Personally, my favorite thing about the new update is that it reminds me that Day of Defeat: Source exists. It's like getting a free game! Again. More details at the official update page.

Day of Defeat: Source Palermo Update [Steam]

"The server-side interface used by the client is carefully protected to ensure that no abusive or unwanted information is transmitted to, or from the internal EVE server systems. Nothing the EVE client can do can affect the game state, no advantage can be gained by manipulating the EVE client, no advantageous or disadvantageous information can be transmitted to other EVE users by altering the EVE client."

Completely interactive, a Counter-Strike Source server is attached to the sculpture. When someone dies in the game, it shoots leaks a stream of "blood" across the wall, a "physical manifestation of nebulous kills" in the words of Harmon. Players who would like to participate in the exhibit can do so by using the command "connect 129.15.76.103:27015" in CS.

Sculpture on Exhibit [riley.harmon via MAKE]

Year 2026. The World government resorted to stem cells and gene engineering to stage the Judgment Day. They created genetic replications of Christ and Antichrist and destroyed them right away in the course of events to set forth severe fundamentalism on Earth, propped by the idea of communicating with God via machines as well as by the army of cloned creatures, called Angels...

Salvation project. Official announcement

Press-release. Kiev, 10.03.2008

Black Wing Foundation is glad to announce its Salvation project currently in development for PC and Xbox 360. The game, powered by Valve's Source Engine, is developed in cooperation with N-Game Studios.

Salvation is a third-person shooter game set in the near-future. The world government, making use of genetic engineering managed to successfully imitate the Judgement Day and establish new stiff rules - a new 'Regime'. World war and death of genetic replicants of Christ and Antichrist drastically changed the mindset of people. Now they are creatures without the right of opinion, they are slaves of the 'Regime'. An army of Angels, genetically cloned humans, are watchful of keeping the order. Any dissidence threatens either death or exile to Hell - a cybernetic virtual reality system, causing a human to suffer unbearably.

The main characters are people from various climes, with different past, but common present, united by one key idea and goal, the desire to topple down the new Regime, destroy the system of Hell and Paradise. To return peace and order to earth, revenge for themselves and their folks,... but accomplishing this is not easy, the forces are too unequal in this fight...

The path of the heroes lies through multiple challenges leading to the truth hidden in the lies of New Government. Taking up roles of Narumi Amano, a genetically modified assassin, Sergei Thor - captain of east European resistance cell and Alexander Geist - a rather cynical psy-powered smuggler, the player will play through seventeen missions grouped into seven episodes, ultimately defying lie and injustice.

Key game features
- Detailed atmosphere of cybernetic dystopia of the future inspired by such masterpieces as "1984", "Brand New World" and "Us"
- Diversified and various gameplay combining best elements of stealth, action and arcade in a totally new, exiting way
- Abut 20 original bosses, each with its own strategy and story
- Seven episodes, from Tokyo to London, combined into a great dramatic story
- High cinematics factor
- Use of multifunctional original weapons of the future
- Original but simple in use RPG system
- Usage of advanced licensed technologies, realistic physics, 5.1. Sound
- Technological and detailed graphics. Use of parallax and normal mapping, cinematic full-screen pixel shader effects, HDR lighting, dynamic light, shadows and more.
- Inverse kinematics
- Great soundtrack featuring live orchestra, licensed content and original materials
- 8 to 32 multiplayer mode, new areas, new weapons, ability to play for enemies and NPCs.
Visit the official web-site of Salvation project at www.bwf-game.com

Reader Peter sends in these scans of Counter Strike Source ads that ran recently in a Seoul, Korea free daily paper. Peter also explained the country's love affair with the game.

Here in Korea CS clones like 'Special Force' and 'Sudden Attack' are popular despite having sub-CS1 graphics. They are free and players can pay for ad ons. I guess CS Source here will operate in the same way. I found the layout of the ad to be amusing. The history of CS comming out of the clouds, the slightly oxymoronic '2nd premiere' and the sparse nature of the screenshot with only the pistol in screen. Be interesting to see if a free CS Source becomes huge here in Korea.

I wonder how The Orange Box would do there? Hit the jump to see the bottom half of this full page ad.

Riding high from their success with The Orange Box, Valve today announced the acquisition of Turtle Rock Studios, the Orange County-based development studio behind co-op zombie-fest Left 4 Dead.

"We have been seeing very strong growth with Steam and Source, our content distribution and development platforms, up over 150% over the last 12 months. Given our expectations for Left 4 Dead and our long-standing relationships with members of the Turtle Rock team, this was an easy decision. It also gives us a base from which to expand our development activities in the Los Angeles area," said Gabe Newell, president of Valve.

