Valve

Ok, ok, so it’s not Monday and I’m going to post an embedded video. Relax, breathe deep, it’s ok. Meet the Spy

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen. If you’ve never actually visited Giant Bomb then you probably don’t know that it’s the greatest user-populated video game database on the internet and a pretty darn cool concept. The gist is this: you get all the editorial content that you’d expect from a video games site, only now you get to also create a super-detailed wiki, of sorts, where you can associate games with abstract concepts like " Full Body Awareness" in Left 4 Dead, meaning that when you look down (you’re already in the first person perspective) you don’t just see floor, you see your feet, or objects like crates or, well, you get the idea. ...

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen. If you’re trying to find the common thread that weaves all of these games together, don’t keep racking your brain, I’m just covering a ton of different stories and experiences. Tangled Up in Blue Street Fighter IV created within me something of a fighting game…well I hesitate to call it a renaissance, cause there was never a naissance, so to speak, but, should naissance actually be French for birth, it did birth in me the fighting spirit. I haven’t played the game in a while, mostly because I’m trying to save the world and attend high school (Persona 4) at the same time, but I figure I’ll get back to it soon, especially with that new tournament mode in. ...

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen. The Left 4 Dead survival mode has finally hit the tubes and I think there’s really only one adjective that can accurately describe it: hard. The video I posted below comes from Giant Bomb’s Brad Shoemaker playing it on the 360, but let me tell you, the unprepared will fare no better, even on a PC. ...

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen. On 24 April Street Fighter IV will never be the same. We’re getting a free Championship Mode which will allow us to take part in tournaments. They will be double-blind selection (FINALLY!) and reward Grade Points (GP) which will allow users to enter higher and higher level tournaments. Winning tournaments will yield Championship Points (CP) which are apparently like prize money. These CP will allow the top players in the world to upload replays that other people can view and comment on. ...

Insert another credit, because it’s time for your weekly video game news and you’ve just hit the Game Overview screen. Ok, now that we’ve finished with all the villains of Final Fantasy, let’s do all the Heroes!…Just kidding, we’re gonna stick to some hard news for now and maybe come back to features sometime in the future. That doesn’t mean we won’t be talking about Final Fantasy, though. It seems that the much better Japanese PSN store got themselves FF VII released for download for about $15. I’d say that’s a pretty cool win and hopefully it will lead into them finally creating that PS3 FF VII that everyone wishes was real, but will probably never happen. ...

Left 4 Dead Survival DLC pack out next month! It’s supposedly coming out on 21 April and will allow you to play VS mode on the remaining two maps or an infinite zombie wave mode where survival’s the name of the game. Left 4 Dead was easily my favorite game of last year and it’s great to see that Valve hasn’t forgotten about updating the stellar title. I can’t wait for the next update, you know, the promised new campaigns! I’m infinitely happy for the fact that Valve is such a perfectionist company that strives for high quality games, but sometimes I just wanna see new content! ...

Deep from the trenches, it’s time for your Monday video feature: Embedded Reporter. I have no idea why I didn’t post this as last Monday’s ER, but this was definitely my video of February. Enjoy the deep “strategic” insights of Ash Burch:

Today’s the first non-WMQ Wednesday, so I thought I’d ease us into it with a discussion about competitive gaming, since that’s closer to a sport than, say, a book review. Online leagues are nothing new to the computer gaming space. For as long as we’ve been able to play over our 14.4 modems (or slower!) people have been fragging each other in Doom and Quake in leagues, continued doing so through the most popular competitive shooter, Counterstrike, and are even now forming clans and teams within Halo 3. ...

There was a day, back in my youth, when I abhorred first-person shooters. Sure, I played some Goldeneye here and there with my friends, but I was never a Doom, Unreal, or Halo fan. Then something spectacular happened: a company that I’d heard of, but avoided their games because of my fps ambivalence released one of the greatest games I’d ever played: Half-Life 2. It revolutionized my understanding of FPS games and instilled in me blind trust in Valve. I loved Counterstrike: Source, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. ...