Review: Steam Beta – Game Download Platform With A New Look

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_ Previous Posters
 – March 17, 2010Posted in: Featured, Games

We all know of steam, it’s a client that is used to purchase and play games and the client has very good deals on games.

Anyway, I was adjusting the skin of steam (or theme) and there was an option to join in the beta version of steam, so I thought why not. It was free and if I did not like it, I could always just switch back to the older version of steam.

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I like the beta as it allows me to organise all of my games into specific lists, and categories of my choosing with ease. In the previous version of steam, all of my games were un-organised, and I couldn’t set specific categories other than favourites.

Also it allows me to see any relevant game updates or releases at a glance, in contrast to the older steam client I had to right click on each game and then view the recent updates just to see if there was any updates.


Along with this the in game overlay’s web browser has been updated, and is no faster and more stable. Although it still feels like I am in IE, you won’t tend to notice it. The web browser while faster, it isn’t something you would use to replace Firefox or Google Chrome.

I really like what steam has done with the interface, it looks professional and simple at the same time while offering simple and easy to access information and options that steam has to offer.


Now onto what might push you away from the steam beta.
First of all, your not going to be able to chat to other players using the in game overlay, which I find annoying but not too much of a problem, this is one of those hit and miss sort of things, some people get it, some don’t.

Secondly, some games might have a hard time working with the steam beta. Although this was not the case for me, it is something to consider before you  upgrade to the beta, for the most part though the orange box and other source games should work fine with the beta.

Overall I will give this a 7/10.

The beta is good but it not quite there yet.

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