Steam’s version of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas disappeared recently, and now it’s back with some changes. However, as the game’s community has found some of them are not as welcome as they’d like.

The first thing players will notice is that old saves no longer work with the updated game, as the game will just start a new game upon loading up. A number of resolution options have also disappeared, such as the 1920×1080 option, and its no longer possible to render the game in 1080p.

Finally 17 tracks have vanished from the game, although this is likely due to the licences for the use of the tracks within the game having expired since release. The full list of missing tracks is as follows:

• “Critical Beatdown”
• “Running Down A Dream”
• “Woman To Woman”
• “You Dropped A Bomb On Me”
• “Yum Yum”
• “Running Away”
• “I Don’t Give A f*ck”
• “Express Yourself”
• “Killing in the Name of”
• “Hellraiser”
• “Ring My Bell”
• “Don’t Let It Go To Your Head”
• “Express Yourself”
• “Rock Creek Park”
• “Grunt”
• “Soul Power ’74”
• “The Payback”

At the moment players are urging the other people in the community not to update their game if at all possible, but for those who have already had an update a community member known by the name “Silent” is working on an unofficial patch to an attempt to bring back some of the missing features and fix some other bugs.

Ubisoft are having a fairly large assault on Christmas this year. They’re due to release three big titles around the holiday period, but the listings are strangely absent from the November and December listings for Steam’s UK store.

Assassin’s Creed Unity will release in Europe on November 13th, Far Cry 4 on the 20th and The Crew will appear on December 2nd. This is when it will be available to purchase in stores as a hard copy and also as digital copies across the world from all digital distributors except Steam in the UK. Ubisoft say that they’ve been in talks with Valve but as of right now the games would not come to Steam in the UK.

The reasons behind this strange exception aren’t clear, but it’s likely to have something to do with the pricing. The physical store copies will be retailing for around £55 and the digital copies are only a fiver cheaper in Ubisoft’s uPlay store and other digital retailers with the games selling for £49.99. Currently Steam doesn’t really sell games at a price above £40 so it’s likely that the high price of all the games is the sticking point.

Maybe the games will come to Steam at a later date, but if a compromise isn’t reached soon Ubisoft will potentially be missing out on a little market share this Christmas from the Steam gamers.

The remake of Abe’s Oddysee, the first Oddworld game saw release on the PS4 back in July under the title of New ‘n Tasty. A PC version was promised but so far there’s been little news on that front. However the developers are almost ready to release it.

Earlier this month they showcased the PC version in Manchester, UK and to the surprise of many, it was the full game, playable all the way through – not a mere prototype. The delay it seems is down to that sticky issue of optimisation again.

“We’re not quite finished with ensuring the game is fully optimised for all hardware, and have at least a couple of months left before release.” Oddworld Inhabitants said, saying that it will be on Steam “as soon as possible”. Among the things they hope to offer is controller support, rebindable keys and a slider for graphics settings so PCs of many calibers can relive the ‘glory’ of Rupture Farms.

And it seems that Oddworld Inhabitants are considering a private Beta for the PC version prior to release and say that more details on it will be released soon if need they go ahead with it.

If there is one, you know I’m making every attempt to get in there.

Death threats on the Internet are a thoroughly condemned thing. Simply: Don’t do them, they lead to no good and they’re generally seen as a terrible way to act.

So when Mike Maulbeck of Code Avarice saw that his company’s game of Paranautical Activity was mislabelled on Steam as Early Access you’d think he would be angry. So angry that he actually tweeted out a stream of ranting that ended with a death threat being made against Gabe Newell himself. Steam’s response? They’ve basically ‘unreleased’ Paranautical Activity from Steam.

There had previously been some tension between Steam and the developers over a publishing deal with Adult Swim that Steam was afraid might cause a loophole in the Greenlight system some time last year. While they got past it, it seems that the bad blood hadn’t quite been forgotten and now it’s cost Code Avarice dearly.

As a response Maulbeck has since stepped down from the company, leaving a final blog post message to announce this and reassure the world that he “won’t receive any money from the sale of Paranautical Activity or any future games CA develops, I won’t be consulted on business decisions, and I won’t have any hand in development” in an attempt to make sure that the entire company won’t suffer from his actions.

” I feel is it my responsibility to step down from Code Avarice completely so that Steam has no reason to harbor any more ill will towards the company, and maybe even if we can’t see Paranautical Activity restored, at least future Code Avarice games may be allowed onto the platform.”

Seems like a wise move on his part, and it’s a shame that this happened. While not a great game, Paranautical did have some promise as a decent game. In the end this probably stands as a wonderful example of why being aware of what you say on the Internet is a very good habit to get yourself into.

Code Avarice Blog – “Mike is leaving Code Avarice”: [x]

With the new Civilization game, Civilization: Beyond Earth due out this Friday the hype for the series is up. Pre-loading has already started on Steam so those who have already ordered the game can get into space play Civ-style from the moment it launches.

Until then, the previous game, Civilization V has been made free-to-play on Steam until Thursday, just in case you don’t already own it. Unfortunately it doesn’t include the expansions to the game, which add significant content to a good game and makes it great if you’ve a lot of time to kill playing it.

If that doesn’t put you off then it is worth a go while it’s free, trust me. I’m just looking forward to getting Beyond Earth and doing it all over again in space.