According to official Black Mesa word, the mod no longer requires Counter-Strike: Source, as the project has moved to The Orange Box version of Valve's Source engine. Any Source-based game will let you play Black Mesa, should it ever be released.

That means the new media may show off the "advanced particle effects, jigglebones, cinematic physics, combined maps, self-shadowing bump maps, dynamic shadows, and [...] Procedural Terrain Displacement" courtesy of the new engine. If not, the new trailer promised in the days to come hopefully will. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next year!

Open-source Guitar Hero clone Frets On Fire lends itself to experimentation, so Eelke Folmer - a usability Professor at Nevada Reno University - has mashed it up with a wireless controller and a 'haptic feedback' glove to create the first Guitar Hero clone designed to be played by touch and sound alone.

Sure, it's a niche idea now, but I wouldn't bet against Mad Catz giving it a whirl if they see a buck or two to be made.

Blind Hero, Guitar Hero for the blind [Eelke Folmer]

Zombie Panic Source [Official Site via FileFront]

Details on the Source SDK are available at the Valve Developer Community wiki and should give budding map designers a good place to start. Quick, someone remake a working de_dust2 in Portal before the next guy does.

First Person 3D Engine [ActionScript Architect via The In-Between]

PC Gamer Video Podcast #36 [PC Gamer]

Part iPod advertising aesthetics, part Stomp, part Garry's Mod showcase, this clip from Mighty Crane Films is a gun-popping, Strider-killing tour de force that everyone and their mother just sent in. Must see YouTube fodder. Thanks to our tipsters (and their moms) for the flood of goodness. Michael McWhertor

This is the very definition of tease. No gameplay, no characters, just a look at the gorgeous remade environments from the first Half-Life. A higher res version of the teaser is available at the official Black Mesa Source web site. Michael McWhertor

Starting next week, you can expect your Steam client to look and operate a little different. Here are the new features those of you still playing Counter-Strike and Half-Life 2 should be looking forward to.

Guest Passes
Guest Passes allow owners of certain Steam games (purchased either via Steam or at retail) to let their friends play games for free, for a limited time trial. The first game to take advantage of this new feature will be Day of Defeat: Source. Beginning the week of January 8th, owners of DoD:S will each receive a guest pass to give to a friend. So if you own Day of Defeat: Source, watch your games list for your guest pass to appear, and then send it to a friend.

Background client updates
Since the Steam client was first released, it has always kept itself up to date — but now it'll do so without making you wait during startup. Instead, it will acquire new updates in the background and then (once they're downloaded) ask if you'd like to restart & apply them. Steam will also let you know what's new whenever a new update is ready to apply.

Games list Favorites
Steam's catalog of games has grown quite a bit over the past year or so. If you're like most Steam users, the list of games you own has grown pretty long. Time to organize! Soon you'll be able to try out the new Favorites feature in the My Games tab of Steam. Once you've selected a game as a Favorite, it's available for quick access at the top of your list. If you wish, you can also collapse the Installed and Uninstalled sections, leaving only your Favorites in view.

New look
Steam's getting a new coat of paint. We've stripped away all the non-essentials and created a new streamlined appearance, and it'll be available in five different colors.

Not a bad set of updates! I'm glad to see that the background client updates are finally moving to how I always expected them to work. Michael McWhertor

Coming Soon To Steam

Keep in mind this is a beta release, one that was pushed to make a near-holiday live date, so expect some buggy behavior. I'm away from my gaming PC at the moment, but I'm going to give it a shot tomorrow when I return to LA. Michael McWhertor

Goldeneye Source Official Site

Looks like Black Mesa, the fan created Half-Life remake, isn't dead after all. In a site update posted yesterday, the team discussed the progress and the difficulties getting Black Mesa out the door.

Unfortunately, not all went well for development. Over the course of the year the team had to endure an internal alpha leak, the hacking and subsequent deletion of the entire public forum database, multiple hackings of the public forums after that, and just recently, the deletion of the public website and the team's FTP account (with over 2 gigabytes of source files on it).

Despite those setbacks, the game looks like it's coming along very well. Check out the media updates for some familiar environments and enemies with tasty new graphics.

And if you're so technicaly inclined, check out the dev team's open positions. Help get this mod out faster! I want to play this thing yesterday. Michael McWhertor

Black Mesa Media

It's been a hard wait since the excellent Dark Messiah of Might and Magic demo debuted a few months ago, but Valve has announced that starting tomorrow, the full game will officially be available through download today.

