Steam Updates and Releases 23 March 2011

Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods Enhanced Edition is now available on Steam. In commemoration of its release, all Gothic games, including Forsaken Gods Enhanced Edition, is available at 75% off now through Thursday, March 24th 2011 10am PDT.

Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods Enhanced Edition is a completely remastered version of the official add-on to Gothic 3 that includes new quests, monsters, weapons and armors with revamped graphics and updated combat system. This standalone quest (Gothic 3 is not required to play the add-on) will answer all questions which have risen in the past and will slowly introduce fans to a new chapter.

LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars is now available in the Americas on Steam!

LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars, the third in the beloved and critically acclaimed series, allows fans to explore endlessly and laugh their way through the Star Wars galaxy in the most humorous, accessible and action-packed LEGO game to date!

Act now and save 75% on all Gothic titles including Gothic, Gothic II: Gold Edition, Gothic 3, Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods Enhanced Edition, and Arcania - Gothic 4, or get all 5 games with the Gothic Complete Pack for additional savings!

Offer ends this Thursday at 4pm PDT.

Save 75% on the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham Asylum in this remastered GOTY Edition featuring 4 extra Challenge Maps.

Face off against Gotham’s greatest villains including The Joker, HARLEY QUINN, POISON IVY and KILLER CROC and return order to Arkham Asylum.

Offer ends this Thursday at 4pm PDT.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is now available world-wide on Steam!

Live and breathe as Ezio, a legendary Master Assassin, in his enduring struggle against the powerful Templar Order. Now with an entire Brotherhood who will rally to your side, journey into Rome, the center of power, greed and corruption, to strike at the heart of the enemy.

And for the first time, test your skills against other players from around the world in multiplayer matches. Choose from a wide range of unique characters, each with their own signature weapons and assassination techniques.

It’s time to join the Brotherhood.

Steam’s voice chat system now leverages the SILK audio codec, developed and used by Skype, makers of the world’s most popular voice communication service. The SILK codec provides a significant quality improvement over Steam’s previous voice technology, at the cost of some increase in bandwidth usage. Steam Voice used to require 15 kbps of bandwidth, whereas SILK is a dynamic bit rate protocol which varies in its use of bandwidth between 8 and 30 kbps, depending on the range of data in the voice signal and current network conditions.

As of today’s Steam client update, voice chat using SILK is available to all users of Steam. To start using Steam chat with SILK, simply click the ’Start Voice Chat’ button within a friend or group chat on Steam. You can access chat from both the friends list at the desktop, or while in game using Steam’s in-game overlay. You’ll find voice chat connectivity and reliability have also been improved with this release.

Steam chat with SILK is now also automatically available for all games that take advantage of the Steamworks Voice API. Valve’s own Portal 2, set to release in mid-April, uses this newly updated system to enable voice chat in its cooperative gameplay mode.

A Steam client update is now available. To apply the update, click the File menu inside of Steam and then select "Check for Steam Client Updates...". The specific changes include:

Steam

• Changed Steam Voice chat to use the SILK voice codec
• Fixed Mac OSX overlay occasionally disappearing after 10+ minutes in game
• In game overlay for Mac OSX now handles cursor visibility better; specifically in the Sam & Max series.
• Fixed Mac OSX overlay responding correctly when window is reactivated by mouse click.
• Maximizing the Windows client should no longer prevent the user from accessing an auto-hidden taskbar
• The overlay will now automatically return to the game when accepting a friend invite
• Improved voice ducking prevention
• Fixed position of game invites in the chat dialog
• Improved handling of last modified times for cloud files.

Crysis 2 is now available on Steam in North America and will become available world-wide very soon (please see the Crysis 2 store page for release times).

It’s 2023, terrifying alien invaders stalk the New York City streets. Only you can prevail, wielding the supersoldier enhancements of the Nanosuit 2. BE STRONG. BE FAST. BE INVISIBLE. BE THE WEAPON.

Pre-Purchase HOARD on Steam and save 25%!

In HOARD, the dragon is in charge. Scare villages, Burn castles, and Kidnap princesses to earn the biggest pile of gold and best the competition!

Additionally, pick-up the Four-pack now at 10% off and get three friends in on the action!

Updates to Team Fortress 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Team Fortress 2

• Updated honor-bound weapons so they can be holstered within a second of touching a supply cabinet
• Updated the Blighted Beak with creator submitted fixes
  
  • Fixed a clipping problem
  • Made it paintable
• Updated the Hero’s Hachimaki to be tradeable

Pre-Purchase Red Faction: Armageddon and receive a copy of Red Faction Guerrilla! Already own Red Faction Guerrilla? Give it to a friend!

Red Faction: Armageddon expands on the critically acclaimed, best-selling franchise with new, groundbreaking challenges.

Half a century after the Red Faction resistance and their Marauder allies freed Mars from the brutal Earth Defense Force, harmony on Mars is again threatened. Tricked into re-opening a mysterious shaft in an old Marauder temple, a long-dormant evil is unleashes on Mars. The battle has begun and you are humanity’s last hope for survival.