Valve today confirmed that its cooperative zombie shooter Left 4 Dead, due November 18, will be the first game to pack support for its free Steam Cloud technology, which automatically stores game settings online.

The initial release of Steam Cloud will store keyboard, mouse, and gamepad configurations, along with multiplayer settings such as spraypaint images, on Steam, allowing gamers to easily play with their settings on any Steam-connected PC.

The initial release of Steam Cloud will not archive saved games, Valve confirmed with Shacknews, though the promised functionality "is coming."

Along with Left 4 Dead's Steam Cloud implementation, Valve will apply the technology to its back catalog of Steam games and provide the free Steam Cloud toolset to all Steam developers and publishers for widespread implementation.

"Steam Cloud is a natural extension of the portability Steam affords gamers and developers, and we intend to expand its feature set as it is used in Left 4 Dead and other games coming to Steam," noted Valve president Gabe Newell.

Sega has announced that like so many games these days, Creative Assembly's Empire: Total War (PC) will receive a special edition in addition to its regular release.

Titled the Special Forces Edition, the premium package will come with exclusive "elite" units as well as a detailed print of the Campaign Map. No pricing or additional details were announced. Sega did announce that the game will use Valve's Steamworks publishing and development suite, allowing for auto updates, downloadable content, friendlist support and achievements.

Additionally Steamworks will provide server browsing and match-making functionality for the game's multiplayer component. Empire: Total War will also authenticate through Steam the very first time it is run.

People who preorder Empire: Total War on Steam now will immediately be able to download a free copy of Rome: Total War Gold.

Empire: Total War will be released February 3.

Monolith's spooky shooter sequel F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin will be available through PC digital distribution platforms Steam and Direct2Drive on February 10, the same day it hits retailers, publisher Warner Bors. announced today.

Originally titled Project Origin, the sequel was renamed earlier this year after Warner Bros. and Monolith acquired the F.E.A.R. property from previous owner Vivendi.

In addition to the PC, F.E.A.R. 2 will hit PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on February 10.

As Bethesda's Fallout 3 inches towards its PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 release on October 28, Valve today announced that the anticipated post-apocalyptic RPG is now available for pre-purchase on its PC digital distribution platform Steam.

The Steam version of Fallout 3 carries the same $49.99 price as the retail edition. Unlike Valve's Left 4 Dead, which is due November 18 and sis currently discounted by 10%, pre-purchasing Fallout 3 brings no price breaks or bonus incentives.

"Fallout 3 is one of the most important PC launches of 2008," said Valve president Gabe Newell. "With Fallout 3 added to the line up of great titles coming to Steam, this year promises to be an even better holiday season for Steam gamers."

The Steam website notes that updates for both Team Fortress 2 and the Steam client are now available.

Team Fortress 2 will update on its own after you restart Steam, while the Steam update can be installed by selecting "Check for Steam Client Updates..." from the File menu.

Steam Client

• Added support for registering CD keys that do not contain any games
• Added support for running an external process when Verifying or Deleting a game

Team Fortress 2

• Added rate limit for several client commands to prevent server spamming
• Added consistency checking for particle systems
• Updated r_particle_timescale ConVar so it can only be changed if the server has sv_cheats set to 1
• Updated loading/disconnect dialogs so they're easier to read
• Updated Dustbowl, Granary, and Badwater Basin with several exploit fixes
• Updated Granary to remove the setup time and gates

Not content with offering up user-created mods for Valve-developed Source-engine powered games, Valve has expanded Steam's offerings to include free mods for Tripwire's 2006 first-person shooter Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 (PC).

Available now, the first Red Orchestra mod on Steam is Mare Nostrum, which brings three nationalities to the game along with 8 new maps, 8 weapons, and 10 vehicles.

In celebration, Tripwire has dropped the price of Red Orchestra to $4.99, a 75% price reduction that will run until the end of the weekend.

