Hasta La Gadget!

I’ve seen images of a hotel made up of shipping containers, and modern architects using them, but this is the first time I’ve seen one used as a sauna. There are plenty of these old containers around and I bet that you can have them for cheap, if you want to use one of these as a basis for some construction.

The Canadian design studio Castor Canadensis have developed the Sauna Box, which re-envisions a common shipping container. Their sauna design is quite luxurious, and it was created as a traditional wood-burning steam. It’s water-tight, and can moved to any location as it needs little site preparation. It’s powered by wood fire and some solar panels.

Each $41,000 unit is custom-built with an outer skin fabricated from COR-TEN steel. The Sauna Box comes with an iPod dock and speakers, a guitar hook up, stools, magnetic truck lights, and for some reason, a set of bronze antlers. I wonder how much cheaper it would be without the antlers.

[via designboom]

When Valve hardware engineer Ben Krasnow gave a speech at a German technology conference back in December, he spoke to the much ballyhooed “Steambox” concept we’ve been hearing so much about in recent months (among other, vastly different subjects). Following that speech, a report on Golem.de (translated at the Neogaf gaming forums) posited that Krasnow indicated a reveal of said Steambox at this March’s Game Developer’s Conference, or perhaps at this June’s E3 gaming trade show — but Krasnow tells us he didn’t say that exactly. “With regards to the Steambox news — there has been a lot of things stated in the media which I didn’t say. For example, it’s true that we are working on getting Steam into the living room, and are planning for a hardware box, but we have no current plans to announce anything in 2013,” Krasnow said in an email.

“The box might be linux-based, but it might not,” he continued. “It’s true that we are beta-testing Left for Dead 2 on Linux, and have also been public about Steam Big Picture Mode. We are also working on virtual and augmented reality hardware, and also have other hardware projects that have not been disclosed yet, but probably will be in 2013.”

Valve also chimed in with a boilerplate statement, which explained the company’s presence at this week’s big consumer electronics show. “Yes, Valve will be at the show to meet with hardware and content developers in our booth space. Many PCs optimized for Steam and Big Picture will be shipping later this year. We are bringing some of these as well as some custom HW prototypes to our CES meetings.” We saw one such example of a PC optimized for use with Steam’s Big Picture Mode last night in Xi3’s Piston modular PC — the first of many of these setups we expect to see in 2013. Valve continued, “These custom prototypes are low-cost, high performance designs for the living room that also incorporate Steam and Big Picture. We will be sharing more information to the press and public in the coming months.”

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2012 was an interesting year in many respects, but it was a particularly interesting year for gaming. 2012 had its share of ups and down, but looking back on the year as a whole, I’d say that it was ultimately good for gamers, developers, and the industry in general. A lot happened throughout the year, and even though we saw vitriol from gamers climb to pretty frightening heights in some cases, there were some pretty cool things happening that you may not have noticed. Needless to say, if 2012 was any indication, then 2013 should be one of gaming’s biggest years yet.

Before we turn our sights to the future, however, let’s look back at some of what went down in the year that we’re about to leave behind. It’s pretty obvious that we’re at the end of a generation, regardless of if Sony and Microsoft want to admit it. The problem we face at the end of a console cycle is that developers become hesitant to begin a new IP (more on that later). Because of this, we tend to see sequel after sequel, and in the triple-A space at least, 2012 was no different. This isn’t all bad though, as it gave indie developers a chance to shine.

Shine they did. 2012 was an excellent year for indie gaming. Minecraft came to the Xbox 360, thatgamecompany released Journey, a game that has quickly risen to the top of countless favorite lists, and we seemed to have a new Humble Bundle to go nuts over at least once a month. Indie games were in the news constantly too, with games like Hotline Miami, Lone Survivor, Faster Than Light, and Legend of Grimrock being discussed alongside the likes of Black Ops II and Assassin’s Creed III. That in particular is very encouraging, because if we can create an environment where a game developed by a pair of passionate gamers can get recognition just the same as games that cost millions to produce, everyone wins.

Of course, great indie games have been given the attention they deserve for years now, so this isn’t some new phenomenon for 2012. It did seem like there were a really high number of indie games that managed to strike a chord within the gaming community, though. The year brought us some truly amazing indie releases, and there were almost too many to count. Whether you were playing Mark of the Ninja, Fez, Dust: An Elysian Tale, or Spelunky, the list of notable indie releases for 2012 was long and varied, with many of them giving us very unique experiences we couldn’t wait to rave about.

While we saw a lot of sequels this year, we also saw some developers take their chances with introducing a new IP. Some of these, like Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, didn’t work out so well. Others like Dishonored are unquestionably just the beginning of something exciting. Square Enix found a winner in Sleeping Dogs, while Capcom surprised everyone with Dragon’s Dogma. Let’s not forget that 2012 was also the year that Nintendo listened to its fan and released Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story in North America. Now all we need is Pandora’s Tower and we’ll be set, so get on it Reggie.

Even though the end of the generation is unsurprisingly accompanied by a large number of sequels, the batch for 2012 impressed. 343 Industries showed us with Halo 4 that the series isn’t doomed to mediocrity just because Bungie is working on new projects. Ubisoft managed to revitalize interest in the release-heavy Assassin’s Creed series with Assassin’s Creed III, while Gearbox released one of the best games of the year in Borderlands 2. One of the biggest surprises of the year involved Far Cry 3 launching to critical acclaim, something many of us didn’t see coming. Oh, and did Sega just school Nintendo in the art of making a kart racer with Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed? I think it did.

