Let’s get straight to the point; Valve, makers of the Half Life series, Counterstrike, Team Fortress 2 and Portal have released a new game. The name of the game is Alien Swarm. It’s really good, and what’s more; it’s absolutely free.

Alien Swarm was originally a fan made mod for Unreal Tournament, and is now a standalone Steam-based game. It’s an almost-top-down 3D shooter with up to 4 players working in cooperation.

Each player gets to choose from 4 classes; Officer, Weapons Specialist, Tech or Medic. The officer is pretty solid in battle, but their main bonus is stats that will boost team performance, so you can do without an officer on a 1-2 man team. Weapons Specialists get boosts to their health and heavy weapon damage, acting as both tanks and walking sentry turrets.

Techs can hold their own in fights, and are able to hack which is a necessity in certain levels. Medics not only heal, but can cure players who are infested by parasites in later levels. They can carry guns as well, but have the option of carrying healing pods and a healing gun simultaneously.

In order to perform well in Alien Swarm you ideally want to have a well balanced team of 4 players. You can get by with fewer players on the earlier levels, but as you get deep into a campaign you’ll need to cover more bases.

Here’s a video to let you get a look at some of the gameplay. Keep reading for a link to get Alien Swarm and some Hints and Tips for playing.

Looks great huh? Well you can get it for free on pc right now, over at Steam.

Next page; Tips and Tricks for Alien Swarm.

Minimum System Requirements:
o OS: Windows® 7 / Vista / Vista64 / XP
o Processor: Pentium 4 3.0GHz
o Memory: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
o Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with 128 MB, Shader model 2.0. ATI X800, NVidia 6600 or better
o Hard Drive: At least 2.5 GB of free space
o Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Recommended:
o OS: Windows® 7 / Vista / Vista64 / XP
o Processor: Intel core 2 duo 2.4GHz
o Memory: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
o Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with Shader model 3.0. NVidia 7600, ATI X1600 or better
o Hard Drive: At least 2.5 GB of free space
o Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card