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Some of Valve's most popular games are now available for purchase and download via Gamestop's Impulse PC digital download service. This is very rare as Valve has never allowed any of their titles to be published by other digital retailers. These titles include Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal 2, The Orange Box, and Half-Life Complete. Despite these titles being available on Impulse, users will still need to register the games through Valve's Steam service in order to play them. With Impulse...
PSBeyond compares FPS franchises including Modern Warfare, Half-Life, Battlefield, Operation Flashpoint and Crysis to their closest cinematic equivalents
"How many games can you say you were creating a rocket powered car that had hundreds of turret on the front one minute and building a huge complicated chain reaction of boulders and explosions the next? Garry’s mod hands you a huge bunch of tools and give you the freedom to do whatever the heck you want with them. Also running behind the graphics is the source engine so the physics yet again are spot on. The community that is behind the game is what makes the game even more incredible releasin..."
"Before we begin there are two things worthy of note that happened last week. Steve Jobs passed away and Team Bondi have closed their doors for good. Steve Jobs leaves behind him the sort of legacy that most of us will only ever dream about and the rest of us will spend time complaining about. The fact of the matter is, whether you love or hate Apple, his work has had an undeniable influence on the modern world and, on topic, mobile gaming, a fact that seems undeniable when Angry Birds, availa..."
Science Rules! And kills. These are amongst the valuable life lessons we learned from Valve's original masterpiece, Half-Life. Check out the rest of what Gordon Freeman has to teach us.
"Who likes free games? That’s right, you do. You love getting entertainment for the cost of absolutely nothing, because you’re a cheap prick who could care less about shelling out some clams to the man. Well this time all you need to shell out is a few bucks for the original Half Life so you’ll be able to check out this hot piece of ass known as Cry of Fear when it is finally finished. It’s a two’fer, guy!"
Some video game characters are heroic, some sexy, others silly. And then there are these folks, who are tougher to get a handle on. Presenting the most mysterious video game characters of all time.
Sometimes, video game series die an early death, but even a long absence doesn't mean a franchise is dead forever. Here are 10 video game series that are overdue for a comeback.
"It’s been twelve years since the first Half-Life game hit the PC and, despite its popularity, we still haven’t seen a film adaptation. There’s a very specific reason: Valve doesn’t trust anybody to do it – except themselves."
"Folks, we are in the seventh generation of gaming and are being amazed by the raw power of the Playstation 3. There have been many people (including us) who are amazed at the technology behind the Cell processor and the massive storage space of the blu ray disc. All of us who have bought the Playstation 3 must have bought many blockbuster games along with it. Games like Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Killzone 2, Little Big Planet and the more recent Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. But ..."
""This is the first in hopefully a series of articles, where each time we take a look at all the games in a particular series and talk about what the developer, the community & our own opinion is on whether its story and events in them are considered canonical within the series.
This time we tackle the Half-Life series.""
"Silent protagonists, or for those who haven’t been properly acquainted with the English language; quiet heroes, aren’t exactly a common product of modern video games. However some have become famous for the lack of verbal engagement, whereas some would argue that it doesn’t create an extra axis of mystery to the character, but only renders them as bland and unimportant. Here is a small list of 5 silent protagonists in modern gaming, and how their silence altered how the game was perceived on ..."
"It is unfortunate that in the real world, there are certain types of people who just look like sex offenders. Whether they are or not. Peter Jackson, for example, wouldn't look out of place with his trousers round his ankles, running through a nursery and being sick all over himself. Same goes for Geoffrey out of Rainbow. There are certain people that, should it come to light that they've been arrested for some hideous sexual misdemeanor, we wouldn't be surprised. This is why it's so easy for..."
"As goes with all creative works, there's nothing new under the sun. At least that's what they say.
Video games are no different. How many times have you played a game and asked "haven't I done this somewhere before?" And the chances are you probably have. A lot of great ideas are recycled again and again for countless reasons (mostly due to marketing, of course).
While some of these games parallel their respective host title, several actually managed to break away, finding their own suc..."
"It seems that entirely too often, people wonder what it would be like to see their favorite video games in real life. This results in a nearly infinite number of fan-made videos of varying levels of quality. Ive done my best to find 12 great ones that span Mario Bros. to Portal. Its abudantly clear that Ive probably missed a large number, so feel free to leave your favorites in the comments. Ready
start!
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Half Life is now officially ten years old. The story has it right, makes us all feel old. lol. For you too young to remember, there was a time before the Combine when us gamers played a scientist caught up in bureaucratic white tape and intrigue while also dealing with an alien invasion at a little facility called Black Mesa. Anyhow, Valve is selling the game on the cheap now in honor of the event.
"From shotguns to rockets, chainsaws to weapons that fire right through walls, weapons are what make gaming fun. You can have the greatest game out there, but if the weapons sound weak and don't pack much punch, you've lost something in the interface between the gamer and the world you're trying to immerse him into."
"Did you know theres an official slice of the Half-Life saga that never found its way to PC? Decay was a bonus game mode in the Playstation 2 port of the first Half-Life, much as Blue Shift was supposed to be the exclusive extra bit in the ultimately canned Dreamcast version. But while the latter saw its own PC release (replete with the at-the-time ace High Definition pack) and can be had to this day from Steam, Decay seemed damned to dwindle into olden console game obscurity. Oh, the irony o..."
Soviet Delirus goes through what they feel to be (and what should be met with minimal opposition) the 'dream team' cast for a live action Half-Life movie. Follow the link for some side by side comparisons.
"Valve marketing boss Doug Lombardi said that the next installment in the Half-Life franchise would not be showing up at E3 2008, shooting down rumors that began circulating the Internet yesterday.
