Just as promised, Steam Trading Cards is now live. The virtual cards can be earned by playing participating games on Steam, trading with other users, or buying on the Steam Marketplace. Complete a set to create a badge, earn rewards and XP, and level up. The user with the highest Steam level at the end of the year gets to high five Gabe Newell while announcing Half-Life 3. In space.

In other true facts, I'm already hearing from users playing the Steam marketplace to profit off the cards' initial popularity. One user I spoke to has been buying low and selling high to pad his Steam wallet, even creating scarcity by buying up low-value cards in quantity. I'll keep an eye on marketplace prices as more users start trading the collectibles.

I was hoping to find a good deal on a 1952 Mickey Mantle card, but unfortunately, baseball isn't a participating game. You can see which of the games you own are participating here.

Here at PC Gamer we like to play PC games. Sometimes, we even like to play them with other people. That’s why we’ve got a huge lineup of game servers hosted by GameServers.com. Feel free to hop on whenever, or join us on Community Friday or during our other random events.

All servers hosted in the US. We'll update this list with PC Gamer UK's servers as soon as possible.
CS:GO Arms Race


The in-game matchmaking system only lets 10 players duke it out in Arms Race. Our server has room for 24 players with the latest and greatest custom Arms Race-compatible maps from the Steam Workshop.
CS:GO Classic Casual


Our very first community events took place on the server we like to call: The Psychedelic Den of Map Experimentation. Try out some of the best maps available on the Steam workshop in our 24-player, 128 tick server.
Rising Storm


Join the Axis or Allies as we battle it out on PCG’s Rising Storm server. Territories mode is the name of the game with our soon-to-be ranked server.
Battlefield 3


Vehicle enthusiasts can drive around in our 64-player Battlefield 3 server. Watch out for mortars!
DayZ


Part of the public hive, our DayZ server is a great place for you to scavenge for loot, meet new friends, or hunt down some bandit scum.
Minecraft


A 32-player Minecraft server with the Tekkit Classic mod installed. Download the Tekkit client before jumping on to play!
Team Fortress 2


Show off your hats and other accessories on the PCG TF2 server. We’re running the official maplist with support for 24 players.
Left 4 Dead 2


If you’re looking for a reliable dedicated server for your co-op zombie escapades, look no further than the PCG 8-man Left 4 Dead 2 server. Pick your favorite flavor of L4D2 and murder some zombies.
Unreal Tournament 2004


A staple of the PCG offices, now you too can join in on the fun with our 32-player UT2K4 server.
GoldenEye: Source


If it wasn’t already clear, PCG loves mods. In fact, we love them so much that we’ve set up a 16 player GoldenEye: Source server for you guys to play on.
Natural Selection 2


For whatever reason there’s a 10-slot maximum on our Natural Selection 2 server. We like to think that this encourages teamwork.
Killing Floor


Another co-op zombie classic, jump into our 6-player Killing Floor server to play with other PCG community members.

If you’ve got server requests, plugins, mods, or other suggestions, email jake@pcgamer.com or ben@pcgamer.com.

Good community content continues to flow from Left 4 Dead 2, a game we can't seem to stop championing for its healthy modding scene. Our latest praise is aimed at GoldenEye 4 Dead, an adaptation of the 1995 James Bond film and Nintendo 64 game that isn't afraid to bring original ideas to a setting most gamers are deeply familiar with.

Watch my playthrough with Tyler above.

Download links to featured mods
 
Download GoldenEye 4 Dead campaign
Download S&W Model 29 revolver weapon mod
Download Stevens Model 620 shotgun weapon mod
Download Lightsaber weapon mod
Download Desert Recon FN P90 weapon mod
Download Mountain Dew pills
Download Captain Price character mod
Download Hitler Hunter character mod
Download Glowing One Spitter character mod
Download Raptor Ellis character mod

After three years of labor, French development team Elseware Experience is finally ready to release DNIEPR, a custom Left 4 Dead campaign placed in the bleak Soviet-era ghost town of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
I can't believe I didn't realize before now how perfect the abandoned Ukrainian city of Pripyat (also the subject of STALKER: Call of Pripyat) would be for zombie hordes and rampaging Tanks. Now that I’ve seen it in action, it’s chilling how much photos of Pripyat already look like set dressing for The Walking Dead.



This project is the kind of thing that makes you love gaming on PC. Three and a half years after Left 4 Dead 2 released, here we are with another completely new campaign with four new maps, an original story, an original soundtrack and custom models. If you'd like to show your support for the "hundreds and hundreds" of hours Elseware took to create DNIEPR, you can send them a donation at the bottom of this page.


DNIEPR will be available for download on May 20. If you haven’t played L4D2 in a while, this is a perfect excuse to reinstall and jump back in. If you need even more reasons, we've covered a plenty of great content mods for Left 4 Dead before.

Last week, Techland announced its new game, Hellraid, with a few screenshots and some promises. This week, though, they’ve got a teaser trailer full of gameplay that backs up some of those promises, and it’s looking pretty interesting.

There’s a distinct taste of Skyrim in the visuals, but the melee combat in The Elder Scrolls has never had this much gravitas without extensive modding. Enemies counter and duck your sword, and parrying has an impact you can feel.



Watch for the trademarked front kick familiar from Techland’s last game, Dead Island, at about the 0:20 mark.

