The post includes some roughs and I found Combine Nation, which is like Combine Cops, and Ignis Solus which is like an existential art piece with flamethrowers. We keep having this debate as games not being or creating art.. but these cinema pieces definitely show that while you may debate the merits of games themselves, as tools of creation they can be something quite a bit more.

The post also links to some interesting series like Maintenance Man, Freeman’s Mind and Escape from City 17, a live action production I mentioned a few months back.

Here’s a quick reminder of how awesome video editing can make HL2 a tool for movie creation:

Any way you cut it the convergence of games and cinema is here.. lucky us, we just get to sit back and enjoy the results. I’m always on the look out for new series or shorts, feel free to share your favorites in the discussion boards in this post and maybe we’ll highlight them in a future article.

Valve has been hard at work on a new Team Fortress 2 patch, which should be going live within a few days time. This is not only good news for PC users, but for those who purchased The Orange Box for the Xbox 360 as well because Valve is also working on an update which will include all the goodies that were included with the PC version.

The patch for the PC will see the Teleporters being able to be leveled to 3 with the cool down decreasing as the character levels. Spies will be have the ability to recharge their cloaking skill when they pick ammo up off of the ground. Dispensers will also be able to level up to 3 and will not only heal faster, but generate metal faster as they level. Valve has also added a particle system and has upgraded the HUD to show stats such as death by critical hits, players that are over healed, and providing more information to medics when they are being hailed by other players.

In addition to these new changes and additions, gamers who have not had the opportunity to play Team Fortress 2 can now get the game for $10.00 over on Steam. If you have loads of money to burn, you can also get the complete Valve package for $99.99 which includes: Counter-Strike, Team Fortress Classic, Day of Defeat, Deathmatch Classic, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Ricochet, Half-Life, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Portal, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, and Peggle Extreme.

Left 4 Dead will already run you $49.99 so spend the extra $50 and get not only a good deal but a enough games to max out the memory on your PC.

We will be sure to let you know when the patches for both versions of Team Fortress 2 are to be make available, so you may wanna check back with us.

(Thanks VG247)

After a renewed start we had an interruption these last few weeks but rest assured Filefront is still hosting and promoting all the great user created and hosted content contributed to us. We return with a double length post highlighting some great mods and files for quite a few outstanding games including usual suspects like Half-Life 2, the Battlefield games and of course one of my favorite series “that I am really no good at yet still enjoy” – Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War

Highlights from this week’s column include mods for:

• Doom III – Wrathchild Act I (not ROE compatible), Revised Alphalabs
• Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion – A Provost of the Nine Divines, More Nord Beards
• Battlefield 2 – Operation Peacekeeper, Allies Intent Extended
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R – Ballistics Mod
• Far Cry 2 – new maps: MP_Surf & Gold Rush

There are also links to other maps, mods and patches for many of your favorite PC modifiable games. Be sure to check it all out after the jump.

Valve has always had pretty popular games, and if their recent release of sales figures over the past ten years are any indication of the company’ success, well then they will have nothing to worry about for a very long time. Well, that’s barring some unforeseen gaming or spending catastrophe like a Superman 64 or a very bad heroine addiction.

Here are the numbers reported to Game Informer, then posted on Gamasutra and broken down in a pretty list by VG247:

• Half-Life – 9.3 million
• Half-Life: Opposing Force – 1.1 million
• Half-Life: Blue Shift – 800,000
• Half-Life 2 – 6.5 million
• Half-Life 2: Episode One – 1.4 million
• The Orange Box – 3 million
• Counter-Strike – 4.2 million
• Counter-Strike: Condition Zero – 2.9 million
• Counter-Strike: Source – 2.1 million
• Counter-Strike (Xbox) – 1.5 million
• Left 4 Dead (projected) – 3.6 – 3.9 million

The figures add up to a total retail amount of  32.8 million and if you include the projected Left 4 Dead numbers, it increases to 36.4 – 36.7 million. These figures also do not include digital sales of their products through Steam, which Valve is currently keeping under wraps for some reason or another. Be that as it may, the numbers speak for themselves, and whether you are a Valve fan or not, they are nothing to sneeze at by any means.

This new trailer has been making the rounds on the internet today, and if I didn’t know better, I would swear this came directly from Valve. Instead this comes from the team behind Black Mesa, a full-conversion mod using Half-Life 2’s Source engine to recreate the original Half-Life. Sure, Valve released their own Half-Life: Source long ago, but that wasn’t exactly the modern re-imagining that fans were hoping for (more of a cut/paste job). But that’s exactly what’s fueling the developers of this mod to give the first game a true update. From the looks of this trailer, I’d say they’re definitely on the right track.

