New Steam Client Released! Mac Version Soon? April 27, 2010

Valve has released their much anticipated updated Steam client.  For those of you running the older versions of Steam, make sure to check for updates and make sure that the update installs, or you could just download the client through their website.  Steam is required to run games like Team Fortress 2, Portal, and Left 4 Dead, and enables achievements, friends lists, and online server lists.

This new version is expected to be compatable with Mac, although Valve hasn’t announced the release of a dedicated Mac client yet.  However it was promised for this month, and it’s almost over.

Bright Falls is Live on Xbox Live April 26, 2010

For those of you who have been waiting all day (and yesterday) for the first two episodes of Bright Falls, the live action Alan Wake prequel series, the gaming gods have finally smiled and released these episodes to Xbox Live to play on your TVs and HDTVs.

The series will follow a regular weekly release schedule for the six episode miniseries, which will culminate in the final two episodes being released the night before Alan Wake’s release.

Alan Wake will be released on May 18th, 2010 for the Xbox 360.  If you don’t have an Xbox 360 and want to watch the series, they will be released online on their official website.

Of course, if you prefer since you’re here already, you can watch the first two episodes here.  I don’t mind.

Playstation 3 Preps for 3D Today! April 23, 2010

Sony has released Playstation firmware version 3.30 this morning in the US to all model PS3s.  The required update offers some enhanced trophy and add on organization options, but the big news is that the update also includes the code for native 3D support, something that will be released alongside the new Sony 3D Bravia TVs.

Effectivelly the PS3 has done it again with being a forward-reaching Blu-Ray Disc player, and is still supporting new features that earlier players just can’t.

3D Blu-Ray support has still not officially started yet.  You will likely still need a 3D HDTV and a compatable HDMI cable, as well as a 3D capable disc and the required glasses to have full 3D support.  Sounds like a lot huh?

Bungie Releases New Halo Reach ViDoc! April 22, 2010

Bungie has released a new multiplayer behind the scenes ViDoc to YouTube, probably in anticipation for the Halo Reach MP Beta, which is coming out May 3rd, and gameXcess will be reporting on.  Currently it’s strictly on their YouTube channel, but you can be sure it’ll probably be uploaded to Xbox Live in HD pretty soon if it hasn’t already been.

Alan Wake to Recieve an Xbox Live Mini-Series April 22, 2010

In a post from the completely awesome department, Kotaku is reporting that Xbox Live is preparing to release a six episode live action mini-series that will serve as a prequel to Alan Wake.

The series will be released weekly, every Sunday (starting with this one) for Xbox Live Gold members and the day after for Xbox Live Silver members.  The episodes will then appear on brightfalls.net the following day.  Two episodes will kick off this Sunday, with one episode released weekly.  It will lead up to the final two episodes being released on May 17th, the day before the release of the game.

This is without a doubt the most awesome news I’ve read in a long time.  I have been waiting five years for the release of Alan Wake, and this is a definate sign that the hype machine for the game is starting.

I can remember only a few times a live action prequel miniseries has been released to promote a game.  F.E.A.R. had a miniseries which was only concluded in the Collector’s Edition.  Halo 3, since they weren’t getting a Halo movie made, had a live action miniseries (but was only three parts) directed by what would become the team that made District 9.

Halo Reach Coming in 3 Editions (2 Special) April 22, 2010

Bungie.net officially announced today that their newest game, Halo Reach, will have not one, but two special editions.

Following in the footsteps of Halo 3, Halo Reach will feature a Collector’s Edition and a Legendary Edition.  The CE will cost 80 dollars US, and feature a special case, downloadable exclusive elite armor, and a box of behind the scenes material.  The LE will cost 150 dollars US and feature everything the CE has, as well as downloadable Spartan armor and a 10 pound diaorama of the entire Noble Team as done by McFarlane toys.

I can still remember thinking that Halo 3’s Legendary Edition at it’s 130 dollar price point, was going to sell out immediatly.  Months later the retailers were trying their best to offload the giant packages and I saw prices for it as low as 30 dollars.  I do think that Bungie is repeating a mistake here, what made the Legendary Edition good was not the helmet, but the exclusive third DVD with the extra documentaries and paticularly the Halo 1 and 2 commentary.  It doesn’t look like any DVDs will ship with these editions, begging the question as to why bother picking them up.  I am curious however what is in the box of behind the scenes material.

