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Valve Releases Updated Alien Swarm For Free With Code Base
baronvoncarson tips news that today Valve released an updated version of Alien Swarm, a popular Unreal Tournament 2004 total conversion mod. The creators of the mod were hired by Valve, and they've helped turn it into a stand-alone game running on the Source engine. Valve is also releasing the code base for Alien Swarm and an SDK. The game is available for free on Steam.
I don't really get how they can release UT engine games like that for free... don't they have to pay licensing fees to distribute the executable (like, not just a mod that requires UT2004)?
Tremulous uses 2k4 code too, and doesn't require UT2004, and it's free.
So that those who are already downloading 2Gb at 30kb/s get it even later.
Nah I'm just trolling, there must be a lot of interest as nobody's getting a decent speed - well, a few have it completed, but its just a case of changing your settings and finding a location that's not suspended.
Anyway, good job Valve on a free open source game that might actually be half decent :O)
Does this mean Nightblade is officially canceled?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
They can't. They didn't. RTFsummary. They turned it into "a stand-alone game running on the Source engine."
No matter how good the games are, it'll never make up for how insidious STEAM is. No sale.
Further, just like all DRM, STEAM continues to fail at its stated purpose (see epcgaming.com as just one example).
This is one game that is just begging to be a torrent...
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Resistance is hopeless. You will be Valvesimmilated.
(Poor indie guys can't make a buck.)
Hmmm, am I the only one who is disappointed that there is no Mac version?
give BSD credit if you move la table of an admiitedly
Hire from community and give a game away for free. Thanks Valve! Can't understand why it's taken so long for someone to release a solid alien co-op blast fest. I suspect the next version will not be free but that's okay with me. Thanks again!
Steam is available for Mac.
They get a lot of crap for the 'evil' DRM that is Steam, but seriously: they're giving away free stuff here. Incidentally, they gave Portal away for a time when they launched Steam for Mac. Their mod tools are free as well. AND they didn't require anyone to re-buy Valve apps for Mac when they ported them if you already bought 'em for Windows. I don't know of any of the other major software publishing houses that would do that. I'll be giving this mod a try as soon as I get home tonight.
We're /.ing steam!
"The Steam servers are currently to busy to handle your request. Please try again in a few minutes"
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
It's a good thing that when a game gets updated, steam will automatically download it for you.
They're not releasing the "code base". They're releasing an SDK containing the game logic. The engine (you know, the juicy bits) is still closed-source.
I gave up after getting sub 10KB/s. As has been mentioned, Steam needs to get on the bittorrent-train. A bittorrent layer would smooth this out for everyone, instead of giving the people fortunate enough to hit an underutilized server a good experience while the rest can even get the content at all ("Servers too busy"). Steam obviously is not intelligent enough to properly distribute the load.
Honestly, it's as baffling as it's retarded.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
In order to control spam every company gets a unique email address.
(eg steam100@mysite.com)
When I created a valve account and paid for a game, It never ran.
I tried to contact support, they won't email me.
I tried everything I can think of, even trying a yahoo address for
support, and steam just ignores me.
The set it up so you can't contact them unless they email you first.
Steam. A platform I despise for my lack of bandwidth.
Wow, 149 comments and not a single one modded up about actual gameplay?
I'll go first - it's a pretty fun game. It's a squad based top-down shooter based on the Source engine. Multiplayer using either shared or dedicated servers. You choose one of 4 roles - Commander, Special Weapons, Tech, or Medic. There can be more than one Medic for example, but most missions require at least one Tech to hack open doors.
You choose your weapon load-outs and characters/roles and enter the mission. You can carry two main weapons and one off-hand weapon. Some of the main weapons are unique to the character type - for example only Special Weapons can carry an auto-gun, and only a Medic can carry a medic gun, and some are available to all players. As you complete missions you gain XP and levels, which unlocks additional weapons. The levels are account specific, not character specific - for example I can get to level 9 playing as Special Weapons, which unlocks the Medic gun, and then I can switch to Medic so I can actually use it.
The controls are fairly simple - W,A,S,D for up/down/left/right, and the mouse controls aim/firing, but since it's top-down you do have to aim in 3d space - you can aim close or far away. Friendly fire does happen with all but a couple weapons so you need to be careful not to hurt your teammates.
Aliens swarm from almost everywhere - I guess that's how it got the name. They do come from creative places - climbing up from hatches in the floor, jumping down from the ceiling up above, climbing walls and tunnels. You can never be sure where they will come from. The missions seem to be mostly linear objectives, like gain access to this area, go here, destroy the alien biomass, escape, etc. and are filled with choreographed sequences of alien battles to keep you on your toes. If you stay too long in one area you will start to get random alien attacks as well, so it's not 100% choreographed/scripted.
There are only about 7 or 8 missions in the game, and a group of friends and I were able to complete all of them on Normal mode in a few hours last night. We got to level 10 or so and unlocked a lot of weapons in doing so. I guess now the only thing to do is play it on Hard modes or wait until they release more maps/content.
Some standouts: Your off-hand weapons are very unique and can be used for tactical advantage. For example, you can get combat flares that increase auto-aim effectiveness when dropped, hornet swarm missiles that are heat seeking, even adrenaline that makes the game go into slow motion - which has to be the coolest effect. In slow motion everything goes into The Matrix-like mode where you have tons of time to aim and line up your shots. The game also does it at certain times on it's own just for dramatic effect.
Conclusion: A fun but short game - it will be interesting to see what type of content the mod-community creates for it. The squad-based tactics can be surprisingly deep if you have a good group of players on voice communication. Definitely worth a download for at least an afternoon or evening of fun with 3 friends.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
Why am I not surprised that this is a windows only port?
http://www.acetonestudio.com
So.. it's basically gauntlet?
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