Tag: Valve

Article

Learn to love again with the Alienware Steam Machine controller

This article was written using products provided by Alienware and the The Alienware Steam Machine First Look program. It’s been over a month since Kill Screen’s first piece introducing the Alienware Steam Machine and our blossoming relationship, and you’re probably wondering how we’ve been getting along in our new life together. The answer is, “Very well, thank you.” We’re out of the honeymoon phase, and no longer marveling at how the Steam Machine packs a surprising amount of power into such a tiny and delicate frame. It’s no desktop gaming tower, but it does the things it was designed to…
News

Pretty much everyone ever owns and plays Dota 2 (apparently)

The dark fantasy esport Dota 2 is undeniably Steam’s killer app, according to the number-crunching-smiths at Ars Technica, who found that over 25 million copies have been downloaded and played on Valve’s popular digital download service. We shouldn’t be shocked that such a hardcore, complex game—even one that takes months of practice to achieve anything close to competence—would be the game that everyone owns and plays, considering that Dota 2 is a worldwide phenomena, and that Steam is the only way to play it.  Ars’ numbers are dominated by hardcore, competitive games. With the exception of Portal, the top ten…
News

Watch speedrunners obliterate Half-Life in 20 minutes 41 seconds

Okay, so you’ve beaten Half-Life like 15 years ago and felt pretty good about yourself. But these guys just beat it in 20 minutes 41 seconds. Well, the word “just” is a bit of an exaggeration. The speedrun, posted on YouTube recently, was the result of four years of “painstaking theorycrafting, execution,” and that crushing feeling that surely comes with playing the same single-player shooter over and over and over. This is commendable because it’s a world-record, and because a game that normally takes 8 hours was completed in less time than it takes me to take shower. (Hey, I…
News

Half-Life 2 sure would be good-looking on modern hardware

These crisp and meticulously-rendered screenshots of the train station from Half-Life 2 titillate and tease. Just how gorgeous would Half-Life 3 look on modern hardware? Not like that’s going to happen, but from time to time its good to rub fresh salt in old wounds.  The shots come to us courtesy of digital artist Jeannot “Logithx” van Berlo, who grabbed these images from his very lovely recreation of City 17 and posted them on the Polycount user forum, which is full of game artists pimping their stuff.  What’s scary is he’s claiming that his architectural model will look even more…