I've been known to rant that EA should join forces with Valve and get their PC games onto Steam. The Spore debacle(s) made the need even more obvious.

The thing is-- The wisdom of jumping on the Steam bandwagon was so clear and smart, it seemed beyond EA's capabilities to recognize. Riccitiello in particular has demonstrated a persistence in boldly doing inherently stupid things, especially regarding the health and good standing of the corporation he heads.

But the suits at EA have done something right for a change. EA has added some recent titles to Steam's library. It's shockingly true, there's a press release proving it.

Next I'd like to see LucasArts on Steam and *gasp* here's hoping that Microsoft clues in and stops trying to weave their own baskets for their eggs (Windows Live sucks for games).

Kudos to Valve once again. They got the digital distribution and DRM-as-a-benefit (as compared to punishment) right in the first place. I was slow to catch on myself, but I'm one hell of a happy customer now. The more publishers on board, the more games I get to buy conveniently.

Happy 10th b-day to the best FPS of all time: Half-Life.

To celebrate, until Friday you can download the original Half-Life via Steam for a buck (well less than a buck: $0.98).

I already own a bazillion copies of the game myself and I played it all the way through again for nostalgia just last year. So I think I'll be raising a toast to Valve by playing Left 4 Dead tonight-- and the next night, and the next.

Now they should get that Half-Life movie made, starring Hugh Laurie of course.

Is it just me, or is Battlefield Heroes looking a weeeeee bit like Team Fortress 2?

Now I'm not saying Valve should have a lock on the cel-shading look, but they did it in a very specific style and it sure looks like DICE has torn a page from the book.

I've no doubt it'll be fun though.

Valve has grabbed another important deal, Assassin's Creed will launch on Steam.

I've just placed my pre-order with glee. I'm a fan of the stalk-action genre, games like Thief and Hitman are among the few single-player games that I consider to have substantial replay value.

When I saw the pre-order banner for Assassin's Creed on Steam yesterday, I almost thought it was an April Fool's joke. The trend lately has been for big title games to release first via boxed Windows Live / Games for Windows retail versions and maybe arrive on Steam later.

I was this close to placing an order at EB for the boxed version, but not quite. Like Gears of War, it was almost enough game to push me over, but the combination of steep minimum requirements, expectations of intrusive copy-protection and the pre-mentioned Windows Live thing held me back. Steam to the rescue!

This is the current make-or-break game for PC gaming, there aren't a lot of big-name games in its wake. It broke sales expectations on the Xbox 360. I'm hoping that it wakes up some dormant PC gamers, because it should be a stellar game to highlight all those new videocards.

It's making the press rounds today: Valve and Nvidia are offering a free demo of Portal for any existing owners of Nvidia GeForce graphics cards. It's a nice chance to try Portal if you haven't already, but there aren't any new levels if you've already played the full game.

Frankly, as much as I love Portal and am on a high right now with both Valve and Nvidia, couldn't they just release a Portal demo for everyone? They could have slapped an Nvidia advert onto a standard demo and created even better press for both.

Regardless, it's a great game so here's an opportunity for a few more folks to try a piece of it: Portal: First Slice.

Having obtained some Orange Box goodness over the holidays, I've become a fan of Valve all over again. My old skepticism long behind me, I'm now of the mind that Steam is the potential saviour of PC gaming and kudos to Valve for thinking ahead.

I just reinstalled Windows (XP, I'm still not Vista-inclined) again, I couldn't count how many times I've done that over the years and along with it all of my software. There was a small piece of joy in that process: I didn't have to type in the finger-numbing CD keys for any of the games on Steam.

Taking Steam Old-School

I've got the original Half-Life sitting on my old games rack, couldn't I install that into Steam? Why not? They sell it for Steam, but I already own it. Sure enough, I just hit that magical "Activate a product on Steam" button. It ended up being a download rather than install from the discs, but I didn't mind, because now the game is indelibly stamped into my Steam account. As long as Valve / Steam exists, I don't have to worry about scratched up old discs.

And even better...

Turns out, my old "Adrenaline Pack" qualifies as the "Platinum Pack" on Steam now, so I've gotten a few extra games out of it. Bonus. I never did get around to playing Blue Shift, now I can-- Right after I finish up a few more achievements in Portal. ;)

Valve has more than a few nifty stats pages going now, including the very revealing HL2 Episode Two and Team Fortress 2 stats.

Bragging rights for the above-average player aside, the Episode Two stats are particularly interesting and fall inline with Valve's commentary on the page: "striving to make our products better". Indeed.

The death maps are an amazing visualization of the bottlenecks in single-player play. It's not hard to imagine the usefulness in a game design sense: Are players stuck on intended puzzles, or are they dying repeatedly somewhere unexpected?

It's refreshing to see statistics applied without a marketing push. Or at least the marketing is a secondary attribute, because Valve does gain significant respect from their audience, plus press attention when they publish these goodies. Other game companies, especially in online gaming (MMOs, hello!), should stand up and pay attention here: you don't need to scream your own accolades directly when you can create them by just being damn smart.

An important distinction is Valve doesn't harp on the popularity of any game features when they present these stats and graphs. They obey that old rule: Statistics do not demonstrate intent, just direction. Let the reader decide how player direction meshes with game design intent.

In other words, don't try to measure fun, but use the tools to maximize it.