After longstanding rumors that Half-Life and Team Fortress developer Valve were in the process of developing their own console/gaming rig were debunked finally, the “Steam-Box” is finally available for preorder. Rumors began after Valve was said to be involved with the Xi3 hardware developer.

It was clarified today on an article on IGN.com from a Valve spokesperson, “Valve began some exploratory work with Xi3 last year, but currently has no involvement in any product of theirs.” But luckily for Xi3, the reputation and possibility of Valve entering the hardware market carried over to their Piston console which has been referred to up until its recent reveal as the “Steam-Box”.

Earlier in the week, I praised Far Cry 3 for the living world it presented to players. Now, only a few days later they have ticked me off in a way I only recently suspected from Capcom. The other day on XBox.com, I saw Far Cry 3 had new DLC and thought to myself, “Great. More Far Cry 3 to play and it’s only ten bucks.”

Six more missions, more rare animals to hunt, multiplayer unlocks and the previously unreleased retail bonuses from The Monkey Business Pack, The Lost Expeditions, The Warrior Pack, and The Predator Pack. But then I look over and see the file size. 108 kb. While I know there are some coding tricks out there to compress file sizes, but a 108 kb isn’t enough to load new missions and rare animal character models. But it is just big enough to unlock content currently on the game disc…

This has been a personal pet peeve of mine since DLC began supporting on disc unlocks. If it’s on a disc, that means it was completed before the game was sent to print. In my mind, the price I paid for the game disc should include all of that content on said disc. There aren’t extra man hours being created to produce new content after the game was completed which is why most people pay for additional DLC like map packs in Halo or Call of Duty. It is literally players just being given a key to unlock what is on the physical media they already have in their possession.

Since we started covering games, we have always had an eye on THQ and its franchises. From the WWE and UFC fighting games to fantasy adventures like Darksiders and sci-fi worlds of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine to even the modern day gone wrong Saints Row, THQ has been a huge part of gaming for the better part of the past twenty years. Unfortunately, this past week THQ was forced to declare bankruptcy in hopes of somehow finding a way to save the jobs of as many employees as possible and keep their games in progress still alive.

There are a few options to what could happen to THQ. First, it could be bought out by another company and have its portfolio absorbed into the new company including licenses. Another option would be the company dissolves and its assets including studios are auctioned off. If either were to happen, it is possible that we would see some of the THQ franchises picked up by other studios and studios picked up by other publishers. But the question then begins, what would the good combinations be for publishers and studios as well as studios and franchises.

There are many different schools of thought as to how gaming should be presented. Some people like epic, long storylines. Others prefer bite sized casual experiences. Still others will combine the two and let a story be handled through a series of smaller episodic experiences. Telling a story across multiple games isn’t something new.

It began in the earliest days of sequels where players would pick up with the lead character after the events of the original in a new title. But many of these games weren’t created with the intentions of being long form stories. They were just stories taking place in the same universe of one that happened to be a commercial success. It wasn’t until more recently that games specifically began being created to tell a story across multiple releases. This would lead to the advent of episodic gaming.

The advantages of episodic gaming extend to both the developer and the consumer because of the nature of the format. First and foremost for the consumer is the reduced risk associated with purchasing a new game. For the most part, episodic games are cheaper than full retail releases so if a player purchases the first episode of a game and doesn’t enjoy it, they only spent money on the first episode instead of the entire season. Some developers and publishers will actually even allow players the first episode for free to reign people in. This tactic was used by XBox’s Live Market Place on Fable 2 and is going to be in effect this month for PlayStation Plus subscribers with the first two episodes of Telltale’s The Walking Dead.

When most gamers here the phrase “Free-to-play,” heads are usually shaken and faces are definitely palmed. Once in a great while, however, there comes a free-to-play game that is that actually is free to play. Blacklight: Retribution is one of the few games that not only costs you nothing to enjoy, but is also damn fun to play in the process – and now, it’s as easy as downloading it from the Steam store (for FREE).

From Andy Kipling, Executive Producer at Zombie Studios:

“We couldn’t be more excited with the upcoming release of Blacklight: Retribution on Steam. With millions of active users daily, Steam has become the premiere digital distribution service around the world. As the Free-to-Play market grows, we continue to explore new methods for our fans to play our games, and bringing Blacklight: Retribution to Steam was a no brainer. Working with Valve to bring Blacklight: Retribution to Steam was extremely easy. We added support for Steam Achievement and Stats to Blacklight: Retribution, and a number of in-game items especially for Steam users.”

Player created content. The land where the developer’s concepts are hopped up on a unique internet blend of creativity inspired by Red Bull, Jack Daniels and Ritalin. Whether in the form of Half-Life 2 mods, storylines in WWE 12 or levels in Little Big Planet 2, giving players a customizable aspect to their game has become a proven asset to developers to extend the life of their game. Portal 2 was lauded as having some of the most creative and inventive puzzles of 2011, taking game physics and concepts to the next level. Allowing for this kind of creative freedom to fans of the series is the logical next step.

