New Oddworld Game On Hold While Old Games Make A Comeback

The Oddworld series has been one of the most creative, adorable, and all around fun I've ever experienced. So when news broke a couple years back that there was a new Oddworld game in production I was extremely excited.
Sadly, it seems that I'll have to wait even longer for a new Oddworld game than expected. The creator of the Oddworld series, Lorne Lanning, recently came out and explained what's going on.
"There's a lot of things the shelf right now," Lanning explained. "We had a few on the fire, and they're still on the shelf...there's a lot of shakeup going [in the gaming industry] and in that turmoil, we didn't really want to put the Oddworld brand out there in the middle of it, so we're working on some other things that we'll be announcing shortly."

Although this means a new Oddworld game won't be coming anytime soon, it's still around, and hopefully it will see the light of day "somewhat" soon.
There is some fantastic new however, the "Oddbox", a newly announced collection which includes all the Oddworld games released so far. Is scheduled to be released in the first quarter of 2010 on Windows through Steam. Having Munch's Oddysee and Stanger's Wrath in one package...I'm already getting excited just thinking about it!

Source: G4

Steam Leaked Onto The Mac

Although having condensed water vapor on your computer is usually a bad thing, this time, it's great news!
Valve is working on releasing a Mac version of their popular digital distribution client, Steam, which should be out very soon.
However, what kind of tech announcement would this be without a good old fashion video leak?

As you can see the client looks pretty much the exact same as it does on a PC, which is by no means a bad thing. Apart from having this awesome client to download tons of great games, Mac users who participate in the client beta will also get a free copy of Portal, one of my favorite games!

Fatshark Makes Great Games And Videos

Fatshark is a Swedish developer located in Stockholm, who has just released their first game, Lead and Gold.
The guys at Fatshark are pretty awesome for a couple reasons, one being that they made a great game, second being that they made this great video documenting their travels through the US. If you've ever been interested in video game journalism, what their offices look like, or how they play games to review, I'd highly recommend you watch this video bellow.

If your into good western style multiplayer games, and you have $15 to spare, be sure to check out Lead and Gold here.

Steam Version Of Battlefield Bad Company 2 Getting A Nice Patch

Along with a couple of bug fixes the newest patch for the Steam version of Battlefield Bad Company 2, the SecuROM will also get removed. EA has some history with the SecuROM, but that history has never gone over well with EA's consumers. Most of you will probably remember the Spore fiasco of only allowing a limited amount of installs before the disc would become completely useless. You can thank SecuROM for that.

Although it seems some light has been shined into EA's heart recently, Dragon Age didn't launch with SecuROM, Mass Effect has had it removed, and now Bad Company 2 is going to get it removed aswell.
Although this is only no the Steam version of the game, due the fact that Steam has its own authentication solutions in place, its still a big plus for anyone who's into PC gaming.
I'm glad to see that Steam is trustworthy enough, even for big publishers like EA, so that we might avoid more of these crazy DRM strategies (looking at you Ubisoft).

Gordon Freeman No Longer Confined To The PC

Last week Vavle showed us all some clever ads announcing the popular Steam client for Macs. Today however, we get some more in-depth news from Valve themselves. Jason Holtman, Vavle's Director of Business Development, cleared up something about Steam on Macs.

"Steamworks for the Mac supports all of the Steamworks APIs, and we have added a new feature, called Steam Play, which allows customers who purchase the product for the Mac or Windows to play on the other platform free of charge. For example, Steam Play, in combination with the Steam Cloud, allows a gamer playing on their work PC to go home and pick up playing the same game at the same point on their home Mac. We expect most developers and publishers to take advantage of Steam Play."

The one thing I was kind of worried about, having to own two copies of a game for each platform, is no longer an issue!
Now we can all play Team Fortress 2 as one big happy Vavle-loving family. :)

Steam Coming To The Mac

Valve just won't stop being clever. First their Portal update, and now this, ads for the Steam client coming to the mac.
There's quite a few of these surfing around on the internet, but here are two of my favorite ads:

I hope you enjoy them, as much as I did. In the mean time you mac users might want to clear up a couple gigs of HDD space. My steamapps folder has recently reached 153GB!