Today we are proud to post some progress on our TC development statuses. Yes, the plural form. As many of you know we are developing a total conversion called Resistance, but we decided to start again with the development of Trek Battles 3.

Read: NG Total Conversion Development News
More Star Trek: Legacy News: FileFront’s Star Trek: Legacy Files

A new month and a progress report on what is going on with Aftermath. This news post will take a different direction to all the previous ones as this one there will be some bad news but there is good news too. It not all doom and gloom.

Read:Aftermath News: Change of Pace and a New Team Member
More Star Trek: Legacy News: FileFront’s Star Trek: Legacy Files

Read: Large Newspost from the XWW2 mod
More Battlefield 2 News: FileFront’s Battlefield 2 Files

Read:Black Mesa source – A celebration of the last decade!
More Half-Life 2 News: FileFront’s Half-Life 2 Files

Read:Visions Of Chaos Lord Of Change Preview and Updates
More Dawn of War: Soulstorm News: FileFront’s Dawn of War: Soulstorm Files

Once again we welcome back [i]Ace40k[/i] to the stage so that he can deliver to you, the Company of Heroes gamer the next version of his extremely popular sound modification! If you enjoyed his previous release…or, if you missed out on it, and you are of the mind that the weapon sounds that you hear while playing Company of Heroes lack that certain something, then count yourself lucky, as you are about to download a mod that will improve what you hear!

Download: Ace40k’s Sound Mod
More Company of Heroes: FileFront’s Company of Heroes Files

Stargate : La Releve (”The Relief” in English) is a French mod developed on the Battlefield 2 engine. The ambiance of the TV show is reincarnated in video game form to give you a new battlefield experience.

Download: Stargate: La Relève
More Battlefield 2: FileFront’s Battlefield 2 Files

dev_akm is now carrying over development after Oscuro’s retirement; Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul aims to make Oblivion a much more interesting, challenging, realistic and dangerous place, and also offers great rewards for the daring adventurer regardless of your level.

Download: Oscuro’s Oblivion Overhaul (v1.32f)
More Oblivion: FileFront’s The Elder Scrolls Files

Download: Commanders Revenges Extreme Edition
More Supreme Commander: FileFront’s Supreme Commander Files

Fast Fun and Crazy : Lite is a modification that edits a lot of the different units and structures in the game. This modification tries to make the gameplay faster while trying not to go out of control or unbalanced.

Download: Fast Fun and Crazy: Lite (v0.230)
More Command and Conquer: FileFront’s CnC 3 Files

Download: Silenced M21
More CoD 4: FileFront’s Call of Duty Files

Download: Otherworld Episode 1 Beta (v2)
More Oblivion: FileFront’s The Elder Scrolls Files

Download: =AaTc= Jet Mod
More Star Wars Battlefront: FileFront’s Star Wars Battlefront Files

Download: Experimentals Wars
More Supreme Commander: FileFront’s Supreme Commander Files

Making a return engagement, ab2531 has submitted his updated version to his super-popular mod! NHCmod is what you want to download if you’re looking for a more juiced-up Company of Heroes!

Download: NHCmod | OF
More Company of Heroes: FileFront’s Company of Heroes Files

Download:Aliens vs. Predator 2 Master Server Patch
More Aliens vs Predator 2: FileFront’s Aliens vs Predator 2 Files

Download: Voice Chat Icons

More Return to castle Wolfenstein: FileFront’s Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory Files

This is a nice surprise…a very useful mod by our buddy, Jose: “Throwable” objects! First order of business….the PK3 is named “throwable_sfutt.pk3″ Sfutt? Made me laugh…..sfutt. XD

Sorry, just had to point that out.

Download: Throwable Stuff
More Jedi Knight III: FileFront’s Jedi Knight III Files

Open up your bandwidth and submit! Submit, I tell ya! MUHAHAHAHAHA!! …errm *cough* yeah. Dartborne is here with what would appear to be the largest of the mods that are at your disposal…this bad boy weighs is at a whopping 430+ megs! And it is worth every kilobyte!

Download: Dartborne Mod
More Company of Heroes: FileFront’s Company of Heroes Files

Ever felt like your German potato masher just wasn’t enough? Well this is definitely your fix, how about not two potato mashers, but six of them! These grenades actually existed during World War Two under the name Geballte Ladung. Probably something pretty hard to scream as you are running away from it in battle.