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is coming to Steam this week for just $49.95. In North America, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic will be made available via Steam at 10 am EDT this Wednesday, October 25. Outside of North America, the game will be made available at 10 am GMT this Friday, October 27.

Those who pre-purchase and pre-load the game prior to its availability will have everything they need to begin playing at the times listed above.

Adjusting for times in America is always tricky, since we use Metric chronometers over here while you're still stuck on the Draconian Fahrenheit system, but if I'm doing my calculations correctly, that's a little under 2 hours from now for you Yanks. Tell me how it is: I'll be holding off on it until I get some Bully under my belt. And since I intend on going the gay path, I think you know what that means. Florian Eckhardt

The hit boxes in Counterstrike: Source used to be so bad, it was almost metaphysical. A wireframe doppelganger constantly leading your steps by over a couple of feet, not matching up in anyway to the steps of your character. They've since been fixed substantially, but it's still amazing to watch how something could ever have been this broken in just the most popular deathmatch game out there. I recommend hitting mute, by the way. Simpering rock ballad ahoy! Florian Eckhardt

Well, it certainly makes sense they'd optimize it with Half-Life 2 coming to the 360, but from Valve now comes official word that the Source engine has been optimized for licensing for the Xbox 360:

"The combination of Source and the Xbox 360 provides game designers throughout the industry the chance to create powerful entertainment experiences," said Valve president and co-founder Gabe Newell. "Whether they're pursuing a traditional FPS, RTS, RPG or delving into new genres, Source and the Xbox 360 are designed to offer the flexibility and tools to allow designers to pursue any design imaginable."

Not much more to say except "neato." It's a great engine. Florian Eckhardt

Valve's Source Heads to Xbox 360 [Next Generation]

Over at Computer and Video Games they've posted up and interview with Valve's Kim Swift and Doug Lombardi on the upcoming Episode Two in-house mod, Portal. It's a pretty interesting read, documenting the jump from a small group of students giving a look to Gabe Newell of a proof-of-concept to being flung into the world of some of the best game designers on the planet.

Kim Swift claims to have never heard of Prey before starting at Valve, which is a bit silly: it's only a game that dates back to 1997. But here's something that I hadn't really considered — Portal actually has it's own story and takes place in the Half-Life universe:

How does the Portal story fit into the Half-Life universe? How much work has gone into it?

Kim Swift: Uh, no comment? We've definitely thought about how the storyline's going to fit back-ends with the main characters in the Half-Life universe - Gordon's Half-Life world. But there's nothing we can really disclose at this point...

Doug Lombardi: You're not Gordon in a Portal. You're someone who hasn't been introduced before. You play a new character in the Half-Life universe. And you're basically a rat in a maze in this test facility - a test subject for Aperture Science laboratories.

Which is kind of neat, though I assume it can't really be in the Half-Life 2 universe. I doubt there are many independent theoretical physics facilities after the 7 Hour War. Florian Eckhardt

Interview: Portal [CVG]

Prowling about on GooTube this morning for Portal stuff, I found this great gameplay video that — unlike the others I've seen — doesn't seem to take place at the Superdome in full riot. You can clearly hear the sound and the robotic announcer's voice, parroting the words of the mighty Erik Wolpaw:

"Now that you are in control of both portals, this next test could take a very, very long time. If you become lightheaded from thirst, feel free to pass out and an associate will be dispatched to revive you with adrenaline."

Can't hardly wait. Florian Eckhardt

Starting on Wednesday of next week we'll be starting a beta of the new Counter-Strike weapons market that we first announced here. The beta will give us some real-world data to start the market going, along with making sure that any issues get fixed before we roll this out to the entire community. Information on how to join the beta should show up on most of the major Counter-Strike news sites.

I squeezed in a little CS:S time this morning before work and eagerly anticipate seeing how this will affect gameplay (probably not too much). We'll follow up when more beta sign up details become available. Michael McWhertor

More Counter-Strike Changes Coming [Kotaku]

Those who wish to avoid as much as possible of the inevitable Steam congestion when Dark Messiage of Might and Magic is released later this month should be aware that the game is available for pre-order and pre-load now:

From Valve:

Dark Messiah Might and Magic is now available for pre-order via Steam for just $49.95. Those who pre-order and pre-load the game will have everything they need to start playing the moment it is made available.

Of course, if Dark Messiah's launch is anything like Half-Life 2's launch, you'll still face a few hours of smashing your fist impotently down upon your keyboard as you wait for the files to unlock. Florian Eckhardt