Alien Swarm - New non-FPS Valve game out Monday!

I'm up to 560KBps. Only 60% done so far tho. Was playing Crysis while I waited. That level where the helicopter chases you down a river at night was intense as hell, dudes. Evil AI on that thing.

I'm up for a Mapcore pack.

I'm downloading at approx. 50 kb/s tho.

Holy damn this game looks pretty. All dynamic lights and post processing and particles. Should shut up at least most of the people who go "UGH JUST MAKE A NEW ENGINE VALVE".

Apparently you can import custom music to play during combat.

Had a quick look at the SDK (it has a few maps included), and it's clear there is a heavy use of instances, and not much different from making maps for any other source game, except you don't include any ceiling, and black out the areas you can't reach with ... well, black textures.

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Swarm_TileGen

It looks like we can do a Mapcore co-op project pretty easily: everyone contributes a room or two using PhilipK's new textures, then some brave volunteer packages it all up.

Just played it, really good game there is only 1 campaign but it looks very big, a huge challenge to make custom content.

But that the style of map I love.

Wow this game seriously kicks ass! The movement detector noise is just like the one in Aliens, which is awesome.

And it runs smoothly even on my crap computer.

The SDK looks cool, they use a lot of instancing, and this is probably the last version of source engine (if you notice the dynamic light in the elevator)

Quote from Rick_D

yeah buff space marines killing aliens is so super original right? ;Di think the whole "valve never made anything of their own" is a pretty strawman argument; sure they take IP from other people, but it's generally from people who are still passionate about games, students and modders and so on.they are not being slipped a buck to make some washed up money-hungry producers idea of what will sell this month.

and look at how much they change the games; portal was just a rough idea, valve added their expertise to it and look how it turned out. i really doubt if those students had tried to release it on their own, or had even got the help of someone like activision it would have turned out half as good as it did.

then there's TF2, everyone's favourite First Person Hat Acquisition Simulator; the idea was not their own, sure, but look at how different even TF1 is compared to TF2. Valve added not just an art style, but an art style that complimented gameplay. they pushed forward with huge free updates to keep the game going strong and draw in new people ($14 for 5 maps! HEY GUYS WANNA GARGLE SOME MORE OF KOTICKS SEMEN?!), they revamped the entire game and made decisions that other people were against but which turned out to be better for the game.

so while i will agree with you that they haven't made a new in-house IP for 10 years, i think it's unfair to say they haven't been orignal and innovative, supporting good ideas from other people with their manpower and experience.

although that swarm game looks pretty fucking rough and is it me or can i see a shitload of HL2 textures in there?

also i agree, mapcore co-op pack ;D

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Yeah nout wrong with it at all, but honestly Valve do their best to eliminate the majority of risk in their games which is fantastic business model but personally for me it's uninspiring.

Valve are getting the credit once again for something that's been around for years Don't praise Valve praise the guys who worked their asses off to make the game what it is.

I dunno... a game design is nothing without a great execution. It's about the particulars. The small ideas Valve has added (that aren't in similar games): the active reload from GoW, how you lock-on to enemies when they're in light, the semi free-roaming aspect with a draw-on map, the XP system to earn perks -- these things are what raises the game above everything else.

I love the fact valve actively seeks out talent and nurtures it.

Praise valve for ensuring that we can all download it for nothing when hardly any of us had heard of it before

Once the team is hired and integrated into the studio, it becomes a Valve product, even if the idea came from outside the company. TFC, TF2, Portal, and Alien Swarm would not and could not exist as they do now without the resources Valve provided. It's a team effort out there

I enjoyed the round I played last night. It's not as high production value as Valve's other games, but it's also a smaller free effort. They could have easily sold this for $20 if they wanted. Even with the "lower" production values, the targeting is crazy slick, and the minimap with the recorded replay at the end of a match (and the ability to draw your plans on it!) is just fantastic. I'm looking forward to building some stuff in this. I kind of wish there were some more variety in the layouts, more choices in one route vs another, but I haven't played the whole campaign yet and there should be plenty of opportunity to explore that in custom layouts.

I just finished the campaign in Hard mode with some friends and wow, it WAS hard. Those Shield bugs are just insane and the little buzzers are a real pain in the ass.

Who's for a Hadley's Hope campaign, complete with the hive?

I can't seem to draw on the map, but all my mates can? I'm confused.

Quote from Skacky

Who's for a Hadley's Hope campaign, complete with the hive?

Hm, kinda annoying. You can't earn XP or achievements on custom campaigns. Seeing as the game only comes with the one and is seemingly all about the custom content, that's pretty odd and disappointing to me.

Edit: Also damn this game goes well with the Bionic Commando Rearmed soundtrack. Sets just the right retro action tone.

its not really an issue since you get most unlocks after doing the campaign twice

I've done it three times and have only reached level 20.