Tag Archives: Valve

Train2Game News: 2013 BAFTA Video Game Awards

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BAFTAThe video game BAFTAs were held earlier this week and Train2Game has the results for you. It was an excellent night for PlayStation exclusive, Journey, in particular.

The list of winners is as follows:

Audio Achievement – Journey

  • Steve Johnson, Austin Wintory, Keith Leary

Best Action Game 2013 – Far Cry 3

  • Dan Hay, Patrick Plourde, Patrik Methe

Best Game – Dishonored

  • Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks

British Game – The Room

  • Fireproof Games/Fireproof Games

Debut Game – The Unfinished Swan

  • Ian Dallas, Nathan Gary
  • Giant Sparrow/Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Family – LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes

  • Jon Burton, Jonathan Smith, John Hodskinson
  • TT Games/Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment

Game Design – Journey

  • That Game Company/Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Game Innovation – The Unfinished Swan

  • Ian Dallas, Nathan Gary
  • Giant Sparrow/Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Mobile & Handheld – The Walking Dead

  • Dan Connors, Kevin Bruner, Kevin Boyle
  • Telltale Games/Telltale

Online (Browser) – SongPop

  • Olivier Michon, Thibaut Crenn, Daouna Jeong
  • FreshPlanet/FreshPlanet

Online-Multiplayer – Journey

  • That Game Company/Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Original Music – Journey

  • Austin Wintory, Keith Leary, Mony Mudd
  • That Game Company/Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Performer – Danny Wallace

  • (The Narrator) Thomas Was Alone

Sports/Fitness – New Star Soccer

  • Simon Read
  • New Star Games/New Star Games

Story – The Walking Dead

  • Telltale Games/Telltale

Strategy – XCOM: Enemy Unknown

  • Firaxis/2K Games

BAFTA Ones to Watch Award in association with Dare to Be Digital

  • Starcrossed
  • Kimi Sulopuisto, Vili Viitaniemi, Minttu Meriläinen, Petri Liuska, Andrew MacLean

 

At the end of the event Valve CEO and BAFTA Fellowship winner, Gabe Newell, come to the stage with a standing ovation and said “On behalf of everyone at Valve, and all of the gamers who have gone with us on this adventure over the last few years – thank you very much,”

If you want to watch the event you can do so here: http://www.bafta.org/games/awards/watch-live,3664,BA.html

Train2Game News: J.J Abrams and Gabe Newell could collaborate

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Valve logoValve CEO, Gabe Newell and top film director, J.J Abrams hit the stage at the DICE summit in Las Vegas and announced they had been talking about working together.

After a back-and-forth about player agency and storytelling, Newell revealed that the duo had been “recapitulating a series of conversations going on,” and that they’re now ready to “do more than talk”: Newell suggested “either a Portal movie or a Half-Life movie,” and Abrams said he’d like to make a game with Valve.

Valve are one of the top games developers with games such as Half Life and Portal under their belts which have incredible game play mechanics that make them fan favourites.

J.J Abrams on the other hand is one of the best directors at the moment, responsible for the reboot of the Star Trek films and is taking the helm on the new Star Wars films. Abrams has also worked on TV Series such as Lost and Fringe.

The two men working together could bring forth incredible games with the mechanics of Valve and storytelling of Abrams. In addition, in my opinion, there would be no man better to direct a Portal or Half Life movie than Mr Abrams.

In 2010, Newell said that if Valve were to make a Half-Life movie, it wouldn’t hand over control to any Hollywood studio, saying:

“There was a whole bunch of meetings with people from Hollywood. Directors down there wanted to make a Half-Life movie and stuff, so they’d bring in a writer or some talent agency would bring in writers, and they would pitch us on their story. And their stories were just so bad. I mean, brutally, the worst. Not understanding what made the game a good game, or what made the property an interesting thing for people to be a fan of.

“That’s when we started saying ‘Wow, the best thing we could ever do is to just not do this as a movie, or we’d have to make it ourselves.’”

There are no details on Newell and Abrams’ project—be it game, film, or both—outside of the tease that they’re talking. They are talking and I am sure that can only mean good things.

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up – 16.01.13

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Valve logoIt is that time of week for the Train2Game mid-week round up!

Valve has announced plans to to discuss a port of Team Fortress 2 to virtual reality goggles. The first talk will be programmer Joe Ludwig’s ‘What We Learned Porting Team Fortress 2 to Virtual Reality’ and it will explore the efforts of several employees over the last year to get the game to run in virtual reality goggles. In addition, Valve’s Michael Abrash will discuss the hardware challenges that lie ahead and possible solutions for virtual and augmented reality in ‘Why Virtual Reality is Hard (And Where it Might be Going).’

