Valve Injects Left 4 Dead Tech Into Alien Swarm

Logan Westbrook

Transform, Roll Out, Etc
Feb 21, 2008
17,672
0
0
Valve Injects Left 4 Dead Tech Into Alien Swarm



Have those waves of aliens become predictable and boring? Well, Valve has just what you need with a new, more dynamic, gameplay mode.

In response to player feedback and feature requests, Valve has added several new features to its free sci-fi shooter Alien Swarm. Chief among these is the new "Onslaught" mode, which uses an AI director - similar to the one found in Left 4 Dead - to make the experience different every time.

According to Valve [http://store.steampowered.com/news/4238/], there will be a number of factors that determine when and where the aliens will appear from, including the squad's stress level. Onslaught will work with any difficulty mode, including the new "Brutal" setting that Valve has added, which is pitched even harder than "Insane." As a cherry on the top of the difficulty sundae, Valve has added a new "friendly fire" mode for the truly hardcore, where friendly weapons do full damage, and squads can be gunned down by their own turrets if they're not careful.

This sounds like the ultimate Alien Swarm challenge: super-hard adversaries that come in unpredictable waves at a squad whose weapons are as deadly to each other as they are to the enemies. I have to admit it sounds a little exhilarating, although I doubt I'd last longer than a minute. If you're feeling a little more capable however, you can pick up the game from Steam [http://store.steampowered.com/app/630/] for free.



Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-08-25-alien-swarm-adds-ai-director]





Permalink
 

Evilsanta

New member
Apr 12, 2010
1,933
0
0
Holy shit! That sounds wat to fucking hard! But i so want to try it out. Gotta try this mode out.
 

Tiamat666

Level 80 Legendary Postlord
Dec 4, 2007
1,012
0
0
It's amazing that Valve puts so much effort into a free game. And a high-quality one at that. I think they're taking my second-favorite developer spot, after Bethesda.
 
Feb 13, 2008
19,430
0
0
That's it man, game over man, game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?

I thought there was already Friendly Fire...or that's what the corpses around me seem to think.
 

Daniel_Rosamilia

New member
Jan 17, 2008
1,110
0
0
Wow...
Another reason why I hope this gets ported over to Steve Jobs' minions' electronic monitors... the Mac soon.
 

brunothepig

New member
May 18, 2009
2,163
0
0
All well and good. But I'd really rather see a new campaign or something.
Still, I do love how Valve keeps updating there games.
 

Vrach

New member
Jun 17, 2010
3,223
0
0
The_root_of_all_evil said:
I thought there was already Friendly Fire...or that's what the corpses around me seem to think.
There is, but the damage is pitiful, the mode puts damage at full/'realistic'. Cool to see, though I'm still searching for 2 more friends to join me and my mate before we can try any of that out. For now, the two of us are barely getting through the levels on Normal :p

Btw, while I'm posting, anyone know of a way to add 2 friendly bots? I mean, when I play Offline Practice, I get to have 4 guys and can switch between them, but when playing with my mate, I can't just add those two. It'd be handy so we can add a Medic/Tech on missions that require them rather than having to make one of us play them.
 

Rednog

New member
Nov 3, 2008
3,567
0
0
I'm just going to say it before any one else does....so valve where is L4D3? We've been waiting you know like forever....and instead of episode 3 of Left 4 Dead you integrate its AI director into another game?!
 

DazZ.

Elite Member
Jun 4, 2009
5,542
0
41
A Pious Cultist said:
This... was already in the game... you just had to use some console commands.
No it wasn't. All that did was randomly send waves at you every now and again, everything was still in the same places all the time, it certainly didn't take into account how well you were doing.
 

tombman888

New member
Jul 12, 2009
1,394
0
0
apparently no-one on the valve team has beaten a mission in brutal mode yet. i'd hate to see how hard onslaught-brutal-friendly fire mode would be like.
 

Reveras

New member
Nov 9, 2009
465
0
0
K now all Valve needs to do is release Portal 2 and HL2:EP3 and they will be richer and more loved than Oil Tycoon Playboy Jesus.
 

DTWolfwood

Better than Vash!
Oct 20, 2009
3,716
0
0
Y not just give us a wave defense lvl? :p

But this is a nice change of pace for a game everyone played day one and then stopped after day 3 XD