Half Life Turns 10! Available on Steam for Just 99 cents

Valve’s legendary shooter turned 10 today. To celebrate that, Valve is now offering Half Life 1 on Steam for a measly 99 cents, instead of the regular $9.99 pricetag. This offer only lasts till November 21st, so hurry! Read more

Buy Every Single Valve Game For Just $99

The crazy goons at Valve are now offering an updated version of the Source megapack. The updated Source compilation includes Valve’s upcoming Left 4 Dead title as well as Team Fortress 2, Half Life franchise and Day of Defeat games. The complete pack is available for $99.95. If you’re new to PC gaming or are looking to jump into Valve games, you won’t find a better offer. Ofcourse, do note, this offer is available only via Steam — so don’t expect any retail copies.

Natural Selection 2 Interview

Everyone remembers the amazing Natural Selection mod, the minds behind it are now turning the classic Half-Life engine based mod into a stand-alone game. Using their in-house game engine, Charlie Cleveland and company are now working on Natural Selection 2. Check out the nice interview for all the slimey details.

We have four “pillars” that we’re designing the gameplay around (link). The first pillar is “Two Unique sides”. Both sides (Marine and Alien), are totally unique. For instance, when playing as an alien, we will increase the field of view and blur the edges of the screen a little to make it feel like you have a different kind of animal perception than the humans.

CliffyB Wants Your Attention

It’s absolutely amazing how egotistical and self-centered people can be. Even more so when we talk about someone like CliffyB who’s a re-owned attention whore. CliffyB’s current crisis: He’s not getting enough attention!

“I don’t think the industry values visionaries as much as it could,” Bleszinski said to Gamasutra. “Look at a guy like [BioShock designer] Ken Levine or [Fable II designer Peter] Molyneux or [Demigod designer] Chris Taylor or [Metal Gear Solid designer Hideo] Kojima. I mean, we all need to celebrate these people,” he asserted.

Rather amazing how Mr.Bleszinski speaks of Molyneux and Levine but just forgets to mention people like Gabe Newell (Half Life), Robin Walker (Team Fortress 2), Will Wright (Sims, Spore) or Sid Meier (Civilization) Don’t worry Cliffy, the day you retire, we’ll all celebrate!

Garry’s Mod - Update Abound

Another update for GMod10.

Garry’s Mod

• Fixed crash when prop’s physics object couldn’t be created
• Fixed Team Fortress 2 blood overriding Half-Life 2 blood
• Fixed shotgun having wildly reduced damage
• Changed default jump height so you can jump on a crouched player
• Fixed not being able to override materials on clientside entities
• Fixed not seeing hunter blood in MP

Half Life 2: Episode 3 First Concept Art

The first piece of Half Life 2: Episode 3 concept art, created by Ted Backman, Jeremy Bennett, and Tristan Redford of Valve Software.

Half Life 2: Episode 1 Updated

Valve has released a source engine update for Half Life: Episode 1. This particular update adds surround sound (5.1ch, 7.1ch) under Windows Vista for CS: Source, HL2: DM and Episode One.  As always, it’s available from Steam.

Episode 1 Source Engine

• Counter-Strike: Source, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch customers running under Windows Vista can now take advantage of 5.1 and 7.1 speaker configurations

Half Life 2: Episode 3 to No Show E3

Sadly, the next installment of Half Life franchise won’t be making an appearance at E3. According to Doug Lombardi, instead of Half Life 2: Episode 3, Valve will be hosting a playable version of Left 4 Dead in their private suite.

PC Gaming is The Future

Valve has been notoriously loud about defending PC gaming and it’s titles, and this time it’s no different. Speaking with Eurogamer, Gabe Newell, the man behind brilliant Half Life franchise has slammed all the false accusations and snarky comments thrown at PC Gaming. According to Valve, PC Gaming is the future. Here are some excerpts from the interview:

Where console platforms have merciless and well-funded PR armies poised to combat any criticism, negative stories about the PC - mostly publishers, or developers like Crtyek, complaining of rampant piracy and flat sales - run unimpeded. Sales data that focuses solely on boxed copies sold at retail appear to back them up. Valve has had enough. “There’s a perception problem”

“I don’t want anyone between me and my customers,” says Walker. “I want to write code today and I want all my customers running it tomorrow.” Possible on the PC - Steam in particular, naturally. Not possible on consoles. For his part, Fitterer added achievements to Audiosurf in a total of two days. This constant iteration creates a feedback loop between developer and customer that, reckons Walker, can only improve the quality of the game. “The more I talk to my customers, the better my decisions will be. Without a system of talking to my customers, I will make bad decisions.”

Make you read the whole article, as it’s, for the lack of a better word; Brilliant.

And VAVLe, we couldn’t agree more!

Portal And Half-life 2: Episode 2 Update Released

This update adds the ability to tweak FOV as well as tweaks the particle rendering system.

Portal and Half-Life 2: Episode 2

• Added a new advanced video option that allows the user to easily change the field of view to any value they wish between 75 degrees and 90 degrees
• Updated the particle rendering code and particle data files to make them compatible with the particle editor included in the Source SDK

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