforce® 7600 256 MB or equivalent, (ATI® 2400 worked just as well)
• Sound Card: DirectX® Compatible
• DirectX® Version: DirectX® 9.0c
• Controller Support: Xbox 360 controller and other DirectInput supported controller

• Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP/Vista
• Processor: Intel® Pentium® Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz or equivalent
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Hard Disk Space: 300 MB Available HDD Space
• Video Card: Nvidia® Geforce® 8800 GT 512 MB or equivalent, (ATI® 3870 on the ATI side)
• Sound Card: DirectX® Compatible
• DirectX® Version: DirectX® 9.0c
• Controller Support: Xbox 360 controller and other DirectInput supported controller

Left 4 Dead Update Released

Updates to Left 4 Dead have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Left 4 Dead
Fixed problem with add-on installer failing to install add-ons properly on some versions of Windows
Transition screen now shows campaign and map names for add-on campaigns
Bug fixes and enhancements for Novint Falcon controller

East India Company E3 09

The lead designer runs through the basics of this complex strategy game.

"The graphics look amazing" - Avault
"Among all the games at E3 2009, only one stands apart as the single most promising PC strategy game that involves both naval trade and tactical tall-ships combat during the age of the infamous East India Company. That game: East India Company." - Gamespot

BNSF Officially Licensed RailWorks DLC Now Available on Steam

The BNSF Officially Licensed ES44AC & SD40-2 RailWorks Add-on is now available for purchase on Steam to customers who purchased the retail version of the base game. The BNSF DLC is already included with the Steam version of RailWorks.