Download: Big German Grenade (1.0)
More CoD 2: FileFront’s Call of Duty Files

Faction commander is a powerful mod that allows you to dictate orders that your faction follows. The command system of this mod is composed of six types of commands and three classes of action codes.

Download: Faction Commander
More Stalker: FileFront’s Stalker Files

It wasn’t long ago when GobDemoMaster gave us a mod where we could open doors that were locked in the game Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Now he has come through with yet another version!

Download: Restored Doors/Rooms

More Knights of the Old Republic II: FileFront’s Knights of the Old Republic II Files

This is a simple tweak to saber colors and trails. By simple, I mean that a person who knows what they’re doing can probably replicate these effects in 10 minutes or less. I don’t think this 10 minutes was wasted, though.

Download: SM Cool saber effects
More Jedi Knight III: FileFront’s Jedi Knight III Files

Download: AOE Sound Pack

More Return to castle Wolfenstein: FileFront’s Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory Files

Finally, what many Revolt fans have been waiting for, Revolt 4x — a version of Revolt you can play without crashing your entire game! smile This version features a number of key bug fixes that contributed to the instability of previous versions of the oldest CoD total conversion!

Download: Revolt 4x UO (Final)
More CoD: United Offensive: FileFront’s Call of Duty Files

After a bit of an absence, we are lucky to have Robin back with us to once again‘ wow’ you with some fantastic Far Cry adventure! This time your gaming experience will get a little spooky, with a bit of a dark ambiance…so if you’re scared of things that go bump in the night, then you shouldn’t leave furniture in the hallway…and you shouldn’t visit the far away island Lucifer Island!
Download: rll_Lucifer Island
More Far Cry: FileFront’s Far Cry Files

A Peaceful Moment is a screen shot captured by the author depicting a German officer overlooking a river beside a bridge. It actually is a quite peaceful screen shot, it’s a nice change of pace from all the action packed screen shots that are regularly viewed. This picture can also be used as a wallpaper if it fits your fancy.
Download: A Peaceful Moment
More Company of Heroes: FileFront’s Company of Heroes Files

From the maker of the popular mappack: Insomnia, this developer has decided to create, and release, another map in the [i]‘Hell’[/i] style. WarlorD69 has stated that he made this map with the intentions of it being both beautiful and terrible…a tough combination to pull off, if you ask me! however, I think that he has done a fine job of it!
Download: Kings Cemetery
More Doom III: FileFront’s Doom III Files

For those of you that enjoyed the original release (and those of you that may have missed it) bigdane is back to tantalize you with his newest version! All of you sniper-lovers, don’t fret, there are still plenty of places to pick from…Essentially, Crater Lake (v2) is more or less, a total remake of the original Crater Lake, which will provide you with even more Far Cry 2 goodness and some serious Assault action!
Download: Crater Lake (v2)
More Far Cry 2: FileFront’s Far Cry 2 Files

The Last Palace is a 4 player map based on a war torn city in which 2 players start at a ruined Imperial Palace. This map is greatly detailed with craters, bombed out buildings, building rubble, and etc are littered throughout the map to give that warn torn city look; and coupled with custom decals, it just adds more to the experience.

Download: The Last Palace
More Dawn of War Dark Crusade: FileFront’s Dawn of War Dark Crusade Files

Download: Game_Jedi’s Map Pack

More Star Wars Battlefront 2: FileFront’s Star Wars Battlefront 2 Files

Download: rpg_dy100a
More Elite Force: FileFront’s Elite Force Files

Lafayette is a very small map that is built for 4 players mainly designed for instant action as the game starts due to how the points are laid out. Teams start at forested regions of the map which are located at opposing sides of the map and a road way is located in the middle.

Download: Lafayette
More Company of Heroes: FileFront’s Company of Heroes Files

Nope, this isn’t based on the firm, but rather a map from D2tm called Tropic Thunder Here we have a eight player map that is based on the topical landscape which isn’t done that bad; added in are few foliage, trees, canopy and the like to make the map more detailed.

Download: Tropic Thunder
More Dawn of War: FileFront’s Dawn of War Files

Far Cry 2: Canyon

Hot on the heels of the release that was just mirrored, DobiKuba has gone about sending in another rather large map to rouse the old killer instinct in you and to show off his mapping skills!

