Why I Like Valve

[SleepKiller]

Well I started thinking today about Valve and much of a great developer they are. So I thought I would I would write it down just why I liked them.

So to start off with the games, they are all brilliant anything made by Valve is fun to play and most importantly complete. Valve doesn't tend to release a game unless it is finished and they don't put too much stress on there developers to get it out by a deadline. If you haven't ever played a Valve game start with Half-Life 2 that game came out in 2004 the same year as Star Wars Battlefront. Just look at the visuals in it, the human faces and the way they move look highly realistic. Not forgetting there brilliant use of Havok Physics adding another dynamic to what would be just another go through the level and shoot everyone. No in Half-Life 2 you have to think about a problem often and solve it logically it isn't just blast your way through to that machine  gun bunker like in Call Of Duty. Then there is Counter Strike which I have never played but let's take a look at the gameplay statistics for it on Steam vs Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Today Counter Strike has had a total of 51,389 players playing it at its peak; Call Of Duty: Modern Warefare 3 on the other hand peak has been 34,027. Counter Strike is 12 years old yet it is still played more than the ever so craved Call Of Duty. And Counter Strike started out as a mod, and now look at what it is that is another great thing about Valve they take mod ideas and turn them into full fledged hyper selling games. Team Fortress started out as a mod being made by two guys they got hired by Valve and ta-da a few years down the track Team Fortress 2 has become the most played game on Steam. The most recent one they are doing is Dota 2 I have never played it but even in its closed beta stage it has more players on Steam than all the other big brands.

Now their technology is simply amazing. Source is as old as Star Wars Battlefront, but it is still a great game engine. It has a whole bunch of features. One of my personal favourite feature is probably the rendering system. It has self-shadowed bump maps, that means the bump maps depth can be seen without light shining on it. The water rendering system looks very pleasing to the eye, although not up to modern methods back in its day it looked very good.  And my favourite High Dynamic Range Rendering, this thing is just wow. The extra depth HDR rendering adds to a game is surprisingly huge one of the cooler features of it is the mimicking of being in a dark room and then walking out into daylight to have your eyes not seeing properly.  There are so many cool features in the engine another one is the AI, they can fight an enemy and work together without being scripted you would never see that in Star Wars Battlefront or Star Wars Battlefront II.

Well I do believe that concludes this little article/rant. You should go and buy Half-Life 2 and Portal if you don't think Valve are amazing. Come back and tell that to me after you have tried one of there games. Valve is definitely worth all of the critical acclaim their games have gotten no question about it.

[jdee-barc]

Team Fortress 2, and Garry's mod are by far my favorite.

[Unit 33]

 What you forgot to mention was their bizarre humour, it's fabulous really.
I would also go further in saying that the HL2 graphics/visuals and sense of realism continue to rival modern games.
And I'm still addicted to TF2, so good job Valve, plus they really know how to make a good ARG/Viral Campaign.

AH MY GAAAAAAAWD


Man VS Machine Update is out tomorrow!

http://www.teamfortress.com/mvm/

[SleepKiller]

What you forgot to mention was their bizarre humour, it's fabulous really.
I would also go further in saying that the HL2 graphics/visuals and sense of realism continue to rival modern games.
And I'm still addicted to TF2, so good job Valve, plus they really know how to make a good ARG/Viral Campaign.

AH MY GAAAAAAAWD


Man VS Machine Update is out tomorrow!

http://www.teamfortress.com/mvm/

Holy cow! Why am I only learning about that now, screw modding that looks awesome!

[Unit 33]

Holy cow! Why am I only learning about that now, screw modding that looks awesome!

I AGREE

Unfortunately it releases tomorrow; which is the same day as my Exam Results...

Screw results! I have to repel a Robot Army and save Mann Co!

[SleepKiller]

So I finally got a chance to play MvM today. It was just wow! Simply brilliant Valve continues to out do themselves.