Aliens vs. Predator PC and Napoleon: Total War Incorporate Steamworks, Require Steam

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All digital and retail copies of Napoleon: Total War and Aliens vs. Predator PC will pack Steamworks integration, publisher SEGA and digital retailer Valve announced today, meaning that both will require players to have installed Valve's Steam platform.

Both games will utilize the Steamworks platform for achievements, matchmaking, leaderboards, stats, and server-side Cloud data storage, explained Valve. Aliens vs. Predator launches February 16, with Napoleon: Total War coming February 23.

SEGA utilized Steamworks with the last Total War entry, Empire, joined by the likes of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. But while Valve claims that "Steamworks makes DRM obsolete," other retailers and distributors have described it as a "Trojan Horse," specifically taking issue with its integration into Modern Warfare 2 whilst continuing to sell other Steamworks-enabled games.

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
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    January 25, 2010 2:32 PM

    Steamworks is succeeding where Gamespy failed.

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      January 25, 2010 2:34 PM

      Where Gsmespy didn't fail?

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      January 25, 2010 2:58 PM

      You mean Games for Windows Live?

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      January 25, 2010 3:01 PM

      GFWL is actually a pretty nice service in terms of the interface and having one account with achievements over PC and 360. But no, pretty sure he means gamespy which has always been an absolutely pain in the arse and one of the worst online systems out there.

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        January 25, 2010 3:04 PM

        The thing that I hate with Gamespy is that I have about 6 accounts with about 30 profiles under those from all my games. Long before I really knew they were all linked into the same system. I'd love to be able to combine them all.

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          January 25, 2010 4:21 PM

          Even then, sometimes it won't let you register a new game to your account 'cause that name is already in use with another game on your account. HATE Gamespy.

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      January 25, 2010 5:42 PM

      i LOATHE gayspy arcade.. i always thought it was a piece of crap and hated when games forced you to install it to play in it's MP, thank god for steam

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        January 25, 2010 6:20 PM

        I hated gamespy when they wanted to you use it to find servers... Then All-Seeing-Eye was the awesome... but alas yahoo killed that.... jerks.

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          January 25, 2010 6:43 PM

          ASE was great for griefing, you can stalk players by typing in their player name and adding it to your friends without need for confirmation.

          My buddy and I had this one guy ragequit when we kept killing him in Desert Combat Mod with our Black Hawk and minigun. So whenever we saw him online we'd join his game and I'd fly the helicopter and my friend mowed him down with the minigun.

          He said, "It's YOU GUYS!" and eventually he quit playing DC Mod after like a week of us doing that.

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