Square Enix have launched a new website to tease all fans of an upcoming iOS game. More information is to be released on January 17. The site has an image of what looks like a front end menu for the game which is called, Final Fantasy: All The Bravest. You can check out the website for yourself here: http://www.jp.square-enix.com/ff_atb/

Since Activision brought out Skylanders it has done very well and now Disney has seen it’s potential. They are now doing their own version with the announcement of Disney Infinity. Infinity will work in the same way as Skylanders, needing action figures and a “toy box” base to give players access to different worlds. Disney fans will recognize plenty of familiar faces, like Captain Jack Sparrow, the cast of the Incredibles, and Sully from Monsters Inc.

Surreal game creator Suda51 has revealed details of his next game, Killer is Dead. The game stars Mondo Zappa, a 35 year old American executioner that abides by a strict suit-and-tie policy and his left hand is a gun that can also transform into a drill and is used primarily to absorb an enemy’s blood for an “Adrenalin Burst” attack. The game’s antagonist is Victor, who can manipulate emotions through song. He’s appropriately styled to look like classic composer, except has a green face and glowing eyes.

Online and mobile are spearheading the game industry’s growth to a potential total valuation of $83 billion by 2016, according to new research. Conducted by Digi-Capital, the global games investment review states that online and mobile could have a revenue share of $48 billion in 2016, 55 per cent of the entire game industry. The biggest driver in mobile and tablet app revenue meanwhile will be free-to-play, which could deliver 55 per cent of revenue in the sector and account for 93 per cent of app downloads by 2016.

Train2Game News: A round up of tech from CES

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The Consumers Electronics Show is coming to a close and Train2Game are bringing you the news of some of the most interesting technology to come out of the show.

Steam BoxValves media named Steam Box was finally confirmed at the show after much speculation through 2012.  Valve has invested in computer manufacture Xi3 who will be developing a special customised PC designed to bring Steam to the living room.

The box, codenamed Piston, will offer up to 1TB of internal storage and the ability to upgrade components like the RAM and CPU in the future, a spokesperson told Polygon. Valve will also be making its own Steam Box in-house, and they’ll be a few more from other PC manufacturers too.

It is currently rumored to have 4-8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a quad-core 64-bit, x86-based 32nm processor running at up to 3.2GHz with 4MB of Level2 Cache.

Asus Transformer AiOA new tablet from Asus was announced at the show but this is a tablet with a difference.

The Asus Transformer AiO is a standard tablet running Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) from an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor but you can take it home and connect it to its stand and it becomes a desktop PC running Windows 8 running on a Core i3 processor and Nvidia GT 730M GPU.

The trick is the stand, which has its own array of USB ports and a built-in 1TB hard disk. The tablet itself has 16GB flash memory.

RAZER GROUP EDGE GAMING TABLETAnother exciting tablet that was announced this year was the Razer Edge which is optimised for gaming.

The Razer Edge is a Windows 8 tablet, but a ferociously powerful one with the sort of tech you would expect to find in a gaming laptop. The standard model has a Core i5 processor, an NVidia GT640M LE GPU, 4GB of RAM and a 64GB solid state drive, while the Edge Pro has a Core i7 processor instead, 8GB of RAM and either a 128GB or 256GB solid state drive.

The tablet can also be plugged into a Gamepad Controller, which comes complete with two Wii Nunchuk-style handles featuring two analogue sticks, a D-Pad and a variety of face buttons.

Xperia ZSony Xperia Z was the smart phone announcement to look at for gamers. It’s only 7mm thin, has a 1080p 5-inch screen and is packing a beast of a quad-core Qualcomm processor with 2GB of RAM.

According to Sony, the Xperia Z is the most powerful phone it’s ever made and the first it’s had a strong say in since it took over manufacturing from Ericsson, and it also claims that while it’s running Android 4.1 instead of 4.2, its own “skin” is very minimal and it should be easy to upgrade the OS in the future.

It is set to be an incredibly powerful phone with a good battery life thanks to Sony’s new technology that apparently draws very little power while in sleep mode.

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up – 09.01.13

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Xerneas and YvetalThe first news in this weeks Train2Game Mid-Week round up is a follow up to the Pokémon news from yesterday. The two legendary creatures that are briefly seen in the trailer have been named. They are Xerneas and Yveltal.

Video games had the highest total amount pledged out of all other categories on Kickstarter last year.  561,574 backers made 1.3 pledges totaling $83 million. Out of 2,796 video game projects launched, 911 were funded. Video games had almost double the amount of pledges than Films, the second most successful category. They make up nearly a quarter of Kickstarter’s total backers and total money pledged.

