360 gaming blog.

Valve has to be one of the most respected companies in the gaming business. They aren’t simply makers of great games, they have their own game engine with Source and they have their digital distribution store with Steam.

I think for some people it’s kind of a love it or hate it thing with Valve. I know some people who hate what they do but lots of gamers and critics seem to just adore them. They have achieved a massive amount and they pretty much saved the PC gaming market from the video game pirates when they introduced Steam to gamers.

If you haven’t checked it out Steam has some great deals on games. They often have end of the week sales and then a couple of times a year there is a massive sale on loads of games. Earlier this week they massively reduced the price of Left 4 Dead 2 for a short period to $6.79 for the game and both DLCs! And there is still the offer where you can buy four copies of the game for just $20. So you could have four copies on the PC for less than the price of one copy on the Xbox...

That’s the sort of loyalty to your customers that Microsoft has no chance of ever recreating. Valve wanted to give away all of Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2’s DLC free on the Xbox but it wasn’t allowed. Valve has not been quiet about its dislike of the Xbox Live system and how it rips off gamers. Valve seems to do as much as they can for gamers and their fans while Microsoft seems to be at the other end of the scale.

So if you’ve never experienced what Valve has to offer try out The Orange Box. It contains 5 games for the price of one full retail game and as it says on the cover it’s ‘one of the best deals in videogame history’. If you want the best experience go for the PC edition as it has updates most weeks unlike the 360 one which has never been properly updated because Microsoft won’t allow it.

Valve aren’t the best at their release dates as they are infamous for saying something will come out on a certain date then it appears a year later but it’s always great when it finally arrives. http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Valve_Time

Their next big game is Portal 2 which has been delayed until February 2011. Again the PC and PS3 versions will be the ones to watch as they will most likely have weekly updates through Steamworks. I think it looks amazing, check out some of the new gameplay features:

Arctic Hydra 87