A PC game having a bad launch isn't as rare an occurrence as it should be, especially in these days of readily available internet patches, so it takes something special to be called a truly botched PC game launch. 1UP takes a look at five of the worst first days ever in their feature, "Top 5 Botched PC Game Launches." For the most part they've chosen the ones you'd expect. Hellgate: London, with its greedy payment system and near character wipe in Asia; Vanguard, which just plain wasn't finished when they launched it, and of course Half-Life 2, which completely ate the newly launched Steam service's servers. I can think of a few they missed - Anarchy Online, which lost most of its subscriber base thanks to a buggy launch, only to evolve into a damn fine care once half their audience had stopped caring, or Dungeon Lords, which was the only PC game I have EVER returned. Hit the link to see their full list, and be sure to add your own in the handy dandy comment section.

Top 5 Botched PC Game Launches [1UP]

Didn't you get the memo? Custom HL2 figures are 2008's cakes. Not as edible, perhaps, but chock full of crafty goodness nonetheless. The latest to drop into our inbox comes via reader Rob, who - inspired by Jin Saotome's cartoony offering - decided to whip up his own Gordon Freeman action figure. Rob writes:

It's not quite as professional as Jin's effort, but I think it makes up for it in accuracy to the source material.

Don't be jealous of the Germans. We can all have some fresh Source engine content to play, now that the Zombie Panic Source mod has gone live. The Half-Life 2 modification brings zombie versus human gameplay to Source earlier than Turtle Rock Studios' own Left 4 Dead will, but it probably won't, as a free product, arrive with the same amount of polish. The premise is fairly simple—a team of humans must fend off a zombie invasion, with one player taking the role of zombie virus carrier, adding to his or her zombie horde by taking out the opposing team. Each faction has its own quirks and abilities, naturally, to make the whole affair (hopefully) balanced and replayable. Regardless of the spitshine on this one, more zombie games are never, ever a bad thing.

Zombie Panic Source [Official Site via FileFront]

Playing through all parts of Valve's The Orange Box for the PlayStation 3—a port handled externally by EA UK—I've experienced quite a ride. I've played through Episode Two, a surprisingly long and enjoyable continuation of the Half-Life 2 story, and revisited Episode One, a game much more challenging and unforgiving than I had remembered from my turn with the PC version. I also burned through the PlayStation 3's version of Portal, a game that plays just as well with a SIXAXIS as with a keyboard and mouse.

I even spent a healthy portion of my time with the original Half-Life 2, a game that still holds up, now three years long in the tooth. The innate gameplay and intangible experience has been great, as it has from the beginning of the Half-Life 2 saga. The technical aspects, however, have been less so.

Yesterday, I posted volume one of my impressions of the PlayStation 3 version of Valve's The Orange Box, the one handled by EA UK. It's arriving about two months later than its PC and Xbox 360 counterparts and amid some controversy. I spent a few more hours with the PS3 port again today, to get a more complete feel for the game's performance. Those overly sensitive to spoilers, which I'll do my best to avoid, may want to skip to the end.

Having worked my way through the first three chapters of Half-Life 2: Episode Two, I stopped just before one of the episode's key vehicle sequences. This portion of the game was deemed one of the worst, in terms of technical performance. Assessments of those moments are mostly accurate. Yes, the frame rate takes some heavy dips, but at no point did it become unplayable. Slideshow? Nah. At least not for me.

Don't tell my boss, but I've been playing video games all day. The UPS man rang the bell at Kotaku's west coast home office today with a copy of the PlayStation 3 edition of The Orange Box. You know what this is right? The collection of Half-Life 2, a pair of Half-Life 2 episodes, Portal and Team Fortress 2 that everyone's gone gaga over. Unfortunately for Valve and publisher EA, 1UP wrote a disheartening preview of the PS3 version calling it, at times, "downright unplayable" and devolving into a "slideshow" at times. This resulted in a bit of a tizzy. Sister sites IGN and Gamespy were less harsh, but I've spent about five hours with the game today to form my own opinion of the final retail copy.

After a quick look around, ducking into Team Fortress 2—which I was able to play momentarily and only in a solitary sense—and working through the first hour of Half-Life 2, I decided to check out what was being billed as the main offender—Half-Life 2: Episode Two. Within the first few minutes, my fears were confirmed. Right off the bat, Episode Two started to chug.

Valve just let us know that a demo for Half-Life 2: Episode Two will be available via Xbox Live tomorrow, November 22. The developer also specifies that it's the first demo to be available from The Orange Box, hinting that those with a lack of orange in their library may have an opportunity to get hands-on with demos for Portal and Team Fortress 2. Hope those without the game enjoy it, but how much more convincing do you need that this is one of the best releases of the year? Seriously!

So just what do we know about Half-Life 2: Episode Two gamers? According to Steam, we know where they eat, sleep and live. OK, actually, I don't think we know any of those things. But we do know that they play for an average of 27 minutes at a time. And we know it took them a median time of around 6 hours to beat the game. We also see that slightly more players set the game to easy than hard (though a majority stick to medium). Hit the link to get your fill of bar, line and pie graphs, and receive a free set of death heat maps for your troubles! [steam via opposablethumbs]