Killing Floor

Killing Floor is a cooperative, survival-horror shooter developed and published by Tripwire Interactive.  It runs on the heavily modified Unreal Engine 2.5, and is only playable on PC and Mac.

 It was released May 2009, and was one of the highest-selling games on Steam shortly after its release.  It is currently available on Steam's Summer Deal for $7.50.  This amazing deal comes complete with all the additional content (DLC) offered, including all the character costume packs for significantly reduced prices.

The basis of this game's appeal is in its simplicity.  You can't help but enjoy it, despite its miniscule redundancies and obvious imperfections.  Players find a server, team up, and commence through ten waves of increasingly difficult fights, culminating in a fight with the top specimen, the 'Patriarch'.

On the surface, Killing Floor appears to have much in common with Nazi-Zombies from the Call of Duty series.  The 'zombies' (specimens) can sniff you out - wherever you hide, and it's up to you and your teammates to formulate a survivable strategy.

Players earn money by defeating zombies and surviving waves.  Between each wave, a trader offers some assistance in the form of flamethrowers, shotguns, shields, grenades, and an assortment of automatic rifles.  Players are able to 'trade' their money for more advanced and practical weaponry, in order to even the odds.  Players can also trade equipment, in order to keep the teams' weaker links goal oriented and ready to assist.

Killing Floor has won several awards since its release.  Voodoo Extreme's Reader Choice Awards nominated the game 'Overall Best PC Game of 2009', 'Best PC Shooter of 2009', and 'Best PC Game Expansion of 2009'.

Steam's Summer Sale will not be going on much longer, so I urge game fanatics to take advantage of their exceptional deals.  With some games discounted as much as 80%, Steam is truly setting high standards for competition.  While consoles are breaking the bank and picking the pockets of their devoted customers, the Steam powerhouse is providing more fun at considerably less expense.

Team Fortress' Uber Update

Team Fortress 2 has become a supremely renowned first-person shooter.  Developed by Valve and released almost 4 years ago, it still has a tremendous following.   This is due, in part, to the plethora of updates and additional content that TF2 has seen since its release.

With an update agenda that is second to none, the cartoon-influenced, Steam-powered multiplayer action is persistently being overhauled with supplementary features like weapons, wardrobes and abilities.  The gameplay has truly changed dramatically, for better or worse, in the past 4 years.

Valve recently announced an Uber update that is described as "the most ambitious update in the history of Team Fortress 2".  Complete with new maps and class packs (including new weapons and attire), this is sure to rebound disenfranchised players and garner a whole new demographic!  Can the popularity of this game hold strong for another four years?

Monday Night Combat: All Week Long!

Monday Night Combat (MNC) is an increasingly popular third-person shooter published by Microsoft. available on X-Box Live Arcade and PC's Steam Network.  It was developed by Uber Entertainment, and released August 11, 2010.

Monday Night Combat begs the question:  What is the future of competitive gaming?  Well..  it's lethal.  It's class-based.  And it's kill or be killed.  It fuses the fast-paced, class-based shooting of Team Fortress 2 with the strategic macromanagement of any Tower Defense game.  It offers "gameshow-like challenges and rewards to produce an action experience unlike any other".  The cartoon-style gameplay offers a stark contrast to the multitude of more realistic war-time shooters.

Alien Swarm

With over 1100 games and counting, Valve is cranking out all types of games for all sorts of PC players.  Economy got you down?  Free games from Steam!

 Alien Swarm is a Sci-Fi co-op shooter from the Valve Corporation.  This game first appeared as a mod of Unreal Tournament 2004.  It's success was the driving force behind this 2010 remake.  The same team was hired by Valve to produce it, which is free to download on the Steam network.

This game is a top-down shooter; much like the first Grand Theft Auto, Gauntlet Legends, and (more recently) Zombie Apocalypse.  It features a fresh new look:  new graphics, weapons, and equipment.   There are tons of items to unlock, achievements to liberate and strategies to forge.

Characters are featured with class-specific abilities and signature weapons.  Up to four Steam friends can join a match.  Helping each other is optional though, as survival strategies make it perfectly possible to weld a door shut on a former companion and leave him for alien food - if not to save a few seconds as you make a mad dash for the exit.  Dirty tactics are still tactics.

Alien Swarm also features an SDK (Software Development Kit) that is equally as free as the game itself.  This program allows users to completely customize the game - creating their own levels, aliens, weapons, and even characters.  Over time, more and more custom features will be added.  In the same way that Counter Strike:  Source was modded, this game too will share a uniqueness among games that other platforms can't offer:  user-developed software.

From the developers who brought Half-Life, visit their site and download Alien Swarm for free!