The History of Remedy Part 1 April 21, 2010

Machinima.com, famous for posting user’s movies rendered by game engines, is doing a multi part series on the history of Remedy Entertainment, better known as the fathers of Max Payne and Alan Wake.

I am a student of the history of video games, since G4TV no longer has their Icons show I’ve been missing these kinds of documentaries tremendously.

Trust me, since this is machinima.com’s video, make sure to turn off annotations when watching it, or you won’t be able to see more than 30 percent of the screen.

More parts coming soon!

Splinter Cell Conviction USB Content Released! April 16, 2010

For all of you who bought the defective Splinter Cell Conviction Collector’s Editions (IE, all of you who bought the Splinter Cell Conviction Collector’s Edition), the meat and potatos of the CE, the USB content, has been officially released on their website.

I’d like to directly link it, but I couldn’t get the direct link to the content.  However, here’s the link to the page where you can directly get the content.  A selection of wallpapers, the comic, some concept art, and the making of documentary should be in there, and it’s all nicely wrapped up in a quaint little zip file, gosh does anyone remember zip?  Kind of retro.

Enjoy everyone.

Final Day for Live on Xbox 1 April 14, 2010

Today is April 14th, and today is the last day of live on all Xbox 1s.  Anyone who has not upgraded to the Xbox 360 will find their accounts are not going to renew, and any Xbox 1 games with Live support on the Xbox 360 will cease to be playable in multiplayer.  All downloaded content will no longer be avalible to download (that was stopped months ago).

I got my first Xbox one week before the release of Halo 2.  I was always a PC gamer, and considered the Xbox to be nothing more than an obsolite PC with nothing interesting in it’s catalog.  Then Halo 2 was released.  I had already played Halo on the PC and thought it was fantastic, and the second game looked even better after what I had seen personally at E3 2003.  My Xbox Live account has been active for 5 years.  I upgraded to the 360 in April of 2006, and sold my original Xbox with all it’s accesories a year or so later for a pretty good price.  I regret the decision because Microsoft really had failed to bring the majority of their Xbox 1 games to backwards compatability as we had previously assumed, but all the ones that I already owned were supported.

Please raise your glasses to the end of an era.  If you still have a copy of Halo 2, Bungie will be playing it tonight in honor of the service being shut down.

Because of the discontinued support, it is likely that Live will increase user friend lists from their current maximum of 100 users for those who use Xbox 360s.

Gears of War 3 Announced! Trailer 1 Released! April 13, 2010

All you gears heads out there will be more than happy to hear that the leaked announcement turned out to be legitimate.  Gears of War 3 will be coming to the Xbox 360 on April 5th, 2011.

Gears of War defined the Xbox 360 and the HD gaming revolution back in 2006, this game looks to enhance and refine it.  I still remember when this game came out I had my very first Red Ring Of Death, rendering me unable to play it for several weeks, but I still got the Collector’s Edition on launch day because I was such a huge fan of the Gears of War: Road to E3 documentary.

A friend of mine was in the market for an HDTV at the time and just happened to be working at a TV appliance store, who had no problem at all if he brought his equipment down to test it on their TVs to see which worked best.  I have no idea if this is usual company policy for any store, but I have talked to a few managers and they have no issues with it, they think its a good way to get a sale.

When his co-workers saw that he had brought a 360 AND Gears of War they demanded that he hook it up to their home theatre setup.  In the back of the store they had five 1080 HDTVs hooked up, ranging in size from 60″ to 110″, and an HD projector.  We went over to the 110″ DLP and laid claim to the whole area.  We hooked his 360 into the split and had control over the images in all TVs in that area, but due to bandwith limitations (we weren’t using HDMI, it was still component, although 1080p was supported by the 360 at the time, there were no HDMI boxes yet, and the splits didn’t support HDMI yet either) we had to play the game in 1080i.  Nobody really seemed to mind, the game looked fantastic.

Two older people sat down at the 60″ Sony and started watching what was on the screens.  They looked over to us and realized what they were seeing was being manipulated by us.  The man was happy that what he saw wasn’t real, he told us he had assumed he was looking at images of the Iraq War.  That was a good night.  Why don’t more TV stores do stuff like that?  You’d think if you wanted to sell TVs you’d put something on the TVs that looked really good, like The Dark Knight on Blu-Ray.

Here’s the first official trailer for the game.