Hellraid will feature up to four person co-op, and I’m betting that it will follow the same drop-in-drop-out connection formula that worked pretty well (mostly) in Dead Island. Four classes are announced so far; the warrior and the mage get a lot of screen time in the trailer. It’s just a teaser, of course, but so far we haven’t seen any sign of the other two classes, the paladin and the rogue.

The other mystery involves the Game Master, the overseeing AI that will tweak, balance and randomize parts of the game like loot and spawn points. Like the director in Left 4 Dead, having a part of the game that is playing you can be an interesting experience.

Hellraid should be released later this year.

There may come a day when preparing for the next chapter of a Left 4 Dead game will include wiping down your sweaty palms and taking a deep, deep breath. If you don’t, the zombies will get faster.

In remarks during the 2013 NeuroGaming Conference and Expo (via VentureBeat), Valve’s in-house experimental psychologist—Wait, hold on. Did you know that Valve employs an experimental psychologist? I wonder if he has lunch sometimes with the economist.

Anyway, Valve’s in-house mad scientist, Mike Ambinder, discussed experiments where players’ overall nervousness and agitation were measured, in part by recording sweatiness. If players began to show signs of nervousness or fear, the game would speed up. This new control scheme—mouse, keyboard, sweat-measuring skin pads—added another way for the player to interact with the game. Shoot zombie, reload pistols, keep calm. Signal for rescue, throw molotov, keep calm.

Ambinder also described other experiments in game design and biofeedback—which Valve has been talking about for a few years—including a version of Portal 2 that was played via eye tracking. Exploring the next generation of possible gaming inputs shows once again that Valve continues to operate, and plan, on a whole different level.

So good for you, Mike Ambinder. Just stay away from the mega-baboon hearts and everything will work out just fine.

There may come a day when preparing for the next chapter of a Left 4 Dead game will include wiping down your sweaty palms and taking a deep, deep breath. If you don’t, the zombies will get faster.

In remarks during the 2013 NeuroGaming Conference and Expo (via VentureBeat), Valve’s in-house experimental psychologist—Wait, hold on. Did you know that Valve employs an experimental psychologist? I wonder if he has lunch sometimes with the economist.

Anyway, Valve’s in-house mad scientist, Mike Ambinder, discussed experiments where players’ overall nervousness and agitation were measured, in part by recording sweatiness. If players began to show signs of nervousness or fear, the game would speed up. This new control scheme—mouse, keyboard, sweat-measuring skin pads—added another way for the player to interact with the game. Shoot zombie, reload pistols, keep calm. Signal for rescue, throw molotov, keep calm.

Ambinder also described other experiments in game design and biofeedback—which Valve has been talking about for a few years—including a version of Portal 2 that was played via eye tracking. Exploring the next generation of possible gaming inputs shows once again that Valve continues to operate, and plan, on a whole different level.

So good for you, Mike Ambinder. Just stay away from the mega-baboon hearts and everything will work out just fine.

Valve has thrown a bit more of its weight behind Linux with the release of beta builds of Portal and Left 4 Dead 2. If you own either (or both) games you should find that beta versions have materialised in your Steam library - along with Portal 2, according to some. The Linux build of the first-person puzzler has so far gone unheralded by Valve, but here's a blog post describing the latest beta version of Left 4 Dead 2. In addition to letting Linux users play Valve's zombie hit, the download acts as a "testing ground" for its new Extended Mutation System. Thankfully, you can try the beta on Windows and Mac too.

The beta version of Left 4 Dead 2 is the same size as the main game, so you have a hefty download ahead of you. (I assume the same is true of Portal.) Steam for Linux officially launched in February, so it hasn't taken too long to get Portal and L4D2 on there. Half-Life 2 next?

Thanks to BluesNews and Kotaku.

Resident Evil 6 is out on PC starting today, and as announced by Capcom last week, it will feature PC zombie-slayers Coach, Ellis, Nick, and Rochelle from Left 4 Dead 2 in the exclusive Mercenaries No Mercy mode. A new trailer shows them doing what they do best, but the crossover hop seems to have bestowed the foursome with a repertoire of hilariously dramatic melee moves. There's no reason why the barrel-chested Coach would choose to shoulder-check through a horde before roll-diving away to blast an RPG at point blank, but damn if it isn't stylish.

You can grab Resident Evil 6 on Steam for $40. The L4D2 cross-over content will be available free April 5th.

Capcom announced today that Left 4 Dead 2's Coach, Nick, Ellis, and Rochelle will be playable in Resident Evil 6's PC-exclusive Mercenaries No Mercy multiplayer mode, and in the other direction, three of Resident Evil 6's zombies will shuffle into the PC version of Left 4 Dead 2. The crossover, which is being called "the Resident Evil 6 x Left 4 Dead 2 project" (Capcom's idea, we presume) will be free for both games later this spring.

In addition to L4D2's human characters, the Witch and Mini Tank will "make a cameo appearance" in Mercenaries No Mercy, though it isn't clear whether or not the mercenaries will have any mercy. I think they might, but something about it makes me unsure. As for L4D2, Resident Evil 6 offers Lepotitsa, Napad, and Ogroman, which have been "brought to life in Left 4 Dead 2 by Valve’s renowned developers."

In Resident Evil 6, which releases for PC on March 22, the content will "automatically be downloaded in the background" starting April 5th, and the Left 4 Dead 2 content will be available sometime this spring through Steam Workshop.