Download: Canyon
More Far Cry 2: FileFront’s Far Cry 2 Files

Before we begin I will hold up my hands and admit I’m a Final Fantasy fan, I attend regular mettings to kick the habbit so wish me luck there. Anyhow, FF VII being my favorite of the series I just had to grab this file and set traps around it to keep those other reviewers off. Now onto the review…..

Download: Final Fantasy VII Compilation
More Jedi Knight III: FileFront’s Jedi Knight III Files

Download: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-F.I.L.E.S.-Computer Screen
More Stalker: FileFront’s Stalker Files

This is the Guardian Class, Oberth refit. Many of you should recognize this baby as it has popped up in a few news posts recently. Well its been a good wait for this to be finally done and dusted and props to Phoenix for getting her finished! Phoenix has also uploaded this as an entry to the ever growing list of entries to the Starship Contests.

Download: Federation Guardian Class
More Star Trek: Legacy: FileFront’s Star Trek: Legacy Files

Download: SM Steel Lasersword
More Jedi Knight III: FileFront’s Jedi Knight III Files

Download: Colt-1911- Texture -
More Stalker: FileFront’s Stalker Files

This is the Ambassador class and “Late Refit” originally released for BC by LC/Legacy and ported to Legacy by yopyop. This is a really high quality model which showcases yopyop’s impressive reworking of LC’s impressive model from BC.

Download: Ambassador Class
More Star Trek: Legacy: FileFront’s Star Trek: Legacy Files

Again, we regret that we cannot provide you with this weeks Demos, Patches and trailer. We apologize for the inconvenience! For now, here are the links to redirect you.

And I thought finding Tabula Rasa for a buck was strange.

Valve has announced that the original Half-Life is officially 10 years old today. In honor of the game that essentially drove them to their status as one of the most dependable developers around, they’ve decided to drop its price down to 98¢. Of course, this offer is only available on their video game download service, Steam, and it will only last until Friday. But now anyone can check out the game that continues to top numerous “Best of” lists even to this day. Unless you’re really hungry for a Double Cheeseburger, that is.

Arguably the greatest advantage of PC gaming is the world of mods. Limitless replay can be gained by purchasing a single game with a dedicated mod community — ask anyone who has ever picked up a Source game (the engine powering many of Valve’s games, including Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2) or any entry in the Unreal Tournament series.

The problem, however, is keeping track of all of the mods you use and keeping them up to date. As seems to increasingly be the case, Valve has once again stepped up with Steam to cure a woe of PC gaming by hosting mods through Steam — all of which will automatically be kept up-to-date like any game purchased through Steam.

The first batch of mods to be released include Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency, Zombie Panic, and Synergy. You can also expect to see features from Steamworks implemented, although the announcement didn’t go into the breadth of that functionality (e.g. if we’ll be seeing Achievements and the like). The only requirement to play any of the mods will be that you own a Source game, which is exactly how things work currently.

Perhaps offering these mods through Steam will help legitimize the mod scene in the eyes of people who are still concerned with downloading and installing things from websites they aren’t familiar with. (Are these types of people still out there?) Regardless, props to Valve for once again helping to champion the PC as a gaming platform.

Not too long ago, a creepy fan video appeared online depicting an interview with one of Half-Life 2’s Combine soldiers, which was based on the creepy Scientology interviews with Tom Cruise. Oddly enough, it was actually a well-made video, complete with authentic-looking costumes and some pretty good camera work. Well, if you’re still in the market for a Halloween costume, you may be interested to know that the creator of that video has now put the Combine costume up on eBay. Even in bright lighting and without some eerie voice over, the uniform still looks creepy. Apparently, the mask was created using an actual Russian gas mask, and it comes with a built-in voice changer. That should definitely help you stand out from all the Heath Ledger Jokers wandering around this Halloween (seriously, I’m predicting at least two of them at every party this year). Me, I’ll still be dressing in the same costume I do every year: “obnoxious drunk guy at the party.” Woo!

Via eBay

It should come as no surprise that WoW would be number one in sales on the PC charts, but for one company to have five titles in the Top 10? That is a testament to the popularity of the games it creates. Blizzard is no stranger to being the dominant company in the NPD charts though, and as you can see below, the week of August 17-23 was no exception:

• 1. World of Warcraft: Battle Chest
• 2. The Sims 2: Double Deluxe
• 3. World of Warcraft
• 4. Spore Creature Creator
• 5. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
• 6. The Diablo Battle Chest
• 7. Nancy Drew: The Phantom of Venice
• 8. Call of Duty 4
• 9. The Orange Box
• 10. The Warcraft III Battle Chest

It is also no surprise that the Spore Creature Creator is up there, nor CoD4 or even The Sims 2 for that matter. I have even stopped batting an eye at the Nancy Drew game because despite what we choose to believe, even little girls like PC games too. However, what is shocking to me is that The Orange Box is still in the Top 10 after all this time- maybe this is because of all the Team Fortress updates and the like, because I would think that Portal and Half-Life 2 would be old hat by now.

