half-life-2 posts

Do you have a couple of saw bucks in your bank account? Then you might be interested in some of today's mid-week PC game deals.

• Steam has put Valve's final (so far) Half-Life game, Half-Life 2 Episode 2, on sale from now until Thursday for a mere $1.99.
• Direct2Drive continues to offer three games for $1.99 that will stay at that price for Tuesday only. This week you can get Space Giraffe, Fishdom and Westward for that price.
• Impulse has put the original Men of War on sale for today only. While it's not a $1.99 game it's still a pretty good deal, it's priced at $3.74.
• Don't forget that Games For Windows Marketplace is giving away a free copy of the PC version of Gears of War when you purchase Bulletstorm from the site for the next two week.

Half-Life 2 was one of the most anticipated PC games of all time. However Valve's first person shooter sequel became the most infamous example of a pirated PC game in September 2003 when a German named Axel Gembe found a way to hack into Valve's servers and download the still incomplete source code for the game.

Eurogamer has posted up a feature article that's mostly an interview with Gembe about how he got access to the Half-Life 2 source code. He was arrested for the crime in May 2004 (after emailing Valve head man Gabe Newell asking for a job). Gembe admitted to downloading the source code but insists he did not upload the code to the internet for everyone else to grab. He states that he gave the code to a still unidentified person, saying, " ... the person I shared the source with assured me he would keep it to himself. He didn't."

In the end Gembe got what some might consider to be a light sentence for his crime; two years' probation. And what would he tell Gabe Newell now? Gembe states, "I am so very sorry for what I did to you. I never intended to cause you harm. If I could undo it, I would. It still makes me sad thinking about it. I would have loved to just stay and watch you do your thing, but in the end I screwed it up. "

The annual Toy Fair is happening right now in New York City and for the 2011 edition action figure companies are breaking out plans to release new figures based on current and upcoming games. NECA always has a ton of game-related action figures coming down the pike and Figures.com has a gallery full of what the company is showing off at Toy Fair this year.

As you can see one of the upcoming NECA figures is a highly detailed Duke Nukem that's slated for release in April just before Duke Nukem Forever comes out in May. It also showed off some upcoming figures from its BioShock line and announced that in 2012 it would be releasing figures based on the next game in the series BioShock Infinite.

Over at Kotaku they have posted up a video showing off some current and upcoming collectible statues from Gaming Heads, who have previously released statues based on Valve's games. Upcoming products in the video include a Smoker Infected from the Left 4 Dead series and a Portal 2 turret. Gaming Heads is also working on more Valve-based statues including a Gordon Freeman statue from Half-Life 2 that we suspect will sell out quickly.

[Picture credit: Figures.com]

Yet another mod created originally for another game is making the leap to a commercial stand alone game release. Dear Esther, previously released as a free mod for Valve's Half-Life 2 back in 2007, will be released in a revamped stand alone title for release sometime in 2011.

The mod is an abstract first person story-adventure game about the experiences of the player exploring a lonely island. The new version will get a graphical revamp for its commercial Source Engine-based release, which will be developed by the mod's original designer Dan Pinchbeck in collaboration with Robert Briscoe, who worked as an environmental designer at Digital Illusions on Mirror's Edge.

The game's bare bones official web site states that the new Dear Esther will have a "completely new environment that pushes the Source engine into uncharted territory; a re-orchestrated soundtrack by composer Jessica Curry, new areas to explore and an expanded story."

[Via Rock Paper Shotgun]

It's a fan made live action film that runs for just 12 minutes yet we have seen not one but two trailers for Beyond Black Mesa in 2010. This week the full short film based on Valve's Half-Life universe hit the interwebs and thankfully the wait was worth it.

The short film has a lot of Half-Life references; the Striders, the zombies, the Combine forces, details of the weapons and, yes, the crow bar are all here and all ring true to the spirit of the Half-Life universe. Someone make a Half-Life feature film with this team before they are scopped up by Hollywood.

[Via Joystiq]

There's just a couple of days left before Steam ends its massive annual holiday sale event. Remember that nearly every game is on sale on the download site to some degree and that even more savings can be found with special publisher bundles. From now until 1 pm Sunday you can get the following PC games with even deeper price cuts.

Company of Heroes series - Save 75 percent off all games in series
Football Manager 2011 - $26.79
Zeno Clash - $3.75
Medal of Honor - $29.99
Swarm Arena - $2.50
Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga - $19.99
Half-Life series - Save 75 percent off all games in series or 85 percent if you own Left 4 Dead 1 or Left 4 Dead 2.
The Settlers 7 - $24.99
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity - $2.50
Bionic Commando Pack (Bionic Commando/Bionic Commando Rearmed) - $12.49
Mafia 2 - $12.49

Valve generated a lot of hype for its decision earlier this year to port a number of its more recent games like Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2 and the Left 4 Dead games to the Mac platform. But that's still not the case for some of its older games including the original Half-Life game. But the truth is that there was plans to release a Mac port of Valve's debut game in 1999. In fact it was nearly complete before the game's original publisher, Sierra, pulled the plug.

That's the story told by Rebecca Heineman, who worked on the programming of the port for Logicware. In a new and extensive interview at Gamasutra she states, "We were about three weeks from master. We just had some minor bugs here and there, just a little polish needed to be done." Then pre-order sales numbers came in from stores that totaled about 50,000 copies. While that was huge for Mac games in 1999 that wasn't good enough for Sierra who made the decision to cancel the Mac port. Despite pleas from other publishers that they would publish the port, Sierra also said, "No" to those requests. Heineman states, "As a result, we were told to take the code and bury it. And it's been buried away since."

[Via Blue's News]

Last July a trailer for a Half-Life universe fan short file called Beyond Black Mesa hit the interwebs and we definitely liked what we saw. The action-packed trailer was made even more impressive by the fact that it was made by a circle of fans for only $1,200.

This week a second trailer for Beyond Black Mesa was released which showed us even more of the fight against the Combine. It also makes us want that Half-Life 2 Episode 3 game even more (how about it, Valve?). The film's official web site says the full short movie has been making rounds on the film festive circuit. Hopefully they will release the full version of this project on the net sooner rather than later.

The team at Gaming Heads have already created two impressive collectible statues based on games from Valve, including the Tank from Left 4 Dead and the Heavy from Team Fortress 2. Today Gaming Heads revealed a new Valve-based statue and it goes all the way back to 2004 for its inspiration.

It's the Half-Life 2 version of the infamous headcrap zombie, built with lots of detail in a 1/4 scale statue. Pre-orders for the new product begin on Monday October 4. Pricing has yet to be revealed but based on the company's previous two releases you can expect to pay north of $200 for the headcrap zombie.

[Via Kotaku]

There have been more than one fan-made movies based on the Half-Life universe but the latest one is pretty impressive indeed. Marco Spitoni, who works in New Zealand at the Weta Digital visual effects company. has been working in his spare time on a CGI trailer for a fictional Half-Life 2 movie called I'm The Freeman.

This week Spitoni released a teaser trailer for the full trailer and, well, we wish this fictional movie wasn't so fictional after all. As you can see above it's quite impressive with visuals and edits that are worthy of a Hollywood feature film. With Half-Life creator Valve stating that they would like to make their own movies based on its game properties and Activision thinking about similar plans perhaps we will see official CGI movies based on games sooner than we think.

[Via PC Gamer]