Upon purchasing Red Orchestra, any compatible mods will be listed under the "Not Installed" portion of Steam's "My Games" section. As with the previous batch of mods, the community-made Red Orchestra add-ons will be automatically updated by Steam, just like any other game on the digital distribution platform.

Steam has been a very good boy today: first he starts accepting money for Valve's super-highly-anticipated Left 4 Dead, and now he brings you, as promised, PopCap's Peggle Nights--at a deep discount, even.

The pachinko-esque ball-bouncing sequel released last month to rave reviews from Shacknews editor Chris Faylor. He didn't so much play the game as giggle at Bjorn the unicorn and eat PopCap cookies, but it was a resoundingly positive review. Now that it's on Steam, Peggle Nights' price was slashed by half, retailing on Valve's digital distribution service for $9.99. It's available now.

Left 4 Dead is getting close to its November 18 launch, and Valve is now happy to accept your money: the PC edition is now available for pre-purchase on Steam with a 10% discount before the game's release, making for a price of $44.99.

"With just over four weeks until launch, Left 4 Dead is showing every sign of topping The Orange Box on both the PC and Xbox 360, at retail as well as on Steam," said Valve marketing VP Doug Lombardi in a press release.

For those resisting the PC incarnation of the run-away-from-zombies shooter, the Xbox 360 version will hit retail on the same day. The 10% discount also applies to pre-purchase customers at retail outlets, according to Valve's press release.

"Our pre-sell numbers at retail have jumped to over 65% greater than Orange Box at the same proximity to launch," Lombardi continued. "We're seeing tremendous enthusiasm for the product in what promises to be another great year for gaming on both platforms," he added.

For the full press release straight from Valve, read on.

Update: The mods are now available for download and can be found under the "Not Installed" portion of Steam's "My Games" section. In addition, Valve has put Half-Life 2: Episode One on sale for $4.99, offering cheaper access to the Source Engine.

The mods, playable for anyone with a Source Engine-powered game like Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2 or The Orange Box, are:

• Age of Chivalry
• D.I.P.R.I.P.
• Insurgency
• Synergy
• Zombie Panic: Source

Original Story (10/2/08): As promised earlier this week, Valve is scheduled to make five user-created mods available on its Steam digital distribution service later today.

Additionally, the mods tie in to the Steamworks toolset, providing community services and automatic updates like full retail games.

Expanding the breadth of its online PC digital distribution platform Steam, creator Valve has announced that it will begin offering free downloads of user-created mods.

Playable so long as a user has a Source-powered game installed--such as Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2 or The Orange Box--the mods will appear under the My Games listing, and will receive automatic updates like any other Steam release.

The initial batch of mods slated to arrive this week are:

• Age of Chivalry
• D.I.P.R.I.P.
• Insurgency
• Synergy
• Zombie Panic

In addition to automatic updates, the mods will incorporate other aspects of Valve's Steamworks toolset, with the company promising that this will result in "stat tracking and tighter integration with the Steam community."

As the September 16 release of Crytek's sci-fi shooter Crysis Warhead (PC) approaches, Valve and Crytek today announced that both Warhead and the original Crysis will soon be sold through Valve's digital distribution client Steam.

Said to go up for pre-order this weekend, Crysis and Crysis Warhead are slated to hit Steam by mid September. No price points were provided. Faylor's Take: Opening up Crysis and Crysis Warhead to the Steam audience is a smart move for Crytek, especially given the low overheads of digital distribution.

However, don't get too excited about the idea of Crysis publisher EA bringing its major games to Steam. As with Valve's own The Orange Box, Crysis and Crysis Warhead are published through the EA Partners program. Going by the announcement's wording, the Steam debut of Crysis seems to be more of a Valve and Crytek, not EA, thing.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky (PC) will arrive in North American retailers on September 15, publisher Deep Silver announced today.

The GSC Game World-developed shooter prequel was previously expected to hit September 5, but suffered a delay due to a North American manufacturing problem that reportedly saw the game head to stores without the CD key codes required for play.

