Alien Swarm

[Azazel]

To be honest it's not very common for a subgenre to be directly based on one movie.

Plenty of games in this subgenre (top down shooters) have been not based on Aliens. But, I mean, you may as well say the same about FPS games.

Finally manged to cnnect for download! Hope I can just migrate the files afterwards to install on other PCs! 

[K9]

My download speed has crashed through the floor, it's slower than dial-up now... I'm guessing Valve's servers are getting hammered right now, or do you think switching download location again (now that I have it started) could help?

[Malakili]

My download speed has crashed through the floor, it's slower than dial-up now... I'm guessing Valve's servers are getting hammered right now, or do you think switching download location again (now that I have it started) could help?

Mine is set to Chicago and I got a good speed on it, but I did get it just about as soon as it went up.  I have that problem with downloads a lot though, I usually just grit my teeth and do something else until it finishes. 

[kildorn]

Connecting to multiplayer games is.. terrible. NAT issues per usual, but no way to filter games you try to join. One bad NAT host in the pool, and goodbye matchmaking.

[Trippy]

My download speed has crashed through the floor, it's slower than dial-up now... I'm guessing Valve's servers are getting hammered right now, or do you think switching download location again (now that I have it started) could help?

I wonder why they didn't allow pre-loading?

[koro]

My download speed has crashed through the floor, it's slower than dial-up now... I'm guessing Valve's servers are getting hammered right now, or do you think switching download location again (now that I have it started) could help?

I wonder why they didn't allow pre-loading?

Or unlock it at a time when people on the East coast aren't just now getting out of work.

[HaemishM]

Looks like a top down Left 4 Dead game with unlocks. I tried to download it but the servers are getting skullfucked right now. My buddy at work managed to get it downloaded and played it for a few with me looking over his shoulder. Looks interesting.

[Segoris]

FWIW, I'm getting good speeds on the Detroit servers (Chicago ones are pretty hammered now as I couldn't even start the download there).

I'm going to be downloading this as soon as it goes live, look for SnuggleZhenya on the f13 steam group list I'll try to get a game up for f13 folks.

Who has the invite privledges for the F13 steam group? Posting in the community ID thread didn't get an invite and I'd like to join in the F13 games if a spot's open. Steam = Segoris.

[NiX]

Who has the invite privledges for the F13 steam group? Posting in the community ID thread didn't get an invite and I'd like to join in the F13 games if a spot's open. Steam = Segoris.

Schild does.

[Segoris]

Thanks

[Segoris]

There's a lot of awesome implementations in here. From the usage of welding doors to keep more from coming behind to the way you unlock/hack items. Ammo is a rarity though. I did a game of offline practice and ran out on two characters (the first one I was a tech with a turret so no secondary weapon, the other was out of ammo on his main gun when I switched to him and only had his secondary to use). Second game was much better, I brought along an ammo deploy and knew that reloading loses any ammo you had when you reloaded saved me quite a bit as well. Overall, lots of fun to be had. It's pretty damn awesome that it's free too.

[Der Helm]

Fun game, played a round with Aez and some other guy.

Then I tried to restart to get my mic working.

Now I can't even log back into steam.


Sorry Aez.

Gonna call it a night, its 3am over here.

[Samwise]

I'll be firing this up tonight for the TF2 hat.   

[Aez]

Yep, was fun.  I'm not sure but it seems they're not scaling the difficulty.  We were fine with 3 but it was almost impossible with 2.

[K9]

Played a random game, wasn;t great because most of the people spent the whole time running in different directions and dying. Then hooked up with Malakii and a grue and had fun sticking together and dying, although we were playing on hard, as a three. 

The game is definitely fun, and hectic. I think it will definitely improve as people get the hang of aiming and what different unlocks do, and also learn the levels. I'm looking forward to playing some more sophisticated loadouts, currently just running with the heavy armour seems like the best equipment, but in a practise game I know the damage amp and sentry gun were really cool. I'm also looking forward to some more tactical play. I'll be looking for some more games tomorrow I'm sure.

PS: The tech default weapon seems pretty crap, and the leader shotgun, while powerful, is an arse to aim wel; the healgun on the other hand seemed to be doing a great job in our last gamel. Also I have no clue what half the stats do, I'm sure it will come out in time.

[Strazos]

You can hover over them...

[Malakili]

Played some with Nix, then Morfiend, and with a Grue the whole time.  This game is quite awesome when playing with a group that is at least trying to work together (though we must've failed on that one level a good 5-6 times!).  Hard mode is thrilling but...,hard as you might expect.

I thought I would have some fun with this, but its even better than I expected, by a fairly wide margin.  Very polished, and with the dev tools included, I think we can expect more maps, which should help it stay fresh.  Definitely going to play some of this nightly for a while, hopefully with f13 folks.

See you in game.

[kildorn]

I like the default tech autogun. It's just the normal autogun + a bit of autoaim. Crappy on big things, great for wasting facehuggers and whatnot small swarmers.

[Hoax]

If anyone is looking for this I'm getting 1.5MB/s from Sacramento cloud servers.

[Chimpy]

I played a training game. Looks like it could be pretty fun, and that I will be the shittiest player on earth.

Guess I should join the f13 steam community at some point...

[SnakeCharmer]

I am supremely bad at this game.  Fun though.

