2020 royally sucked ass for many people and for a lot of obvious reasons. Quality escapism has never been more important to me than it has been this past year. Simply taking my mind off things through video games is a luxury and I'm more th...

I always enjoy winding down the year with a look at Steam's list of best-selling games. Besides high-profile new releases like Cyberpunk 2077 and surprise indie hits like Phasmophobia, 2020 was another year of gaming dominated by old flames...

This year was mostly bad for everyone -- and that's a thing that's usually said very hyperbolically because a couple celebrities died or whatever, but in 2020 it feels appropriate for once -- but it wasn't without its silver linings. We got...

We've made it to the end of the year, and that means it's time for the Steam Winter Sale, which is hosting I-don't-even-wanna-know-how-many PC game deals until January 5 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific. Lots of players are buying Stardew Valley (it's...

Gabe Newell and I have lived very different COVID-19 quarantines. I've been chained to my desk blogging about games for the 105th consecutive month. Newell went to New Zealand because it seemed nice, became so enamored that he lobbied the ...

It's a busy day for Nioh news, all of it good. Scratch that. Almost all of it good. Both Nioh games are coming to PS5 with 4K and 120fps support on February 5, 2021. (That's good.) Also, Nioh 2's complete edition is launchin...

In-game commentaries are synonymous with Valve, but due to the rough year we've all been through, Half-Life: Alyx wasn't able to launch with the Developer Commentary fans have come to expect. Almost eight months later – and just in ti...

Large-scale closed playtesting seems like something that can be kind of a pain in the ass to arrange. Developers are generally left to select hundreds or thousands of players, and distribute unique keys to each of them individually. Steam i...

Techland is still having the time of its life with Dying Light. After hosting a cool but mostly weapon-focused Left 4 Dead crossover event last year, the team is back with something even better for Halloween 2020: an update that lets you p...

It's been over a decade now since the release of Left 4 Dead 2, and now with the community-made "Last Stand" update, what better time to kill hordes of zombies than ever before? On today's Impulse, Justin and I discuss and share our past an...

Last last month, we told you about the final add-on for Left 4 Dead 2. It's not your usual DLC, though. This isn't Valve-developed, but rather Valve-sanctioned. It's a fan-made update, but it also has gotten the blessing (and promotion) fr...

Left 4 Dead 2 has survived longer than anyone thought it would. The 2009 cooperative zombie shooter is still kickin' around, proving that it has the mettle to not die quite yet. It's even getting an update sometime soon. The Left 4 De...

A new update to PC gaming platform Steam aims to block users from purchasing games from regions other than their own, an exploit sometimes used in order to pick up titles for lower prices than they perhaps retail for within their home terri...

Contrary to popular belief, Valve was working on the three-numbered games in those franchises that everyone loves. It wasn't laziness, disinterest, or prioritizing Steam that kept Valve from finishing those games. Instead, it was a problem ...

Live with a weird intro long enough and it becomes normalized. A dude with a valve in the back of his head? Don't worry about it. The guy before him with a plugged-up eye? He's fine. Play some Half-Life. Valve's logo splash screen has evolv...

There are few game developers that carry themselves as mysteriously as Valve does. What happens behind those doors among all those sliding desks? What has Valve worked on, deemed not good enough, and subsequently scrapped?  Some answer...

Half-Life: Alyx is full of a million tiny little touches that make it a splendidly neat VR game. You can wear a bucket on your head and it protects you from Barnacles. There's a fully-functioning piano in a hotel lobby. It's all a bunc...

You're probably vaguely aware of the situation regarding Valve's Artifact, but here's a brief recap. Released in late 2018 to a lot of promise from DOTA 2 fans, Artifact quickly crumbled and over the course of several months, its playerbase...

It's been long known that Valve contracted Arkane Studios in the mid-'00s to make a new Half-Life game. However, little was actually known about that project except that it was set in Ravenholm and that Valve canceled production befor...

Steam is back with another game-backlog-clearing exercise for 2020. I barely made a dent last year, but I enjoyed having a nudge to play – or at least think about playing – some of my library's deep cuts. This time, Steam's Spri...

In the face of competition from other digital PC game storefronts, Valve might be planning a loyalty program with hopes that it'll give consumers some extra incentive to shop on Steam. SteamDB developer and data miner Pavel Djundik found ev...

For the first time in nearly a year, Valve's Twitter account for Artifact, their under-performing card game, actually tweeted something. It was all the way back in March of 2019 that Valve noted that they were working "towards a better Arti...

The internet is incredible but oftentimes predictable. For instance, as soon as I saw a hotel lobby piano in Half-Life: Alyx, I thought "Oh shit, people are gonna play real music on that." And they have. But just because it's predictable do...

Every so often we tackle dual reviews, where two authors share their takes on a game and provide a single combined score. What better game to bring that concept back than Half-Life: Alyx, the first new Half-Life game in ages. Gath...

This 16-second video completely speaks for itself. This is the sort of innovative spirit and can-do attitude that'll get us through these lean times. This is literal inventory management in a medium that has tried to eliminate any actions ...