Alien Swarm, update of UT2k4 mod by Valve releasing monday (free)

[Liet]

Anyone else finding load times to be abnormally long for a Source engine game?

or does my D : drive need a serious defragging?

 

[adinar]

Can someone explain to me how to do that 2nd hack on the first level as a Tech? The part where the whole team "holes up" to defend the tech who has to hack a door? The minigame is like 4 columns of lines going up/down and on the right-pane is the diamond shape of 4 rectangles. I had no idea how to do it .

You have to get all the 1's to line up. Ignore the lit/unlit square blocks to the right. The arrows below the columns cause the column to move up or down. For example, if the left-most column is moving down, you want the one next to it to move up. Once the 1's line up, you'll want to trigger the 2nd column to move down alongside the first so the 1's stay together.

If you find yourself running out of ammo, make sure one of the guys brings along an ammo crate.

FF is a big deal in the game - you need to move deliberately instead of running all over the place. I've found having two people take the front and two people guarding the rear to be a good strat.

 

[digiram]

This is a pretty bad-ass free game. I would've paid 10.00 bucks at least for it. I hope they release it for Live and PSN so they can make some money from all the time and effort they put in to create it.

 

[JTsyo]

Are all you guys on the Antech steam group? I saw an option was to find games for groups you're part of. I tried to get into a game but it just wouldn't load. Any special ports you need to open for this?

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

List of helpful console commands: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1371124

I've only played in practice mode but is there a way to turn off the death animation that plays when someone dies?

 

[hellfire88]

You have to get all the 1's to line up. Ignore the lit/unlit square blocks to the right. The arrows below the columns cause the column to move up or down. For example, if the left-most column is moving down, you want the one next to it to move up. Once the 1's line up, you'll want to trigger the 2nd column to move down alongside the first so the 1's stay together.

If you find yourself running out of ammo, make sure one of the guys brings along an ammo crate.

FF is a big deal in the game - you need to move deliberately instead of running all over the place. I've found having two people take the front and two people guarding the rear to be a good strat.

Thanks for the tip! I'll give it a try tonight. Played some last night and still enjoying this game! I'd pay $10-$15 for more content.

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

game randomly shuts down my machine in practice mode for some reason.

 

[zerocool84]

Finally got around to playing it and it's definitely fun. Would have paid $10 for this. Had no idea what I was doing at first but it's fun. Was playing as the "heavy" class with the big gun. Might try something else like Medic. Do you get experience for dropping ammo or health or things like that in game?

 

[Chiefcrowe]

thank you! this game looks great and i just got it. can't wait to fire it up!

 

[mav451]

Anyone else finding load times to be abnormally long for a Source engine game?

or does my D : drive need a serious defragging?

Lol yeah, definitely defrag. Load times are about 1/3 of TF2 loading times, so really brief imo.

 

[zerocool84]

Lol yeah, definitely defrag. Load times are about 1/3 of TF2 loading times, so really brief imo.

After I defragged practically all of my slowdowns during firefights went away.

 

[skace]

If I were a betting man, I'd say this game was free BECAUSE they expect to release a much bigger campaign at some price like $10-15 dollars. In effect, making this short campaign sort of a free demo to the masses.

I also think that, if they were to do this, it would be an incredibly smart way to sell a game.

 

[Dorkenstein]

I hope you're right skace. I just beat the campaign last night (I'm slow), and I'm already fiending for more content.

 

[Liet]

Same here, I want more more more! MOOOORE content!

 

[JTsyo]

There should also be user made content coming in the following weeks.

 

[M0oG0oGaiPan]

If I were a betting man, I'd say this game was free BECAUSE they expect to release a much bigger campaign at some price like $10-15 dollars. In effect, making this short campaign sort of a free demo to the masses.

I also think that, if they were to do this, it would be an incredibly smart way to sell a game.

There's actually a thread on the steam forums about why the game was free.

I think it was something like you described.
1. The game was only one campaign. Incomplete. Get's people to try the game out and gauge reception.
2. Get's new people to use steam.
3. Forgot what #3 was.

 

[spaceman]

death animatiosn(and vocals) are so LOL
this game has serious grief potential

 

[quadomatic]

I finally played it, got to play for maybe 30 minutes. It's really quite good.

I love the gameplay...friendly fire is actually a huge factor. In L4D2 you generally won't get killed by friendly fire, but it definitely happens in Alien Swarm. Staying out of everyone else's line of fire can be tricky.

I don't understand the complaints...yeah, it's short (or so I hear, I've only played the first 2 levels of the campaign), but it was free. I read complaints about optimization as well. There was maybe one time where there was an unreasonably large amount of stuff going on at once that caused some slowdown, but that was it. Otherwise runs very well.

Definitely a lot of potential for mods and maps here.

 

[MobiusPizza]

This is a fun game. I wouldn't mind if they charge for future campaign packs
But that might divide the community though

 

[SunnyD]

Played the tutorial, nice game. Feels a bit like some of the classic shooters I miss (re: Commando, Ikari Warriors, etc)

 

[Dorkenstein]

I used to love Ikari Warriors. GET OUT OF THE TANK!

 

[dpodblood]

I love the gameplay...friendly fire is actually a huge factor. In L4D2 you generally won't get killed by friendly fire.

Have you ever played it on the higher difficulties? You can be taken out my teammates pretty quickly.

Looking forward to giving alien swarm a go tonight.

 

[Liet]

It's got that oldschool fun coop vibe from Contra.

Sort of.

This game is a blast and I can't wait for more content.

 

[Martimus]

Do you need another Source Engine game to play this?

My roommate downloaded it, and it will not run for him, but he doesn't have any Source Engine games loaded from Steam.

I was going to give him my HL2 gift, but it disappeared once they switched over to the new style of Steam.

 

[Dorkenstein]

Did he do a file verification? Should be fine with no other source stuff AFAIK.