"Left 4 Dead fills a long-standing demand gamers have had for a coop first-person action experience, and it will also help Valve's expansion into the console market," added Doug Lombardi, Valve's VP of marketing.

"Valve has had great success bringing in projects and teams such as Team Fortress and Portal. As I spent time working and talking with the creators of those products over the past several years, it became clear that this was the right next step for myself, my colleagues at Turtle Rock, our customers, and our products," said Michael Booth, founder and CEO of Turtle Rock Studios. "We are excited to be a part of such a visionary and forward-thinking company."

VALVE ACQUIRES TURTLE ROCK STUDIOS

Leading Content and Technology Company Adds California Studio

January 10, 2008 - Fresh off the success of The Orange Box, the 2007 game of the year award-winning collection of new games heralded as "the best value in gaming history," Valve Corporation announces the acquisition of Turtle Rock Studios, the Orange County-based development house behind one of 2008's most anticipated games, Left 4 Dead.
Valve was founded in 1996 and has grown to become one of the game industry's leading technology and content creators, with a portfolio of over 20 million games sold worldwide. The merger of the two companies extends Valve's development team and provides the company with a new studio in southern California.
Turtle Rock Studios' Left 4 Dead joins a growing list of Valve's game properties which includes the Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress and Day of Defeat series of games as well as Portal, introduced as part of The Orange Box.
"We have been seeing very strong growth with Steam and Source, our content distribution and development platforms, up over 150% over the last 12 months. Given our expectations for Left 4 Dead and our long-standing relationships with members of the Turtle Rock team, this was an easy decision. It also gives us a base from which to expand our development activities in the Los Angeles area," said Gabe Newell, president of Valve.
"Left 4 Dead fills a long-standing demand gamers have had for a coop first-person action experience, and it will also help Valve's expansion into the console market," added Doug Lombardi, Valve's VP of marketing.
"Valve has had great success bringing in projects and teams such as Team Fortress and Portal. As I spent time working and talking with the creators of those products over the past several years, it became clear that this was the right next step for myself, my colleagues at Turtle Rock, our customers, and our products," said Michael Booth, founder and CEO of Turtle Rock Studios. "We are excited to be a part of such a visionary and forward-thinking company."
Founded in 2002 by Michael Booth, Turtle Rock Studios is the creator of Left 4 Dead, named one 2008's most wanted titles by many of today's leading game-enthusiast publications and Web sites.
For more information on Valve, its games, or the Steam platform, please visit www.steamgames.com

Zombie Panic Source [Official Site via FileFront]

The official site also promises "a surprise in store that is currently in late stages of production and will be done very soon." At this point, I'd really just appreciate it Valve would just cut them a check to fund proper, uninterrupted development or bring them on board. The wait is starting to become unbearable.

Black Mesa Source Media

We're planning on adding achievements to all of our games you touched on in your mail [Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source]. We're just now coming out of the post-shipping haze, so these should start showing up on Steam pretty quick here.

We're also planning on adding a bunch more to TF2, starting with an achievement pack for the Medic in the next week or so.

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

It appears that Steam's innovative new pricing system for weapon and equipment has lead to other tweaks for PC shooter Counter-Strike: Source.

On Oct. 11 the developer launched the system, which modifies the cost of weapons and gear based on an algorithm that "calculates the global market demand." In other words, the more popular a weapon is, the more expensive it becomes.

The unexpected result of the system, it appears, is that the really good guns got way over-priced, forcing Steam to tweak the other weapons to make them more attractive.

Specifically, the developers increased the damage inflicted by the ES57, Compact 228 and Dual Elites by 25 percent. Brian Crecente

Counter-Strike: Source Update Released [Steam]

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

According to the latest CNN Money story on Episodic Gaming, in the next Half-Life 2 episode, someone dies!

It also lets them take some risks. For example, in the next episode of "Half-Life 2" (due in the first quarter of next year) Valve plans to kill off one of the franchise's regular characters.

Making such a move, particularly with characters that have become beloved in a major franchise is a risky one. But Newell said by introducing such a shocking twist, it can help the "Half-Life" story from becoming "just another watered-down serialized narrative."

"I think we want them to care about these characters and want them to trust that we're doing something smart with these stories," he said. "We want them to be genuinely be worried about the characters, so you won't think 'Well they won't do something to these characters, because they're too important.' If nothing matters, then nothing you do matters - and you're moving away from being in a world and back to being in a shooting gallery."

Yeah, no duh someone dies. I mean, doesn't the Half-Life 2: Episode Two trailer flat out tell you that Alyx has been killed, and that the Vortigaunts are "preserving" her, implied less for necrophillia than for necromancy? It's not really going to be huge drama if you kill off a character just to bring her back to life, Valve. And as for killing off Barney or Dr. Klein, didn't you kill those guys off a thousand times each in Half-Life 1? Florian Eckhardt

Changing the way video games are made [CNN Money]

Valve has balls. To poke the Counter-Strike hornet's nest is a dangerous thing. With the recent change to the radar system, it doesn't seem like Valve is scared of tweaking the gameplay.