Portal Gets A Sneaky Update

A couple hours ago I was busy creating the TeamTwie Facebook group (Join it!) when a Steam pop-up said "Portal has finished downloading". I thought it was one of Vavle's usual updates involving some computer science-ish coding problems or something.  However, When I went to check out the patch note(s) I was pleasantly surprised. Here's what the note says:
  "Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations"
If you're new to Valve games you might think this is a legitimate issue that needed to be fixed in order to prevent a law-suit of some kind, but as someone who has experienced many of Vavle's comical tips/hints over the years, I think there's something different going on here.

The radio transmission was put on Youtube, so I'll let you try to figure it out yourself. My guess is that this will lead to the official announcement of the Portal Prequel we were told about oh so long ago.

Update: There's also a new achievement in Portal, but there's no real solution to getting it yet, the most popular rumor seems to be that you need to carry the radio out of the chamber 26 times...weird...

Get Your Supreme Commander 2 RTS Fix Now

If you weren't able to get into the elusive Starcraft 2 Beta, there's something else that might be able to scratch that RTS itch. Supreme Commander 2 is due out on March 2nd, but a demo which includes 2 playable missions is up right now!

As you might also be able to see the demo is being offered through Steam, but Supreme Commander 2 will also be connected to Steam when the full game launches early next month. There's some Steam achievements too be earned, and Steam will handle off the game's updates,patches, and in-game DLC.
With the new Steam UI, and a lot of new games launching with Steam built in, I can defiantly see a bright future ahead for Vavle/Steam...unless the Steam service gets bought out later by lets say, Zenimax....Who knows.

Brand New Steam UI Update Goes Into Open Beta

Steam, Vavle's digital distribution and community client, has been around since 2003 and it's starting to show...that is...until now. Steam has just gotten a complete UI overhaul, and dare is say it, it looks "sexy".
For starters Steam has gone with the "Apple approach" in a sense that it looks a lot rounder and more user friendly, think Windows XP to Windows Vista or 7. Along with that everything seems to be bigger, the text sizes, the store front, and even your game list icons. This new UI also allows you too see what your friends are up to, for example, on the store front there's a new window which shows the newest game that some of your friends have bought (sneaky sneaky marketing). The new UI also takes some new liberties with Steam's achievement system, your achievements are much easier to get to, so you can finally show off how big of an "E-peen" you have.

Valve has made a whole site to explain every new update in great detail, which I strongly encourage you to check out here. You might also want to know how to actually get a hold of this new UI since it is still in beta, but don't worry this beta is open to everyone. :)
All you have to do is:
*Open your current steam window
*Click on the Steam tab in the top left corner
*Go to settings
*Under the "Beta Participation" segment click the button that says "change"
*Scroll down to New UI, and your done!
Feel free to leave plenty of comments about your thoughts on the new UI bellow, I'll be sure to check them out.

New Worms Title Headed To Steam Soon

Team 17's successful "Worms" series is getting a new installment headed for Steam sometime "soon". Worms started back in 1994 on the PC, and it has been going strong with new games and spin-offs on PC and also various consoles.
Yesterday Team 17's own Martyn Brown tweeted a little teaser message regarding the next worms title.
"We are pleased to announce a new edition of 2D Worms for PC! "Worms Reloaded" is coming soon via Steam. Details & features to follow..."

Being a huge fan of the series as long as I can remember, and a fan of Steam, this is really exciting news for me. It feels like just yesterday that I would bike to my friend's house in order to play "Worms Armageddon" and laugh every time one of use would use the Holy Hand Grenade.

Zeno Clash Now On Retail Shelves Near You

ACE Team's ridiculously awesome first person game, Zeno Clash, is now being offered at retail stores for $19.99.
Incase you missed the Zeno Clash bandwagon, allow me to fill you in the best way I can. Go download the demo! In short its a first person fighting/shooting game with crazy character design and an ever crazier story. If you've ever wondered what a raptor/chicken hybrid looks like, now is your chance to find out.

The retail version is being published by Tripwire Interactive, and it also includes some extra content, "The Pit," which adds new extensions to the game's "Tower Challenges."
If your not into PC gaming, but you own an Xbox 360, you'll have to wait just a little while longer to pick up the Xbox 360's "Ultimate Edition" on March 31.