Now you can! Steam has introduced a fairly straight-forward review system that allows you to write reviews for games that appear on their store pages. You'll also be able to rate other reviews, and if you happen to take a liking to a particular reviewer, you will be able to take a look at all their reviews. Now you too can be a hardcore game critic!!!!1
A developer version of HTC's new headset, powered by SteamVR, will be out some time this spring, and the retail version is due out for the holiday season of this year.
From the official site:
THE VISUALS
A 1,200 by 1,080 pixel screen in front of each eye, with refresh rates of a blistering 90 frames per second, displays photorealistic imagery that fills your field of vision in all directions, eliminating the jitter common to previous VR technologies and transporting you to another world.
THE AUDIO
Plug your favorite set of headphones into a jack located on the side of the Developer Edition headset.
TRACKING AND ROOM SCALE
A gyrosensor, accelerometer, and laser position sensor combine to precisely track the rotation of your head on both axes to an accuracy of 1/10th of a degree, allowing you to look around the virtual environment naturally. Couple the headset with a pair of Steam VR base stations to track your physical location (in spaces up to 15 feet by 15 feet) – get up and walk around inisde the virtual world!
CUSTOM GAME CONTROLLERErgonomic VR game controllers in each hand allow you to use virtual objects and interact with the virtual world. The position of each controller is tracked in space, allowing developers to simulate a wide range of activities and interactions.
Provided they're on the same wifi network, Valve's new Steam Link will allow you to stream your Steam library to your TV so you can play from the comfort of your couch. The listing for the Steam Link has disappeared from the Steam store, but you can view Google's cache of it here. The device is priced at $50 and launches this November.
As much as I like the idea, it's... actually, it could be something, but I don't think Valve will take it.
In an interview on what makes Valve tick, Gabe Newell had this to say about Steam and the company's direction:
When we started out we were a single-player video game company that could have been really successful just doing Half-Life sequel after Half-Life sequel, but we collectively said let's try to make multi-player games even though there's never been a commercial successful multi-player game.
Then we tried to do Steam. There were a bunch of people internally who thought Steam was a really bad idea, but what they didn't think was that they would tell the people who were working on Steam what to do with their time. They were like "that's what you want to do with your time, that's fine, but we're going to spend our time working on Half-Life 2. We think you're kind of wasting your time, but it's your time to waste."
In retrospect, it was a great idea, right?
I don't know Gabe, as much as I appreciate what Valve has done for gaming, I for one would really like you to waste some time on Half Life 3.
Washington Post via NeoGAF
