Chow Yun Thin Posted July 17, 2010 http://www.alienswarm.com I remember hearing that this UT2004 mod was being redeveloped on Source as a commercial game. I wonder why Valve decided to release it for free. Maybe they want more people on Steam like when Portal was released for free for a short time? 0 Share this post Link to post
ArmouredBlood Posted July 17, 2010 interesting ... think I'll try it when it comes out. 0 Share this post Link to post
Technician Posted July 17, 2010 Ah, great, now I gotta get Steam. Wait... no I won't. 0 Share this post Link to post
AveryMaurice Posted July 17, 2010 Might as well if its free, I have steam anyways. 0 Share this post Link to post
Craigs Posted July 17, 2010 Steam can be a bit misleading when it comes to coop and that's one of the main things I'm really interested about with this game. There were two other top down shooters on Steam I was interested in on Steam that claimed to have coop, but the first one, alien breed only offered it for a separate and considerably shorter campaign. The second game, Shadowgrounds Survivor, only offered splitscreen coop, which needless to say was retarded considering it was a PC exclusive game. 0 Share this post Link to post
Doom Marine Posted July 17, 2010 Steam's listing of co-op games is not very reliable in finding the co-op that we want in a game, and even in some cases, developers forget to include co-op in their list of features, as with Titan's Quest, an RPG featuring 6-player campaign co-op. And speaking of campaign co-op, it's the most desirable form of co-op. Campaign co-op classics like Contra, Diablo, and Doom gives you the ability to play with friends in the single player campaign. 0 Share this post Link to post
Jodwin Posted July 17, 2010 I'm certainly going to check it out - just to see how it'll hold against Shadowgrounds on single player (I love the first one, but Survivors was certainly a letdown). On one hand the trailer looks visually better, but the gameplay itself doesn't look as great, at least not so far. As for Shadowgrounds' coop, it was the first game of a tiny company made as a single player game, and the coop was thrown later as an afterthought. Sure they could have added networking at that point, at the expense of rewriting the whole engine and risk going bankrupt while doing so. And Survivor recycled the same engine, so no networking there either. 0 Share this post Link to post
Janizdreg Posted July 17, 2010 The original Alien Swarm mod was amazing. It featured tactical, challenging and exceptionally intense campaign co-op action, and overall it's definitely one of my favorite gaming experiences of all time. So naturally I'm looking forward to playing this sequel quite a lot. The AS mod was in essence designed solely for co-op play and there isn't much doubt that this stand-alone AS game will be the same. In fact the mod featured relatively complicated combat situations and such a primitive AI that it was hardly playable in single player. So I wouldn't set very high expectations for the AS game's SP mode either. 0 Share this post Link to post
Grazza Posted July 17, 2010 Maybe we should have a special hidden area of the forums set aside for free advertising for Steam junk. 0 Share this post Link to post
AveryMaurice Posted July 19, 2010 Don't know if anyone cares, but its coming out today. Unlocks in 5 hours. Wee 0 Share this post Link to post
Bucket Posted July 20, 2010 OK, trying to get through the servers to download this is a major pain in the ass. 0 Share this post Link to post
SYS Posted July 20, 2010 Not for me, but it's really slow. HWGuy said:http://www.alienswarm.com I remember hearing that this UT2004 mod was being redeveloped on Source as a commercial game. I wonder why Valve decided to release it for free. Maybe they want more people on Steam like when Portal was released for free for a short time? I'm guessing Valve wants to see what kind of community will emerge around a freely distributed open source game. I could see a dedicated team making a hack 'n slash type Diablo/Gauntlet mod out of it. 0 Share this post Link to post
AveryMaurice Posted July 20, 2010 Just played it, its brillant and free. The gameplay is smooth (I played with 3 of my irl friends) and we had a blast. Teamwork actually works well, you need a skilled player in each class to do well (best combo usually is 2 medis, 1 tech and 1 soldier), and the leveling system is great. 4/5 0 Share this post Link to post
ArmouredBlood Posted July 20, 2010 Agreed, good game. Campaign's short, but I've only played it through on easy to get a feel for the combat and levels. got to lvl9, favorite loadout - officer, with the burst shotty, tesla gun, and hornet missiles. I think the missions are short enough you'll rarely need 2 medics unless you're on the harder difficulties, which I'll probably try later. Steamid is Blood_Titan so say hi if you see me ;) 0 Share this post Link to post