Valve have given the first glimpses of  what could be, the media named Steam Box. Code-named “Piston”, the system is still in a development stage and Xi3Coporation states the system will be “optimized for computer game play on large HD televisions”. The specifications have not been released yet, but will be built on Xi3′s Modular Computer chassis which is grapefruit sized, and will support both Steam and their recently released Big Picture mode.

Following the demise of City Of Heroes last year, Missing Worlds Media have decided to create a new superhero MMO, currently named Project Phoenix. Their aim is to build a Superhero game from the ground up and take what was successful from past games and build on it with new technology. If you are missing the super being you created, this could be one to keep an eye on.

Microsoft have sold 60 million Windows 8 licenses to date. The figure represents cumulative sales of Windows 8 including upgrades and sales to original equipment manufacturers for licensing. Windows 8 sales are following a similar trajectory to that seen with Windows 7, according to Windows chief marketing and financial officer Tami Reller. Microsoft also said that over 100 million apps were downloaded from the Windows Store in the two months following the digital distribution platform’s launch with Windows 8 and Windows RT. There are now more than 1,700 certified systems for Windows 8 and Windows RT.

Train2Game News: Valve gaming PC in the works

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Valve LogoAfter some research Train2Game has found that Valve Software are working on their own proprietary hardware, optimised for gaming.

The recently released Steam Big Picture mode was a first step in this process. The next step is incorporating Linux and making all of that work towards developing a PC package of their own. That means a ready-made PC that comes with Steam and can be hooked up to your television set.

Gabe Newell has shed some more light on his company’s plans. Newell said “I think in general that most customers and most developers are going to find that the PC is a better environment for them because they won’t have to split the world into thinking about ‘why are my friends in the living room, why are my video sources in the living room different from everyone else?’ So in a sense we hopefully are going to unify those environments.

“Certainly our hardware will be a very controlled environment. If you want more flexibility, you can always buy a more general purpose PC. For people who want a more turnkey solution, that’s what some people are really going to want for their living rooms.

“We’ll do it but we also think other people will as well.”

This last sentence indicates that Mr Newell believes this may be the next big move in the games industry. A move like this could truly revitalise living room gaming.

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up – 06.12.12

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The Train2Game team has searched around and found some of the exciting news from this week.

343 Industries, who recently released Halo 4, have said that they are in early stages of developing a new Halo. Frank O’Connor, the franchise development director for Halo, said that “a lot of people at 343 are already prototyping ideas and software and art for future Halo products”. Many within the 343 Industries studio are still working on post launch content for Halo 4.

Sega has revealed a new partnership with Games Workshop which will see Total War developer Creative Assembly making multiple titles set in the Warhammer fantasy universe. Creative Assembly studio director Tim Heaton said: “With this year being our 25th anniversary, it seems fitting for us to embark on such a dream project with such a well-established partner. The incredibly rich and detailed Warhammer world is something we grew up with, and has left an indelible imprint on us as both designers and gamers.”

Sony Pictures Consumer Products has teamed up with Capcom-owned developer Beeline Interactive to produce an Android and iOS Ghostbusters game, targeting an ‘early 2013’ release. The new Ghostbusters will be a ‘freemium’ title based on the popular eighties movies. The players will play the role of “a fledgling Ghostbuster. Who ya gunna call?

UK celebrity, chat show host and film critic Jonathan Ross has opened a new game development studio named Hotsauce Interactive, based in Candem, North London. The outfit is part of Ross’ TV production company Hotsauce, and has already released its debut game, Cacha Cacha Aliens for iOS. It is understood that Hotsauce Interactive is staffed by a number of experienced developers and the studio may look into releasing games on hand-held and console in the future.

Customers of Valve’s Steam digital distribution service can now play their PC games on a TV. The much anticipated Big Picture mode has been in beta for some time, but has only now seen public release. Big Picture is designed to be compatible with gamepads, but also supports the use of a Mouse and Keyboard. To celebrate, Valve has placed over thirty “controller-friendly” games on sale.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 made $1 billion a day quicker than Modern Warfare 3, Activision has announced. That’s $1 billion in worldwide retail sales in 15 days since launch, based on Chart-Track and internal figures. Modern Warfare 3 took 16 days to cross the $1 billion mark. For comparison, James Cameron’s Avatar made $1 billion in 17 days. Since launch, more than 150 million hours have been logged online playing the game on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.

Kickstarter’s United Kingdom operation has reached £2,069,164 in pledges since its launch late in October. 45,799 backers contributed to the £2 million, with 30 projects having successfully ended their funding drive out of 407 launched. Of those backers, 39 percent came from the UK.

Train2Game News: Steam hits 6 million users

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For our friends across the sea, it was Thanksgiving weekend last weekend. This is a time for family, being thankful and apparently Steam.