You remember those strange Scientology interviews with Tom Cruise that swept through the internet and media awhile back? Sure, those were kind of creepy, but what could make them even creepier? Well, Tom Hall set out to answer that question by taking the exact same dialogue and putting it into the trans-human mouth of a Combine soldier from Half-Life 2. The result is a disturbing tale told from a Combine soldier that’s actually one a pretty damn good fan video. It makes the idea of a Half-Life movie actually seem like a good one (and even better if it happens to involve Tom Cruise).

Throw a rock in any direction on the internet and you’re bound to hit a Half-Life 2 mod. The majority of them are multiplayer mods, but that isn’t to say there aren’t quality mods for those who like to play on their own. With that in mind, Scott Sharkey over at 1UP has assembled a top 5 list of the best Half-Life 2 single-player mods.

5. eXterminate

This is about as minimalist as Half-Life can get. The maps are essentially big, empty square rooms, and there’s little cleverness to be found in the enemies. But the premise is pure gold: infinite machine gun ammunition and infinitely spawning zombies. The waves keep coming faster, punctuated by the occasional air-drop of a random ridiculous superweapon. Bonus: It’s got a level where you’re swarmed by hundreds of harmless Dr. Kleiner clones. In terms of sheer guilty pleasure, it’s hard to top a burly brawl against hordes of elderly pacifists.

Check out the full list at 1UP and get downloading.

The first piece of concept art for the Half-Life 2: Episode 3 has surfaced thanks to the 2008 IntoThePixel E3 art gallery. Half-Life 2: Episode 3 will be the final chapter in the HL2 series, and it has been rumored that the game would be heading to the PS3 despite the hem-hawing and side-stepping Valve has been doing to avoid the question.

While trying to maintain that they are not “PS3 developers”, IntoThePixel shows information for the game beside the concept art, and the PS3 along with the presumed PC and Xbox 360 is listed. While Valve will only be present at E3 2008 to discuss Left 4 Dead, I am sure they will still get bombard with HL2:Ep3 questions the whole time, especially now that this bit of info has come to light.

The concept art was created by Valve artists Ted Backman, Jeremy Bennett, and Tristan Redford and shows  Gordon Freeman within a large Citadel-like environment with a Combine Advisor looming overhead.

Thanks: Shacknews

NCsoft’s Brian Hudson, a developer on Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa, has contributed a developer diary on Velon Hollow. This upcoming instance will introduce two new features for Tabula Rasa; item sets and zombies.

Imagine that an evil alien race has developed a serum capable of suppressing your personality and trapping you in your own mind. The chemicals make you stronger and more aggressive, and the sight of human flesh makes you hungry. As the last of your sanity slips away, you are only slightly aware that your friends and family have become your latest meal!

It’s a great concept but it doesn’t really fit in a science fiction game. It’s definitely in the survival horror genre. It would be a great mod for Half-Life… oh wait that’s Left for Dead. Maybe they should concentrate on developing more of the sci-fi aspects.

Who wants to play I was a teenage zombie… Well I do, but not enough to commit to Tabula Rasa over one instance.

You can download the Tabula Rasa – Velon Hollow Developer Diary“>Tabula Rasa Velon Hollow dev diary courtesy of FileFront.

via FileFront

Rumors that Half-Life 2 Episode 3 will be feature at E3 2008 have proven to be just that. Valve’s marketing boss Doug Lombardi has officially announced that the next episode in the Half-Life 2 franchise will not be at E3 this year. He did promise fans a playable version of Left 4 Dead would be on display at a Valve hosted suite.

The zombie FPS Left 4 Dead has been generating quite a bit of hype of its own. Valve is confident the multiplayer co-op game will be groundbreaking.

Valve managing director Gabe Newell has said, “What Counter-Strike did for multiplayer action games, Left 4 Dead will do for co-op games.”

Left 4 Dead is currently under development by Turtle Rock. Gamers can expect Valve to publish the title this fall.