Now, they're mucking about with the pricing. You know that everyone just buys AK-47s, AWPs, Desert Eagles and Colts right? Well, they're making an effort to change that. Here's what they have to say about it:

We at Valve know we're not alone in thinking that some of the prices in the game have never been exactly what they should be. (Uh, night-vision?) But rather than tweaking the values ourselves, we thought we'd rather let you decide. Coming soon in Counter-Strike: Source is a new system that sets the prices of what you can buy based on, well, what people are buying.

Starting on October 11th, the prices of weapons and equipment in Counter-Strike: Source will be updated each week based on the global market demand for each item. As more people purchase a certain weapon, the price for that weapon will rise and other weapons will become less expensive.

Cool idea, one that I'm looking forward to testing out. Any CS:S players out there? We'll get a game on. Michael McWhertor

CS: Source Pricing Algorithm

It's been a couple of weeks since I've asked you guys to peer into the murky haze of the near future and tell me about the games you were playing. Sorry about that; I was lazy. Also, not playing any games. Leipzig bled them out of me. Great, another Italian stereotype leaping upon a monstrous anthropomorphic. Is that a giant crab I see? Kill me.

But speaking of giant crabs, I ended up spending all Labor Day playing Half-Life 2 again. I really like it a lot more now that all of my expectations of a well-fleshed out story to go along with City 17's amazing, microcosmic Bulgarian dystopia have been expertly dashed by Valve. When I first played it, I was infuriated by Valve dropping me in only the greatest video game setting ever to have been dreamed up, then not bothering to elaborate on a single thing that happened in the interim ten years that fleshed out that setting. It was ultimately vacuous.

People have claimed to me that Half-Life has the same problem, but the difference is that in the first game, you are part of an enfolding situation, where enigmas are intriguing, compelling and understandable. In the second game, yuou are dropped into the middle of an existing situation and expected to reconcile it without any bridging information from the first game.

Half-Life 2, by itself, hasn't grown any more fleshed out over the years. Luckily, though, Wikipedia to the rescue! Those wily editors have pasted together all the various snippets of plot from various out-of-game sources, and now, I'm satisfied. Shame none of it was in the game.

Anyway, this weekend, I'm moving on to a replay of Half-Life 2: Episode One, which — as a game — I enjoyed a hell of a lot more than Half-Life 2 the first time around.

What about you guys? Now that our comments are ostensibly more open, that means that even guys without a comment account can jump in. So tell us what you're playing! Florian Eckhardt

Valve, you don't need to go viral to interest me in Portal. You had me at reaching down, fiddling with my junk, then saying "Hello." But now, you've given us Aperture Science.

Login with any name, then use the password PORTAL. You can also type HELP at the beginning.

And from there, you can really see what Erik from Old Man Murray has been doing with his time since he was hired at Valve. Florian Eckhardt

This is the Team Fortress 2 trailer that Valve showed at Leipzig yesterday. What I am experiencing is a far more welcome boner than the SOCOM 3 one. Florian Eckhardt

Yes, I still play Counter-Strike. A lot. Some folks may have moved on, to games like Battlefield 2, or regressed, to games like Halo 2, but I'm still stuck in the year 2002. I still get a rush when I'm the last living CT, aware that two dozen pre-teens are closely watching my performance, ready to let loose a bilious stream of homophobic and racial epithets should I fail to defuse the bomb.

Well, Valve has seen fit to make some changes to the long stagnant Counter-Strike gameplay. Why? To "move the core gameplay forward" they say. What's on deck?

The first update will include an updated version of the map Train, which will feature an HDR lighting pass, some minor layout changes, and a number of small bugfixes.

No biggie. I can get behind this. The underplayed bomb map de_train has its issues and who doesn't like a little high dynamic range lighting (with the exception of my tired Radeon 9800 Pro)? What else you got?

The second facet of this release will be a completely reworked radar system. There will be a significant change to the aesthetics of the radar, but there are also some fairly significant gameplay ramifications to the new system. One example: when you look directly at an enemy for a long enough time for their name to appear on your screen, everyone on your team will be able to see that enemy in the radar. We're planning on releasing this first update in about two weeks.

Woah. Anyone who has played CS for any length of time will tell you that the ornery virgins who belly up to the keyboard on a Friday night are going to have some furious forum posting to do about this. While not an earth-shattering change, it will give away (temporarily?) an opponents location. But this is not such a bad thing, in my opinion. Those without mics should be able to act as spotters for the group, something that would benefit both sides strategically and save some awkward keyboard-based messaging.

