Valve's Steam revamped
New client for old clients.
Valve's launched a new Steam client that seems to club all the various selection windows - shop, games list and tools - into one tabbed interface, and promises to be part of a larger series of revamps that the developer's collectively dubbed "Steam 3".
"Today's release allows Steam to offer a larger and more varied collection of games to our customers, and introduces a-la-carte purchases," says Valve. It's applied automagically when you fire up the Steam client. Fans of rounded corners are sure to like it.
Steam, for those who've been living under a, er, cloud, is Valve's way of letting you download and play its games and those of its partners (including mod makers and independent developers) without having to go to the trouble of popping to the shop. You can pre-load games ahead of their release and pay to have them activated as soon as Valve flips the switch - as many thousands did with the phenomenal Half-Life 2 later last year.
The latest additions in terms of software are Day of Defeat: Source - a reworking of a Half-Life World War II modification using Half-Life 2 era visuals - and, coming in just a few days, Rag Doll Kung Fu, a mouse-based puppet beat-'em-up designed by Lionhead's Mark Healey in his spare time.
Future releases are set to include Half-Life 2 expansion Aftermath and Ritual's forthcoming SiN Episodes series.