AveryMaurice Posted July 20, 2010 I think the most interesting thing is going to be seeing all the custom campaigns people make with the SDK. 0 Share this post Link to post
Craigs Posted July 20, 2010 I got a chance to try it out. Like most coop games, it's a lot more fun when you're playing with friends. A lot of times when I'm playing with strangers I can't help but feel like I'm baby sitting them. One time my entire team got slaughtered just a few feet from the start. The idiots managed to get themselves completely surrounded within a fraction of a minute and killed in even less. 0 Share this post Link to post
Chow Yun Thin Posted July 20, 2010 Damn, I am so hating my internet connection right now. It's even worse than what I posted on the internet speed thread. It's gonna take all freaking night to download. Why the hell didn't Valve let people preload the game over the weekend so that their content servers wouldn't get all backed up today? 0 Share this post Link to post
ArmouredBlood Posted July 20, 2010 Played a bit with avery on normal, then decided to try my hand at insane. Needless to say, it's insane. And fun. But mostly insane. Over 3 hours and with players that rolled in and out like the group was a saloon door, we managed to get to the level with snow outside and where you get to blow up some piping. There we got so bogged down that for the last hour or so we'd been attempting it. I think I've got a strategy to get us past, and in fact we almost made it 2-3 times, but there's a certain part where you have to go as fast as the support ship or you get overwhelmed, instantly. Not to mention there's a grenadier gauntlet we basically rush through and a part where you basically have to weld the doors shut and place quite a few turrets to even have a chance of surviving. I will never have more respect for any gun besides the tesla gun. The thing has the most ammo capacity of any gun, kills decently fast, and stuns enemies, and that can transfer to multiple targets if they're clumped. Which holds off the hyperagressives quite well. 0 Share this post Link to post
Bucket Posted July 20, 2010 I've only played a few maps on Easy so far, but I like what I see. I want to get a hang of the classes and get a sense of when exactly I should deploy ammo and so on. 0 Share this post Link to post
kristus Posted July 20, 2010 Would work great as a base for a Crusader clone. 0 Share this post Link to post
Sharessa Posted July 20, 2010 Downloaded it, haven't tried it yet. Hope it works. It should if it's on the Source engine, though. 0 Share this post Link to post
SYS Posted July 20, 2010 Got through the entire campaign on normal. Only level 15 and still have tonnes of crap to unlock. Which I assume make the higher difficulties more playable. That was within an hour and a half of playing. I know people poo-poo Steam, but unless you've a dial-up modem there isn't really much you can actually complain about in respect to this game. 0 Share this post Link to post
Shaikoten Posted July 20, 2010 It's great. Short, but I'm not going to complain for it being free. And a pretty solid amount of replay value. They're probably just hoping to see a lot of custom campaigns get released for it, which I'm fine with. It seems like the sort of game that could easily have a campaign added with very minimal need for voice acting or the like. The gameplay is pretty refined and quite balanced, and teamwork is absolutely essential. 0 Share this post Link to post
eargosedown Posted July 20, 2010 Was a fun way to kill a few hours with friends*, especially since we made all these L4D jokes the whole way through. Worth a download and a playthrough, even if just for the TF2 hat. [*Friends being my Left 4 Dead competitive team] 0 Share this post Link to post
Sharessa Posted July 21, 2010 Played a few levels yesterday. It was pretty fun, and I at least got my TF2 hat. :P 0 Share this post Link to post
negke Posted July 22, 2010 Quite fun indeed. Not overly difficult on Normal with a team of three and more, The only real threat are those parasite things (if there's no medic on the team). The different weapons/items and classes seem to allow for some variation and different approaches to the levels, though I'm a little disappointed it's only a single campaign. Hopefully there will be some proper custom ones soon - shouldn't be too hard considering it's "just" Source engine and the SDK is available, too. 0 Share this post Link to post
Ahcruna Posted July 22, 2010 looks like you can play it in FPS mode too http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/alien-swarm-in-first-person/347646?playlist=featured 0 Share this post Link to post