Smiley's Life

Valve have just announced a new free game called “Alien Swarm”, which was developed by a group of talented designers who were hired from the modding scene. According to Steam, “…the game thrusts players into an epic bug hunt featuring a unique blend of co-op play and squad-level tactics.” The game looks pretty interesting, but the part that caught my eye was the rather quiet announcement of several new features for Source, including Depth-of-Field, improved dynamic shadows and a (real) third-person camera.

These new features will be part of a new version of the Source SDK. In addition, the game will include the full code base for the game and the code for the updated features for Source. Neat, huh?

[Source: Valve’s official Twitter account and Alien Swarm’s Steam store page]

EA Week has reached Day Five, and with it, three games have been discounted:

• Mirror’s Edge is 75% off, meaning this beautiful game will cost you only 5 measly bucks. I personally recommend this game and consider it to be one of the most fun, beautiful and innovative games EA have to offer.
• Dead Space is 50% off. I’ve heard Dead Space is a great, survival-horror game and for $15 it may just be worth it. I’m considering it myself.
• Spore and all of its expansions (Creepy & Cute Parts Pack and Galactic Adventures) are 33% off. I liked Spore, and I was considering repurchasing it on Steam to have a SecuROM-less copy, but at $26.79 I don’t think it’s worth it. The discount is too low, not to mention the fact Spore’s current (pre-sale) $39.99 price tag is too high considering its reviews and content.

I highly recommend you to pick up Mirror’s Edge. At $5, it’s a steal.

This week, there are various discounts on EA games on Steam. Each day, a different game or game series goes on sale. The first game series is Crysis, making Crysis and Crysis: Warhead available for 50% off.

Apparently, Valve already uploaded the banners for the next days, so we can know the (awesome) lineup of discounted games for EA Week:

Tuesday is “Military Day”, and judging by the background, we can tell Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is going to be on sale.

Wednesday is “Command & Conquer Day”, so obviously, Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight will be on sale with, most probably, the other Command & Conquer games.

Thursday is “Racing Day”, so I assume Need for Speed games would be on sale and maybe even Burnout Paradise.

Friday is “Mirror’s Edge, Dead Space & Spore” day! You can guess what will be on sale. If Dead Space is discounted enough I may get it. If EA magically lower Spore’s price to $5 or under, I may repurchase it for Steam. (Got it on disc with a SecuROM license from release day.)

Saturday is “Mass Effect Day”, and judging by the name and background image it’s very likely EA will discount Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2! The former may even be discounted to $5, like in Steam’s last holiday sale. I hope it will, I missed the last Mass Effect sale and from what I heard it’s a great game. Now, if Mass Effect 2 was also discounted for, say, 75%… That would be a lovely surprise.

And last, but not least, Sunday is “Dragon Age Day”! Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age: Awakening will most probably be on sale.

Room For One, Left 4 Dead 2’s newest Mutation, is packed with achievement-related bugs. I never finished The Parish, because the finale was so hard. But apparently, finishing it in 5 minutes (On Easy because it’s so hard and I was playing with bots) in Room For One grants me the “Bridge Burner” achievement!

Also, joining a Room For One game in Hard Rain afterwards granted me two more. I joined right at the end, and even though I didn’t win it, (Though I was close and the campaign ended with me jumping to the boat) I got the “Weatherman” achievement (Never finished this as well) and the “Confederacy Of Crunches” achievement, even though I didn’t finish the campaign just with melee weapons!

This new mutation is an achievement whorehouse!

EDIT: Valve just made the Orange Box on sale for 30% off! If you have yet to get Portal or if you’re interested in Team Fortress 2, I recommend you to get the entire Orange Box package for $20.99. If you get the three Half-Life 2 games separately, it comes down to $18.17. So it’s your call: “Should I pay an extra $2.72 or shouldn’t I?”

Good news! Half-Life 2 and the two episodic sequels: Half-Life 2: Episode One & Half-Life 2: Episode Two have just been released on Mac with brand new Steam Achievements for Half-Life 2 & Episode One and Steam Cloud support for all three! Start your game on one platform and continue it on the other! In addition, all there are sold for 30% off their original price for a limited time! That means: $6.99 for Half-Life 2 and $5.59 for Episode One and Episode Two each.

I recommend you to buy all three installments right now. Half-Life 2 is a very, very good game and so are Episode One and Episode Two.

In fact, 4 games out of 5 in Valve’s Orange Box package have been ported to Mac so far. Now all that’s left is Team Fortress 2.