But, he said that a "playable Left 4 Dead will be on display in a Valve-hosted suite."
Half-Life 2: Episode 2 launched relatively recently (October 2007), but the franchise's loyal fanbase is already ready for more.
In the absence of Episode 3, Left 4 Dead will be Valve's focus at E3. The g..."
Is there any limit to what this game can do? The only limit truly is your imagination and skills with a mouse. A look at some of the enemies in Half-Life - including the Strider, Antlion, Hunter, Honudeye, Bullsquid, and of course - the Headcrab.
Valve has announced an add-on which will allow users to play any Steam game that they might have in their library directly from any computer. The support, which is known as Steam Cloud, automatically saves your game data, as well as other things thing that you will be able to access from any computer. It's all free and the first games to offer Steam Cloud support will be the Half-Life series, Team Fortress 2, Counterstrike, and Left 4 Dead which is not yet released.
NS2 related news in the podcast:
In Natural-Selection (on HL!) the commander camera view was static at a certain hight. This forced the level designers (me to) to create overal flat maps to make sure that the commander it not to far or to close to the action and be able to do his demanding job.
In NS2, they are NOT going to introduce a zoom feature. Instead they are going to use a heightmap system for a map. With this the commander stays at the height, preset by the mapper. It also does n...
Charlie and Max talk about what went on at GDC 2008. They were very busy over the last couple of weeks with both the GDC08 and Natural Selection 2 development. This podcast is basically a look into their busy shedule this month (last month). At the end of the podcast, they hint at breaktrough content for NS2. All of which will be shown or reveiled in the next pod/video cast hopefully
"Natural Selection (a Half-Life 1 RTS+FPS hybride modification) was first launched on October 31, 2002 with version 1.0, it is up to version 3.2 as of now and has seen a lot of changes over the years. All this time there has never been an officially supported map pack. Sure a lot of servers had custom map packs, but these were not officially supported.
Now finally after all these years there is a community member (Brent 'Stix&Stonz' Mitchell) who took the step into realising a fan map pack."
First he gets on the air with FOX News about NIU. Then his lies while on the air are debunked by Kotaku. Finally, GamePolitics decided to confront Jack about NIU.
...Well, maybe not so finally. Jack Thompson has sent GamePolitics an e-mail stating that if he doesn't get information on Kazmierczaks gaming history, he'll file a lawsuit. Typical Thompson behavior: Make a lawsuit threat even though he's never actually won one in order to try and get his way. Nothing surprising here, rea...
While Kotaku decided to analyze Wacko Jacko's lies about the NIU shooting, GamePolitics decided to take a different approach and ask one simple question to Jack Thompson: The shooter was 27, so why should violent video games have been an issue? Thompson may claim to be only against the selling of M-rated video games to underage consumers, but seriously, what do video games have to do with NIU?
I'm still trying to figure this out myself. If anyone else can figure something decent out bes...
"Seeing that Jack went out of his way to email me this morning to point out that he was "right" about the shooting being spurred by Counter-Strike, I thought it was probably worth another round of Dissecting Jack's Lies.
Hit a jump for his confusing quotes and how accurate they were:
1: "We find from brain scan studies out of Harvard that if you get started playing, for example, violent video games you can more likely copy-cat the behaviors in the games".
Verdict: False
Evidence: Whil..."
Today Fox News interviewed "campus shooting expert" Jack Thompson about the Illinois shooting, and despite the police knowing barely anything about the killer or his motives, Jack is quick to dive in and blame "murder simulators, called video games".
If you think Jack couldn't sound any more ridiculous, this video will soon change your mind. At one point he links the killer's attire to violent video games, then goes on to promote his own book. Disrespectful, much?
Surprisingly, the Fox i...
Six months ago, I looked at three titles that were promising us Episodic content and I was not thrilled with the results. Six months later, I decided to follow up on those three franchises to see where they were at now. And I was a bit disappointed. We are still waiting for one, one has left the building and one succeeded in its original promise.
"The biggest problem with great games is how everybody is always jabbering on about how damn wonderful they are. Which got us thinking: surely even the very finest videogames must have the odd blemish on their flawless complexions, the occasional fly in an otherwise unspoiled tub of ointment?
Click below to see what really got GamerSquads goat in the likes of Goldeneye, Half-Life, Halo, and Zelda: Ocarina of Time."
"Weve all played a game where someone other than the main character has a huge role in the game, usually an unsung role. The problem is that these characters are absolutely vital to not only the enjoyment of the game but in pushing the story further along and quite often even saving the main character a time or two. Well it's time these silent saviors get recognized, so here's the top 5 best supporting characters. They were picked based on personality, in-game presence, and over-all abilit..."
Singleplayer is awesome, sure multiplayer can be good but its that story driven action packed campaign that we hunger for. Here is a list of the top 10 FPS singleplayer games. While all these titles are available for PC many of them are or will be on consoles. System Shock 2, Doom and Deus Ex all make a appearance but which one will be top dog?
The list is as follows (in reverse order, even though the numbers are incremental):
- F.E.A.R
- Call of Duty 2
- System Shock 2
- Aliens vs Predator 2
- Far Cry
- Ca...
"Every game has a different storyline and different factors driving that storyline, but all games have one factor in common. That one factor is the bad-ass whose music or voice sends chills up your spine when you hear it and you know what's about to happen. Each villain is different and each has it's own way of doing things. To make this list they have to have done something either extremely evil, have a truly dark and deprived past, or simply make the player soil themselves when they make the..."
![Box shot of Half-Life [Europe]](http://i.neoseeker.com/boxshots/R2FtZXMvUEMvQWN0aW9uL1Nob290ZXI=/halflife_frontcover_small_L4jtVg2MXeQiqxl.jpg)