[Malakili]

Basically, I feel like this is what Left 4 Dead should have been.  It has that survival/horror feel, and I think does a better job encouraging team work (though the reliance on team work my be bad if you don't have a good group ).  I think the lack of vs. mode will make the game better, I alway sthought co-op was the best part of L4D but people were so enthralled with playing zombies that it turned into a lulzy PvP game with lame crap like closet camping.  I know some of those issues were fixed in L4D2 but I think game just does co-op really well, and I am a total sucker for a fun co-op game.

[Quinton]

Holy crap, this is fantastic fun, and it's free on Steam.

http://www.alienswarm.com/
http://store.steampowered.com/app/630/

Get it installed, grab three friends, and do some bug hunting.

Alien Swarm is a game and Source SDK release from a group of talented designers at Valve who were hired from the Mod community.

Available free of charge, the game thrusts players into an epic bug hunt featuring a unique blend of co-op play and squad-level tactics. With your friends, form a squad of four distinct IAF Marine classes. Plan your attack using an unlockable arsenal of weapons with countless loadout configurations against a wide variety of aliens. Blaze your way through an overrun, off-world colony, eradicating the alien infestation in environments ranging from the icy planet's surface, to a subterranean lava-flooded mining facility.

Along with the game get the complete code base for Alien Swarm that features updates to the Source engine as well as the SDK. Alien Swarm adds 3rd person camera, depth of field, improved dynamic shadows and a wide variety of gameplay additions to the Source engine.

    * Tactical, 4 player co-op action game with a top-down perspective
    * Complete game code and mod tools
    * Unlock persistent items by gaining levels
    * Over 40 weapons and equipment with countless loadout configurations
    * 4 unique classes and 8 unique characters
    * Matchmaking, Steam Cloud, Steam Stats
    * 64 achievements
    * Tile-based map generation tool
    * Powered by Source and Steam

[Quinton]

Doh!  Of course this is where there'd be a post...  thanks for sorting that out, Trippy...

Love this.  I'm not great at it, but I just spent a hour and a half bug hunting with friends and it was a total blast.


From the SA Thread on this:

It has an IN-GAME level editor which can also randomly generate missions.

In Steam Tools, install the Alien Swarm SDK.
Run the game as normal.
Activate the console.
Open it.
Type 'SV_Cheats 1'
Type 'ASW_tilegen'

There you go. One level editor. I just tested it. Without hyperbole, it took me three minutes to generate and compile a whole new level from scratch. And then I was playing it. And died really quickly because there were no bots to help me, but whatever, it WORKS.

I repeat: THIS GAME HAS A RANDOM MISSION GENERATOR AND IN-GAME EDITOR. The number of missions is officially infinite.

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

[Megrim]

Does anyone else get random fps drops while playing? Also, i'm on now, so if anyone wants a go send me a message on steam.

[K9]

Random observations:

 - To do a quick reload, you need to hit R while the little line is inside the light grey area of the reload bar. You can do this if you auto reload or manually reload
 - You only loose ammo if you switch weapons while reloading, or reload a weapon with more than 50% of its ammo remaining (I think)
 - The tesla cannon will not hit friends and stuns enemies and is very ammo-efficient. It's a good early weapon

[lesion]

It has an IN-GAME level editor which can also randomly generate missions.

Thanks for this.

[Thrawn]

Does anyone else get random fps drops while playing? Also, i'm on now, so if anyone wants a go send me a message on steam.

When I went down the elevator on the single player training my FPS plummeted and I'm well above recomended specs I'm sure.

[Megrim]

Yea, i think that one probably happens to most players. I was just also occasionally having fps drops.

[Malakili]

Does anyone else get random fps drops while playing? Also, i'm on now, so if anyone wants a go send me a message on steam.

When I went down the elevator on the single player training my FPS plummeted and I'm well above recomended specs I'm sure.

Are you sure it was an FPS drop, I think every so often the game goes into slow-motion during a dramatic moment, and the beginning of the elevator ride is one of those times.

[Segoris]

I thought it was a slow-motion effect as well, not an fps drop. The game responded as normal only with everything slowed down. Additionally, you got that little window from another perspective on the left side of the screen during the elevator which was pretty cool and another reason I figured it was slow motion.

[climbjtree]

Just played a few rounds of this game, and I dig it. I'm glad that my leveling up applies to all classes, too.

So far I think I enjoy being the medic above the others, closely followed by the heavy.

Can we set up some F13 game times? I'm in there as [f13] rldmoto.

[Megrim]

Does anyone else get random fps drops while playing? Also, i'm on now, so if anyone wants a go send me a message on steam.

When I went down the elevator on the single player training my FPS plummeted and I'm well above recomended specs I'm sure.

Are you sure it was an FPS drop, I think every so often the game goes into slow-motion during a dramatic moment, and the beginning of the elevator ride is one of those times.

I know what you mean, but my issue isn't that. It's actual choppy fps in what must be the low 10s. Anyway, it's not a major issue.

[Morfiend]

I played a bit last night. Got invited to a game by Nix, then there didnt seem to be any Nix in the game. a guru was there and someone else, Malachai maybe? I probably should have played the single player a bit first, as I had no idea there was friendly fire and ended up killing my team with shotgun blasts, then I crashed.

So, if a guru is here, sorry for disappearing.

I then played some more with a friend, and had a good time, although he didnt like it. Anyone wanting to play, I should be on later.

[Malakili]

Thanks, downloading now!

Seems that at least one of the achievements awards a hat for TF2

So help me god if it's a facehugger...

It is!