Curiously, a cloud of uncertainty hangs over the game's once-simultaneous release on Valve's digital distribution network Steam.

Though Valve has announced that S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky will be downloadable on September 15, Deep Silver today stated digital download release date "has not yet been determined."

Are you well-versed in your first-person shooter history? Do you like deathmatch? Do you have all the games made by FPS genre innovator and Rage developer id Software?

If your answers were "no," "yes," and "no," then this weekend is the weekend for you! Valve just announced that its digital distribution service Steam has a weekend sale for all id Software games, and they're all 50 percent off. But wait, there's more! Like this quote from Valve's Doug Lombardi:

"This includes the id Super Pack for only $34.99 (over $200 worth of games). Or take 50% off individual titles such as Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, Commander Keen, Heretic, and Hexen. Offer ends Monday, September 8."

Shacknews readers are reminded that this very site started as a blog centered on id's seminal shooter Quake and is an essential part of gaming history.

Funcom's mature PC MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures today marks the latest game to arrive in Valve's PC digital distribution storefront Steam.

While carrying the same $49.99 price as the retail edition that arrived in May, the Steam release of Conan will sell for 10% off, or $44.99, during its first week of availability.

2K Games producer and Shack family member Jason Bergman dropped by our forums to announce that the classic 90s tactical series X-COM is now available for purchase on Valve's Steam digital distribution service.

Four games from the series, listed below, have been added to the service:

• X-COM: UFO Defense (1993)
• X-COM: Apocalypse (1997)
• X-COM: Interceptor (1998)
• X-COM: Enforcer (2001)

Each game is for sale for $4.99, or the whole set of four can be bought for $15. Following Steam tradition, there is a ten percent discount in the first week of sales. The games are compatible with Windows Vista, according to Bergman.

While the X-COM series has laid dormant for 7 years, there have been persistent rumors of a new entry from BioShock creator Ken Levine and the 2K Boston crew.

As some predict that digital sales and downloads of video games will soon render traditional retailers obsolete, Electronic Arts European publishing manager Jes Uwe Intat doesn't think that retailers will disappear across the next twenty years.

"I think there will still be a need for a physical distribution starter, and then services and additional content can be distributed online," he told GamesIndustry.biz.

That firm belief, Intat noted, comes from the ever-expanding size of games.

"We used to be below 1 GB, but we're now building games that have 8, 9, 10 GB--and if broadband distribution is going to allow 10 GB to be distributed in half... Read more

The PC editions of Oddworld Inhabitant's beloved and bizarre action-adventure titles Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee and Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus are now available for purchase from Valve's PC digital distribution client Steam.

Originally released on PlayStation in the late 90's, both side scrolling games were quickly ported to the PC by Digital Dialect.

Each game sells for $9.99, with a two-game combo pack going for $14.99. Per Steam tradition, both games be discounted by 10% during their first week of availability.

While Europeans will receive eventually receive a PC-DVD release of Silent Hill: Homecoming , Konami has confirmed with Joystiq that North Americans will only be able to purchase the PC edition via Valve's digital distribution platform Steam.

No reason was specified for the decision.

Developed by Double Helix, the PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 survival horror title arrives in North America this September, followed by a European release in November.

The PC edition of 2K Boston and 2K Australia's deep sea shooter BioShock (PC, PS3, 360) is now on sale at Valve's digital distribution platform Steam for $14.99.

The sale lasts through Sunday, July 27. The $15 sale price for the critically acclaimed Shacknews 2007 game of the year nominee represents a 50% cut from its current retail price point of $29.99.

The 50% price cut is also enacted for Steam customers in other territories. UK and Australia-based users have reported the game as currently for half off its respective regional price points.

An update is now available for the Steam client, offering various improvements to Valve's content delivery program. Here is the full change list

• Improved cache defragmenter to both defragment at the OS level and internal files
• Improved defrag progress dialog
• Improved download status reporting in games list
• Increased background update frequency
• Improved voice quality ... Read more