A message from Gabe Newell

If you read the news section of Steam or follow Valve on Facebook, you may have already come across this. It's an update from Gabe about the database hack a few months back and this is what he said:

"Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users:

We continue our investigation of last year's intrusion with the help of outside security experts. In my last note about this, I described how intruders had accessed our Steam database but we found no evidence that the intruders took information from that database. That is still the case.

Recently we learned that it is probable that the intruders obtained a copy of a backup file with information about Steam transactions between 2004 and 2008. This backup file contained user names, email addresses, encrypted billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. It did not include Steam passwords.

We do not have any evidence that the encrypted credit card numbers or billing addresses have been compromised. However as I said in November it's a good idea to watch your credit card activity and statements. And of course keeping Steam Guard on is a good idea as well.

We are still investigating and working with law enforcement authorities. Some state laws require a more formal notice of this incident so some of you will get that notice, but we wanted to update everyone with this new information now.

Gabe"

The Valentines Bundle

Indie Royale are at it again. Giving you a bunch of indie game for next to nothing. The minimum at the moment is round about £2.80 but as all is subject to change. The games included in this one are:

• Zeno Clash
• Hoard
• Lume
• Soulcaster
• Soul Caster II
  

The Soulcaster games are currently not available on Steam but are available on Desura. You have just under 5 days left to get in on this bundle of cheapness and I as usual will be getting this in the very near future. 5 games for 3 quid, how can you say no? Whoever came up with this idea is a genious (I know I spelt genius wrong but it annoys a friend of mine,. Hello Jamie if your reading this). Since this concept started there are so many games I have played which I would have normally not bothered with. 

Blizzard Vs Valve over DotA trademark

Vs

It would seem that Blizzard are appealing against Valve and there attempt to tradement DotA 2. I can see why as the original DotA game was a mod for Warcraft 3 and has had the Blizzard name behind it over all these years. However it is just that a mod, a fan made game and we all know Valve are famous for taking mods and making them full fledged games with the likes of your Counter Strike, Team Fortress and Day of Defeat. However I'm sick of frivolous lawsuits popping up every which way.

I still think every quarrel in the gaming industry should be solved by playing games. Notch mentioned about playing Quake to determine the outcome of the whole "Scrolls" thing with Bethesda a few months back. Shit like that should be the way forward. Best of Valve vs the best of Blizzard in a winner takes all DotA tournament. If Blizzard win Valve changes the name. If Valve wins they get to keep it.

You could take this principle in to other mediums as well. Take the music industry for instance, the amount of people that bitch and whine about how "this band stole my riff" or "that band is using the same chord progression as my song" bull shit (I'm looking at you Joe Satriani, yup as much as I dislike coldplay, them using as tune similar to one of your riffs is hardly worth a law suit, there are more examples but I can't think right now). Anyway crap like that could be easily sorted that out with a guitar battle.

Anyway I'm getting slightly off topic but if you want to have a read through of the appeal you can here. From the law side of things I would probably be on Blizzards side as the name has always been associated with them and they have accepted the mod as one of there own. I can't see it going anywhere as it was a fan built project and not actually owned by Blizzard.

From a gamers perspective however, I couldn't honestly give a shit what the game is called so long as it's a decent game. So my message to all those throwing lawsuits about in the gaming industry is fuck off and get back to developing video games. At the end of the day Valve could just easily change the name and this could all be over saving people a lot of time and money. The game would still be exactly the same except they'd have to think of a new name and logo. But as I said before I honestly couldn't give a crap about the name, it doesn't matter.

Hard Reset: Extended Edition Trailer

A little while ago Flying Wild Hog came out and announced they are making an expansion for Hard Reset. We now have a trailer for the "Extended Edition" of the game.



It does look pretty cool and graphically it is looking extremely pretty. I am looking forward to this and will more than likely be getting this day one as I am sure this will be more of the same frantic carnage that was Hard Reset.

Hawken Beta Signup

Hawken is a new Mech Combat FPS. It caught my eye with a gameplay trailer a few months back. It looked pretty cool and after that trailer I never really heard of it again until now. The game is currently in closed beta which you can sign up for here. 



The gameplay looks pretty awesome from what the trailer has shown. I can see some pretty epic gun battles happening in this game. I'm going to be constantly checking my emails over the coming days. Hope I get in the beta soon.

New Map for Nuclear Dawn

Nuclear Dawn is a cool little game and has recently got another update which includes the addition of a FOV slider in the options and a bunch bug fixes which can be found in the changelog. We will also be seeing a new map with patch 5.2 under the name of Oilfield (there are a few screenshots of the new map under the changelog for those interested). The map is in a now open beta form for everyone to play and test. Hopefully there will only be minor bugs to get rid of which won't interfere with gameplay all that much. Just a short and sweet update of what's happening with this game. Now I'm off to play it.

Ubisoft Strike Again

Ubisoft, the company PC gamers love to hate, are once again interrupting gamers ability to play their game due to their "successful" always online DRM. This time it is due to a server switch which will cause disruption to their DRM servers.

According to Eurogamer games such as Tom Clancy's HAWX 2, Might and Magic: Heroes 6 and The Settlers 7, along with a number of other Mac ports will become completely unplayable. So if you do plan on playing these games during the server switch, which starts on the 7th February until a currently unknown date I suggest you go to your favourite download site and get a patch allowing you to play the game you rightfully own.

Once again because of this fantastic DRM policy in place. They are going to be pissing off actual customers while pirates would be able to play their games without any problem at all. I don't own any of the games in question not being available so it doesn't affect me personally, that is irrelevant though. If I did own the games in question and wanted to play through the single player campaign I wouldn't be able to. I would be fine if only the multi-player portion of the game went down as that is perfectly understandable. But the fact you can not play the single player due to online servers being down is frankly ridiculous.