Dec 4, 2012

New DLC Available - Darksiders II - Demon Lord Belial

Darksiders II - Valve

Darksiders II - Demon Lord Belial, all new content for Darksiders II is Now Available on Steam!

Awakened by the End of Days, Death, the most feared of the legendary Four Horsemen, embarks upon a quest to restore mankind, and redeem his brother’s name. Along the way, the Horseman discovers that there are far worse things than an earthly Apocalypse, and that an ancient grudge may threaten all of Creation . . .

Dec 4, 2012

Midweek Madness - EVE Online: Retribution, 75% Off

EVE Online - Valve

Save 75% on EVE Online: Retribution during this week's Midweek Madness*!

The uncertainty of change has every faction of EVE on full alert. CONCORD has revisited long-untouched regulation and moved to bring greater accountability to capsuleer actions. Meanwhile, concerns of growing power among the pilots has prompted protest from the four empires, and pirates across the universe have had their arrogant disregard for the law shaken by news of upcoming changes to who can bring them to justice.

A year of turmoil has paved the way for a new era. An era of new immortals, greater opportunity and lucrative retribution.

*Offer ends Thursday at 10AM Pacific Time.

Dec 3, 2012

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Update Released

Counter-Strike 2 - Valve

Release Notes for 12/3/2012

[ MISC ]

- In addition to TKing, you can now be kicked/banned in two different ways for team hurting:
  - For doing an unusual amount of damage in a short amount of time.
  - For doing an excessive amount of team damage over the course of the match.
- Partial inferno extinguishing now properly puts out flamelets.
- Molly/Inc Grenade fire now goes out slightly faster when extinguished and updated the overall effects a bit.
- Fixed an edge case where the alerts panel would show on round start for a frame.
- Changed default tv_delay to 10s.
- Changed default tv_delaymapchange to 1. This postpones the post-match level change by the tv_delay amount to ensure that the broadcast to GOTV clients is complete. NOTE: Manually quitting the server or changing the level while the broadcast is still ongoing will kill the feed to all GOTV relays and GOTV clients and your spectators will miss the end of the match. It's best to let the system's timer run out on its own or wait for as many seconds as you have tv_delay set for.
- Replaced hard-coded 'E' observer use command with '+use'
- Tweaked autodirector based on feedback.
- Added item purchases to server log.
- Decoy grenade changes
  - Reduced price to $50.
  - Reduced fire rate and extended life span to make it less identifiable as a decoy.
  - Physically looks more like a flashbang to allow fakes.
- Fixed assists displaying the assister's name twice in the server log.
- Reduced default value of sv_clockcorrection_msecs to 30 and whitelisted the convar (thanks J3di)
- Reorganized net_graph options:
  - 0: off
  - 1: Competitively allowable data.
  - 2: Additional In/Out data.
  - 3: Additional real-time graphing.
- Added net_graph to convars restricted by sv_competitive_minspec ( allowable values are 0 and 1 )
- Valve can now assign official violations cooldown to accounts
- Added a game server convar sv_kick_players_with_cooldown (default=1)
  - 0: allow all players to play on game server
  - 1: kick players with official assigned violation
  - 2: kick players with any competitive cooldown

Dec 3, 2012

Steam Big Picture Available Now

Press Release - Valve

Week-long Steam Sale on Big Picture-Friendly Games

December 3rd, 2012 -- Valve today announced the public release of Big Picture, Steam's new mode that lets gamers access all of their favorite Steam games on a television from the comfort of their sofa. Big Picture has been designed to be used with a traditional gamepad, while also fully supporting keyboard and mouse input.

To celebrate the public launch of Big Picture, over thirty controller-friendly games will be on sale from now until December 10, with savings up to 75% off.

Access to the complete Steam store is included, as is the Steam Community. Big Picture is available worldwide in over twenty languages, including German, French, Russian, Korean, and Portuguese.

Gamers’ existing games are all available in Big Picture. In addition to having the complete library of Steam games, each user's cloud files, Steam Workshop content, account information and preferences will be accessible automatically in the new mode.

Steam gamers may easily experience Big Picture on their televisions by connecting their PC or Mac, typically with a single HDMI cable. Big Picture also includes a new web browser designed for televisions and game controllers. It is accessible from anywhere within the Big Picture UI, and even while playing Steam games on a TV. It supports Big Picture's new method of typing with a gamepad, which is useful for entering URLs, filling out forms, chatting, and other functions.

For more information, please visit http://www.steampowered.com/bigpicture.

Dec 3, 2012

Now Available - Afterfall Insanity Extended Edition

Product Release - Valve

Afterfall Insanity Extended Edition is Now Available on Steam and is 25% off*

The year is 2035. Almost 20 years ago citizens of The Republic had to search for a shelter from the hell of the Third World War. Only a few were fortunate enough to find a safe haven behind the gates of 'Glory'. Today, when the fear of death on the surface has become merely an unpleasant memory, the once safe hideout became a prison. Buried underground, trapped in the claustrophobic space with no hope of escape, the shadows hide secrets darker and more terrifying than the madness that takes over residents of the Shelter 'Glory'

*Offer ends December 10th at 10AM Pacific Time

Dec 3, 2012

Steam Client Update Released

Client Update - Valve

Changes:
- Added Big Picture mode which is optimized for using Steam fullscreen with a Gamepad on HDTVs
- Games managed by the new content system can select alternate installation locations other than the Steam folder (Windows)
- Fixed the in-game overlay not recognizing correctly which game is running sometimes when running a non-Steam shortcut
- Fixed some potential GDI handle leaks in the Steam client (Windows)
- Fixed Steam Cloud occasionally not syncing files it should
- Fixed a bug where entering a password-protected content beta without a password would act like it succeeded even though it hand’t
- Improved TGA validation in image loading code
- Improved steam:// URL validation in some cases
- Fixed a new in-game overlay crash in very specific scenarios on Windows 8 with legacy DX9 games
- Fixed problems uppercasing some characters (e.g. Greek terminal sigma)
- Fixed error retrieving third party cd keys when launching games on OS X (OSX)
- Fix the in-game overlay to correctly inject when a launcher calls ShellExecute with an empty string for the verb (Windows, fixes SWTOR)
- Improvements to the change email wizard

Dec 3, 2012

Now Available - Karateka

Karateka - Valve

Karateka®, a modern take on the 8-bit karate classic by Prince of Persia® creator Jordan Mechner, is available today worldwide on Steam. The game is on sale with a 10% discount for the first week.

Created on an Apple II by Jordan Mechner in his Yale dorm room, Karateka became a #1 bestseller and influenced a generation of gamers with its groundbreaking rotoscoped animation and cinematic cutscenes. 28 years later, Mechner returns to his indie roots with a reimagined Karateka for today’s digital game platforms, featuring art by Jeff Matsuda (The Batman) and music by Grammy-winning composer Christopher Tin (Civilization IV).

A karate-wrapped love story set in feudal Japan, Karateka will delight both nostalgic fans and new players as they fight to save the lovely Mariko from the evil warlord Akuma and reunite her with her True Love.