The digital distribution service from Valve managed to hit over 6 million users. The amount of players peaked at around 11:00 PST Sunday with 6,045,912 users logged on. This was probably due to the Autumn Sale and the waves of numerous major releases such as PlanetSide 2, Assassin’s Creed 3, and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

That is concurrent logins however, not active game sessions—while games define the vanguard of Steam’s excellence, the numbers rise from simply having the program launched and running.

Looking at the Steam Graph Chart of what people are playing shows a fair spread across PC gaming’s most popular genres. Dota 2′s beta boasted a little over 170,000 simultaneous players late on Saturday, while football-sim Football Manager 2013′s surprising strength topped at around 60,000. On Sunday night Black Ops 2 spiked at 51,000 soldiers, and PlanetSide 2′s fight for Auraxia swelled to 30,000 Steam conscripts last night. Lastly, as many as 15,000 stone-faced killers were concurrently shoving sharp metal objects into various people in Assassin’s Creed 3.

It was only in January that Steam hit a then-high of five million concurrent users. To hit six within the same year shows just how popular the service and gaming is getting.

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up – 14.11.12

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Cliff Bleszinski, better known as CliffyB, has received a mysterious package in a hotel room he is currently staying at. The package contained a phone with a Ubisoft background and one phone number in it. CliffyB told his twitter fans that he would ring the number saying “I do have a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me an asset for people like you.”

What started off as a breeding ground for indie titles now seems to be the only form of submission to the digital distribution service, Steam. This is a bold move by Valve as it means not only the bedroom developers but also the big hitters will have to submit their game to Greenlight.

Halo 4 earned $220 million on the day it launched. This isn’t quite as much as Halo 3 or reach but it is still an impressive figure. Microsoft reckons its juggernaut franchise is on track to hit its $300 million global sales target within its first week, thrusting lifetime sales for the Halo franchise passed the $3.38 billion mark.

Of course the other big release lately is Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2. The game is Amazon’s most preordered game ever beating last year’s Modern Warfare 3. Amazon said it “shattered” the previous record. The company wouldn’t reveal any further details on the launch or preorders of Black Ops 2.

Valve president Gabe Newell has has revealed Valve is working on a next generation successor to the Source Engine. Newell also confirmed the Source 2 engine would be completely new, instead of just another update for nearly ten year-old tech. Source made its debut in Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2 in 2004.

Mass Effect 4 will run on DICE’s Frostbite engine, the latest version of which was used in Battlefield 3. There also seems to be a lot of interest in being able to play as different alien races, similar to the style of Dragon Age:Origins.

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up – 24.10.12

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Steams Workshop, which is used to create content for games such as Team Fortress 2 and Skyrim, has turned one. The user created content has subsequently earned “millions of dollars” for their creators and Steam themselves.

The Greatest Video Game Music 2, the follow-up to the best-selling video game album of all time, will be released worldwide on Nov 6 and has been performed by The London Philharmonic Orchestra. The digital soundtrack album will include 17 new orchestral renditions of video game theme songs like Halo, Batman: Arkham City, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and the ever-so classic Final Fantasy VII.

Following the success of Borderlands 2, an iOS spin-off has been confirmed with a release date of October 31. The game sees you play as the original 4 vault hunters from the first Borderlands in a wave-based survival game. Additionally, in true Borderlands style you can earn experience and level up your characters, unlocking new skills and abilities with each character having their own set of unique skills and abilities.

The first reviews of Hitman: Absolution have surface in Official Playstation Magazine UK and Official Xbox Magazine. Both magazines gave the game 9 out of 10. OPM said “This is the peak of the series so far” and OXM said “it a triumph of stealth and sandbox design that retains everything that fans have ever loved about the series”.

Wish Studios, a newly formed studio in Brighton, is working with Sony to develop a new IP. While other details about the partnership remain shrouded in secrecy, the status of Wish’s new client will likely serve as a significant help to the recently founded start-up’s presence in the industry.

A report by Google has said that over 50% of people use their tablet for gaming. The only activity performed more than gaming on a tablet is checking emails. The study, which was commissioned and published by Google, found that 51.5 per cent of its participants used their tablet for gaming in a two-week period.

The new dashboard for the Xbox was launched yesterday. It includes an internet explorer app giving the console a browser and the newly launched Xbox music which is similar to that of Spotify. The update also saw the removal of the Twitter and Facebook apps.

In an interesting collaboration, a new mod was made for the MMO World of Warcraft which sees the newly introduced pet battles become Pokemon battles. The aptly name WOWkemon sees a short tutorial by Professor Birch describing the Pokémon-ified battle screens and ability menus with the familiar sounds, screen effects, and even the font closely resembling the style of the handheld game legend.