Fans got riled up in 2012 too. Project Rainfall, for instance, was a major player in getting Xenoblade and The Last Story to North American shores, while angry fans for better or worse managed to get BioWare to change the ending to Mass Effect 3. That’s pretty big considering that BioWare stuck to its guns for a long time, saying for months that there weren’t any plans to change the highly controversial ending. Disgruntled players also got Ubisoft to back away from always-on DRM, which is something gamers and publishers went back and forth about all year.

We also have to keep in mind how big Kickstarter was for gaming in 2012. When Double Fine kicked off a campaign for an old-school adventure game and asked for $400,000, no one could have guessed that we’d be calling 2012 “The Year of the Kickstarter” by the time everything was said and done. The classic RPG Wasteland is getting a sequel after more than 20 years of waiting thanks to Kickstater, and Obsidian can now return to the computer RPG glory days of the past with $4 million in funding for Project Eternity. The biggest gaming-related Kickstarter of the year was unquestionably OUYA, the little Android console that raised a whopping $8.5 million in funding. Sure, some of the Kickstarters funded this year will ultimately fail, but we also have a number of great games to look forward to thanks to Kickstarter. This is made even sweeter by the fact that many of these games would have never seen the light of the day had it not been for Kickstarter’s very existence.

We also saw the big companies that run the show open up their platforms more in 2012. Microsoft changed around some of its policies so Minecraft players on XBLA could get frequent title updates, and it’s even letting free-to-play titles like Happy Wars on Xbox Live these days. Steam expanded its offerings to include non-software titles and rolled out Big Picture Mode so it can have a stronger presence in the living room. It also opened the floodgates for Linux users, as Steam for Linux is now in open beta. Welcome to the party Linux users – we saved you seats between Team Fortress 2 and Torchlight.

There were some bumps along the way – as there always are – but overall, 2012 was another great year for gaming. Developers can really flex their muscles with the hardware we have available, and Nintendo has already kicked off the next generation with the Wii U. 2013 is bound to be just as, if not more, exciting than 2012 was, due in large part to the expectation that either Sony or Microsoft will unveil their new console. Get excited, because I have a feeling that 2013 isn’t going to disappoint on the heels of 2012.

Why 2012 was a great year for gaming is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you get stuck on a game, there are resources everywhere you can use to get back on track. You could hunt down a walkthrough on the Internet, visit YouTube to see if someone has posted a video that can help, or you can even head out to your local game store and pick up a physical guide if you want. Valve has decided to tackle this realm of the gaming universe as well, launching a Steam Game Guides beta as part of the Steam Community beta.

Yes, that means we’ve got a beta within a beta on our hands folks. Starting today, those who are in the Steam Community Beta can whip up a game guide of their own, which other Steam users can use as a resource to get through particularly tricky parts of a game. It seems pretty straightforward in that you can upload your own images or use screenshots you already have saved to Steam Cloud. You can also place YouTube videos in your guide if you happen to be one of those YouTube Gamemasters we mentioned earlier.

When your guide is done, all you need to do is hit the publish button and it will go live for the entire Steam Community to see. Game Guide tabs can be found in a title’s Game Hub, with guides for some of Steam’s more popular games already live. A word of warning though: the community can comment on game guides, so if you post one that’s sub-par, don’t be surprised if you get a little bit of backlash for some users.

It’s an interesting idea, but since some other websites like GameFAQs have this whole walkthrough thing on lock down, it doesn’t really seem all that necessary. We’ll have to see what Valve does with Game Guides as the beta rolls on, and what the feature looks like when it launches for everyone at a yet-undetermined date. Do you think this is a good idea, or will you go somewhere else for your tips and tricks?

[via Steam]

Steam Game Guides launch as part of Community beta is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Valve, as many of you already know, recently rolled Steam Big Picture Mode out of beta. For those who need a refresher, Big Picture Mode takes Steam and makes it play nice with larger screens, upping the resolution and allowing users to navigate the Steam interface using a controller. Despite the relatively simple idea, it would appear that Big Picture Mode has taken off, with Valve boss Gabe Newell telling Kotaku that the response from users has been “stronger than expected.”

Looking into the not-so-distant future, what’s on deck for Valve is rolling Steam for Linux out of beta. After that’s done, Valve wants to make Big Picture Mode compatible with Linux. Doing those two things will apparently pave the way for Valve to develop its own hardware for the living room. Newell suggests that PC manufacturers will begin releasing packages aimed at the gamer, which would be computers that players could hook up to a TV and use to run programs like Steam.

It would appear that Newell counts his own company among the ones that will be releasing these PC packages, which he points out will compete with the console world’s next generation offerings. Unfortunately, don’t expect Valve’s hardware – if it ever comes into existence, that is – to be an open system. “Well certainly our hardware will be a very controlled environment,” Newell said. “If you want more flexibility, you can always buy a more general purpose PC. For people who want a more turnkey solution, that’s what some people are really gonna want for their living room.”

Of course, we’ve been hearing for a very long time that Valve will one day begin creating gaming hardware of its own, and we have to remember that Gabe Newell is a man who likes to talk about the future of technology, especially as it relates to games. In other words, this doesn’t necessarily count as confirmation that Valve is actually working on the oft-rumored Steam Box, but it is something fun to think about. We’ll just have to wait and see how this whole thing unfolds, so stay tuned.

Newell talks Big Picture Mode, teases “turnkey” Valve PCs for living rooms is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.