Now, I won't whip out my e-dick and say that I've been playing CS since beta this or beta that and that this really makes me angry(!). That's not cool. I'm all for changes, if they add something strategically interesting and fresh to the game. Just never ever bring back that motherfucking riot shield, guys. Please. Michael McWhertor

Valve Weekly Update

That Dark Messiah of Might And/Or Magic demo we mentioned last week was released with great fanfare yesterday. Partly because it's a swell demo featuring a beautiful graphics engine, some extremely fun gameplay and the ratio perfection of chocolate-to-peanut-butter in how much RPG Arkane swirled into its FPS. But more largely because the 30 minute demo is an astonishing 1.4 gigs. That last sentence should be followed by a slurry of exclamation points and perhaps the muffled internal pop of your heart exploding.

But if you've got the pipe, go download it, because it's a lot of fun. I spent about thirty minutes just firing flaming arrows at things to see if they caught on fire. There were no small children about, making it an inaccurate simulacrum of my life, but otherwise, all good!

We're linking the GamersHell download page, since I always tend to find that I have the greatest luck with them. Florian Eckhardt

Dark Messiah of Might & Magic Demo [Gamers Hell]

Although I personally wouldn't want to bust in on them in a Men's Room stall at this year's Pax, GayGamer is one of my favorite blogs. They have a really good eye for finding interesting game related things. And in their latest post, they managed to scratch my perpetual itch for goofy dancing G-Man videos, accompanied by zany tunes. Yes, that is Tiny Tim! Florian Eckhardt

The Half-Life 2 Deathmatch mod Source Forts has a new trailer, one that Steam subscribers can now download for free. You know, to see if this whole build a fort, capture the flag gameplay is for you.

For those of you not in the know, the game pits Half-Life 2 rebels against Combine soldiers in deathmatch play. The kicker? Each round starts with a "build phase", within which players can use the infamous gravity gun to set up a series of planks to build bridges, ramps, walls, and other structures on a fairly plain map. Then "combat phase" begins and you shoot stuff, obviously.

The newest revision of the freely downloadable mod was released to the public just this week, so do check it, and the trailer, out. Michael McWhertor

Source Forts Official Site

While there's nothing Fileplanet could ever offer that would get me to sign up for their service, the forthcoming Dark Messiah of Might and Magic demo — a FilePlanet World Demo Premiere! — is mildly tempting, if not for the fact that it'll be up on BitTorrent within moments.

Still, I'm excited about the demo: Arx Fatalis screamed more potential than it exhibited, and I'm fascinated by the prospect of what the imaginative Arkane guys can do with a budget and the Source engine.

The demo will be released on August 8th to FilePlanet subscribers, and you can sign up to an email list to be informed within seconds of its download availability. Florian Eckhardt

Edit: Andrew Burnes of Voodoo Extreme wrote in to point out that I don't know what I'm talking about. It's not an exclusive of Fileplanet: they are simply debuting it, and then it'll be available everywhere else. Thanks for the correction, Andrew!

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic Demo [File Planet]

So how's Steam doing in stopping piracy? Surprisingly poorly, according to Mike Russell over at Ritual. According to him, technical support requests for pirated copies of Sin Emergence: Episode One are five times more prevalent than from legitimate copies.

Some of the excuses from pirates wanting to know why their crack isn't working are truly hysterical:

"What's Steam?" one asked. "I don't have one," replied another when asked for his Steam ID. "Oh, my copy didn't come with an installer," replied yet another user, "it's in a folder on a DVD. I just drag it to my machine and then run the game."

Mark Russell takes no guff from pirates, though! What does he do when he encounters a pirate?

Actually, I contact their ISP [laughs]. I know it sounds silly, but ISPs have been a lot more responsive towards pirates than law enforcement has been. Most law enforcement sees piracy as petty theft. It's under a hundred bucks, it's piddly crap. But ISPs, they're really responsive towards pirates, because most pirates are the people who are munching all the bandwidth. So if they have, essentially, a legitimate excuse to boot a pirate off, they'll take it.

If only an ISP furries were so easily jettisoned. Florian Eckhardt

Ritual's Mike Russell on Piracy [Shacknews]

Some very strange footage of the even stranger Japanese HL2: Survivor arcade cabinet, which Eliza wrote about a few days back.

Don't mind the chattering Japanese guys, they're saying nothing particularly coherent, according to Ashcraft. "You don't know who you're playing against!" and "Score big points!" seems to be the central thrust of their jabbering.

I have no idea what's going on in this game at all: who are those strange red guys? Teammates? Half-Life 2 stripped down into some zany, completely nonsensical arcade action game is too wacky to be without appeal, though. Any chance of getting this on Steam, Valve? Florian Eckhardt