A website dedicate to the update will be going live Tuesday afternoon at 11AM PDT (2PM on the east coast), so we should hopefully have more information on the specifics then. For some reason I get the impression that the new weapons won’t be unlockable — at least not in the same way the Medic’s were. I really hope that’s the case, but the Medic update really ruined the game for a period of time there. Valve clearly underestimated people’s desire to farm achievements.

If that’s not really your thing, a new “Meet the Team” video will be going live — Meet the Sniper, to be more specific. Be sure to check back tomorrow and we’ll have the video for you to enjoy.

As we reported last week, Valve will be introducing “some significant changes” to the class, regardless of your having the new weapons. No word yet on what those might be, but once again, the new Pyro Update website will hopefully clue us in and get us prepared for the new wave of Pyros we’ll see later this week.

This upcoming weekend will also be a Team Fortress 2 Free Weekend, starting at 11AM PDT on Friday. That’ll give you a chance to try out the community maps and Pyro changes.

Despite being my favorite character from the series (no doubt thanks to The Smoking Man from The X-Files), I always found myself frustrated that I could never kill G-Man when he popped up in various places throughout the Half-Life games. He was always JUST out of reach, which is probably what made it so tempting to try and get him, but it was never possible.

Luckily, that’s why we have Garry’s Mod. It’s not quite the same, but the ways in which you can kill him should provide more than a sufficient amount of satisfaction.

Quite a few maps and mods are used, all of which you can find in this Facepunch Studios forum thread.

The video was strangely satisfying for some reason, but like a commenter on digg said, “That ****er just won’t let go of his briefcase.” Ain’t it the truth.

“We see sub ten per cent growth rates in our core, packaged retail business,” Newell said. “Right now we’re seeing close to 200 per cent growth in the alternative ways of connecting with customers.

“It will actually pass over in the next three months, how much of our business is coming from retail versus how much is coming from other channels,” he said.

Many gamers would still prefer to have a physical copy of the game that they can hold. And who could blame them? A reporter pointed this out, to which Newell said, “At this point, people have had Steam long enough that their experience is that Steam is more reliable than physical media.”

Add in support for Steam Cloud and the ability to access your games and saves from any computer, and it’s hard to really argue with him. Lose or scratch a game disc, or misplace the CD-key, and you’re suddenly out of luck.

Newell also addressed the concept of Steam distributing non-game related media, and how Valve is looking at that in the long-term. “It’s something that we’re looking at,” he said. “Right now we’re focused on games… but I think as we get more mature, there’s no reason that we wouldn’t.”

One thing that got me very excited about that possibility: Newell talked about the potential to distribute Firefox, where Steam Cloud could be used to allow you to access your bookmarks and settings.

While Steam already allows you to play games purchases through the service on any PC, the inclusion of Steamcloud will extend that service to game data. This means that all progress saves, keyboard bindings and option settings from certain games will be able to accessed as well because all data will be automatically saved to back-end servers and kept forever at no cost to the player.

There are no storage restrictions or quotas and even video replays and screenshots taken from your games will be saved on the servers. For example, say you deleted your games off your computer along with all the save files, screen captures, videos etc, and sold your system. Two years later you buy a new system, log into Steamcloud and voila! All of your game data, purchases and the like are still there waiting on you to pick up where you left off.

The CounterStrike, Half-Life (the full series), Team Fortress 2 and the upcoming Left 4 Dead will be the first games in t he Steam catalog to offer the Steamcloud service.

Steamcloud is part of the Steamworks set of developer tools and Steam’s developer John Cook stated that many more updates are planned for the future such as:

• Auto-updating of your computer’s device drivers
• Social features including events and calendar systems
• Official community pages for games
• Pricing localized to your country’s currency
• Amazon-style recommendations and shopping cart systems
• More payment options.

For more information on this upcoming service check back with us often.

Via: GamesIndustry.biz

“We’re looking at bringing the Goldrush and the new achievements and stuff out to the 360. How and when is still sort of being determined, on pricing and that kind of stuff. On the PC it’s sort of wide open, you can release stuff whenever you want. On the console there’s a little bit more of a pathway. What we’ve been waiting for is until we had a critical mass of new content to put out. So we feel like we’re kind of there now. We’ll probably be making some announcements pretty soon on what will happen with the 360 stuff.”

Good news for 360 owners. Sadly, if you’re a PS3 owner, you might be missing out on the extra content. Lombardi also mentioned the possibility, saying, “Unfortunately I don’t know that any of that will make it to the PS3.” Either way, I am so glad I got the PC version myself.

Via ShackNews