Announced last October, the puzzle editor will be a part of the free DLC pack releasing to PCs and Macs on May 8th known as the Perpetual Testing Initiative. Using the Steam platform, players will be able to create, upload, download and rate creations from the player community. What could this mean? It means that you are giving PC gamers, the most “hardcore” gaming audience, free reign inside the most complicated but approachable world in gaming today.

While Portal focused mostly on creativity using gravity puzzles, Portal 2 took things to a whole new level using light bridges, propulsion gel and launching platforms. Now, players will be able to assemble their own Test Labs using these.

At the start of the month, rumors consumed PC and console gamers alike at the thought of a Steam created console. Most PC gamers thought to themselves, “Well I’ve already got a Steam box. It’s called my PC.” Console gamers had mixed reactions whether it was excitement at the thought of Steam powered games being available on a home console for the first time while others worried about the thought of adding a fourth major console to their home collection, especially with the impending release of the Wii U, next XBox and PlayStation 4 within the next few years.

These rumors were dispelled in under a week when Valve spoke to gaming site Kotaku saying that the company was a long way off from releasing a home system and that the rumored boxes that had been created were meant for internal purposes only to test streaming content from a PC to television, not acting as a console in and of itself. Valve told Kotaku, “We’re always putting boxes together,” he said. “Going all the way back to the Half-Life 1 days, we built special boxes to test our software render…it’s just part of development.”

While on the surface the concept of a Steam box might sound good, there are a few essential problems it must overcome before this idea should attempt to become a reality. The first is the current state of the home console market. Right now, the console market is dominated by the big three: Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft. While Nintendo diverged from the hardcore gamer with the Wii, they claim to be aiming at taking a hold back on that market with the release of a more powerful Wii U.

As everyone expected, the mod community is having a heck of time with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim the same way they did with the past open worlds of the Elder Scrolls series. With the official launch of the Skyrim Creation Kit through the Steam Workshop, players are able to build and distribute mods through the support of Bethesda and Steam which allows the community to come together and let each other know what the best and most promising mods are.

Instead of just being a free for all, this community allows players a piece of mind that they are downloading actual content and not a hack or virus that could harm their system. The first of these mods which every player should snag is the High Resolution Texture Pack which will greatly improve the visuals for most players.

The next piece of content any player with a sense of humor that also isn’t too hung up on silly things like continuity is Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1. Created with the help of Valve, Fall of the Space Core, Vol. 1 brings Portal 2’s third favorite A.I. core to the medieval world of Skyrim.

To celebrate the opening of the Steam Workshop for Skyrim, Valve and Bethesda have teamed up to bring you the Portal 2 Space Core mod, which will let the aggressively space-centric little robot tag along on your adventures in Tamriel.

Also, since Skyrim was the only major release of 2011 without Nolan North in it, you should consider this mod a patch to fix that problem. You can now feel free to include Skyrim in the “Nolan North” section of your video game library, which is to say, your video game library.

Check out a video preview of the Space Core in action and stick to the Flickcast for more Skyrim and Portal news and all things gaming.

2011 was one heck of a year for gaming. Once again, the Call of Duty franchise set records for the largest entertainment launch in history. A game that was only in Beta was able to sell millions of copies and spawn an ungodly large community to the point they had a convention before the game was officially released. There were tons of critical darlings encouraging developers to rethink how they create games.
Take a look this week at the awards The Flickcast (along with The Bitcast team) are proud to present for gaming in 2011

Think Outside the Box Game: Portal 2

While many may argue that Minecraft may be the most deserving of this award, they need to remember one thing. In Minecraft, there are no rules. The expanses of the box are too extreme to find the outer boundaries of. Within Portal 2, players are asked to explore new viewpoints of physics, matter and… well, portals. The puzzles in Portal 2 completely overtake the complexity and creativity of the original, which in itself was groundbreaking. With additional toys at their disposal and the introduction of a cooperative mode, the team at Valve came up with a game that redefined both the puzzle solving and FPS genres all at once.

Anyone who follows The Flickcast knows I’m not the film guy by any means. I’m the video game guy. It is a rare feat to find a strong combination of the two. Portal: No Escape is one of those rare exceptions.

The world of Portal is filled with mystery and though some questions were answered in Portal 2 through the oral history of Aperture Science being explained by the recordings of Cave Johnson, many more questions remained. As a result, the world of Portal is ripe for fan fiction to fill in its many blanks.

That’s where director and editor Dan Trachtenberg’s fan film Portal: No Escape comes in. Though it doesn’t provide any new insight into the world of Portal, it gives a different perspective to its inhabitants. As seen by the events of Portal and Portal 2, the subjects who are used for testing “in the name of science” are not there of their own free will and do whatever they feel they must to escape.

Portal: No Escape follows one of these attempts. With music from Inception trailer composer Mike Zarin,  and vision from director Dan Trachtenberg, this fan film is incredibly tense and compelling and can be appreciated by those who are fans of the series or those who may have never seen it before.

Give Portal: No Escape a watch after the jump and make sure to let us know here at the Flickcast what you think of it.