During an interview at E3, Valve's Doug Lombardi revealed that the company hopes to add a movie making function to Left 4 Dead at some point after the launch of the core game. He loosely described features that would allow players to record, edit, play back, and possibly share their virtual near-death experiences. Sadly, that functionality probably will not be available for a while; we didn't see it in our own hands-on experience with the game.Lombardi also mentioned that Valve went to Microsoft, Yahoo!, and RealNetworks when it was first conceptualizing Steam, but was told by all that such a service would only exist "10, 15 years in the future." Of course, now Microsoft operates the separate and struggling Games for Windows Live service, which shares some features with Steam.And yes, we know the above screenshot features the old, now-replaced Left 4 Dead characters. But how about a little nostalgia?...

Developer Turtle Rock Studios had been working for some time on Left 4 Dead before the company was bought out by Valve Software (Turtle Rock helped out on various Valve projects in the past and was using Valve's Source engine for Left 4 Dead). So that means that opportunities to play builds of the game have been fairly frequent in the past year or so. However, shooting zombies never really gets old and at E3 2008 today we got yet another chance to make a lot of blood go on the walls (virtually speaking of course).Along with some human teammates we got to play the first level of Left 4 Dead's first scenario (there are four such scenarios in all, each with five levels). Our goal was to get basically from one point to another without being taken by the zombie horde. After each of our characters loaded up with head, weapons and ammo we left via a rooftop and went down the stairs through the building. It didn't take long for the zombies to start swarming all over the place. They acted like they need a human fix. By the way, these zombies are of the Dawn of the Dead remake variety; they are fast, relentless and hungry for your brains....

Valve Software's Gabe Newell took the stage at EA's E3 press conference to present the cooperative horror game Left 4 Dead. We have the video of that presentation on the other side of the jump, but here are the Cliff's Notes.All four current player character models will be replaced with the above-pictured folks. This was probably a good change; the old ones weren't very likable or varied. In addition to that bit of info, Newell talked about the game's AI director, which will adjust the gameplay to match players' playstyles, positions, and status.He also said the game is coming out on November 4th, but that news ain't new. Anyway, the game seems to be coming along swimmingly. Be sure and check out the video after the break!...

This year's E3 manifests the industry's dearth of creativity via the rampant case of sequel-itis running wild throughout the development world, but that doesn't mean you can't continue creating your own unique creations with flexible tools such as the popular Garry's Mod. A new update to Garry's Mod is now available over Steam and will be applied upon restarting Valve's digital distribution service. The update includes fixes such as the shotgun having unintentionally decreased damage, TF2'2 blood overriding Half-Life 2's, and a crash that occurred "when prop's physics object couldn't be created," according to the official Steam website....

Valve's Steam service has now posted up their weekend sales deal and once again it's a good one. For this weekend only you can download and purchase Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-slick Precipice of Death, Episode One for just $9.99. That's a savings of $10 from the regular $19.99 price.Developed by Hothead Games, the downloadable only title got some mixed reviews but most were fairly positive for the first episode in this "M" rated adventure-RPG series based on the popular Penny Arcade comics. The second episode is currently in development but no release date has been revealed....

Blizzard is famous for sticking to a "when it's done" philosophy when announcing new games in development and won't hesitate to delay a release to ensure a high level of quality. It's been ten years and counting since StarCraft graced our computers, and gamers still have a long wait before seeing StarCraft II. Don't hang on to any hopes of Diablo III coming our way soon, even though it's been eight years since Diablo II came out. Coincidentally, Ubisoft recently announced that it would opt to space out future Assassin's Creed releases instead of putting out a new game every year. The declining sales of the Prince of Persia sequels were proof that gamers can grow wary of game franchises. Technical issues are often blamed for Spore's numerous delays. It's a slow progression, but development companies are coming to the realization that slow and steady wins the race, while dashing out to milk a franchise for all its worth doesn't always work. Can games afford to stay in development indefinitely? How long does it take before interest starts to fall? Does it always have to be a choice between quality and timeliness? Sound-off after the jump....

PC owners get another new update for Valve's popular multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2 this week. This update, which as always is available when signing on via Valve's Steam client, is mostly to deal with a number of minor bug fixed in the game.While this update is a small one this week, Valve does have plans to release a more substantial patch in the near future. As we reported earlier this month the Heavy character class will be the next in the game to gain new unlockable achievements and weapons to use in the game. At the moment there's no word on when the Heavy update will be released....

Strategy game developer Tilted Mill Entertainment has announced a partnership with Valve that brings Children of the Nile: Extended Edition to the popular Steam digital distribution service. Gamers who already own Children of the Nile can upgrade to the Extended Edition free of charge when the update is released."Tilted Mill is committed to advancing the Children of the Nile franchise as an independent studio with the release of the Enhanced Edition, and we are bringing the CotN experience to a whole new audience of players by expanding our distribution network with the leading online platform for PC Games, Steam," said Chris Beatrice, founder and president of Tilted Mill Entertainment, in a press release Big Download received via email.In Children of the Nile, players control a Pharoah tasked with guiding "uour people through thousands of years of history: from simple hunter-gatherers to the creation of an immortal civilization. Guide your people well and you will build breathtaking pyramids, explore the ancient world and wage war against your enemies," according to the game's official Steam site....

The excitement is building to next week's E3 Media and Business Summit in Los Angeles (man does that sound like some kind of soulless seminar at some Holiday Inn but we aren't in charge of the naming of the event) where over 5,000 journalists have been invited to attend the largest single gathering of game publishers in North America. Big Download will be covering the event all next week but this week we are counting down our top 25 most anticipated PC games we hope we will get to see and maybe play at the event. On Monday we went through our 25-21 picks so if its Tuesday it must be time for the 20-16 picks on our list. As we mentioned previously, these are just our predictions on what games will be shown at the event; many of these titles have not been officially confirmed to be at E3 as of this writing. Also, there's no Activision or Vivendi Games/Blizzard titles on this list due to the two publishers bypassing E3 but a press conference by Activision on Tuesday during E3 is highly expected to show some upcoming titles from that publisher (and maybe Vivendi/Blizzard as well). With that out of the way let's look at our picks for the next five games on our list...

The recently launched official Team Fortress 2 web site looks like it's going to be something a bit different than the normal marketing for a game title. The web site is giving folks a back door into the development process and one of the ways is showing off some unused artwork made for Valve's first person shooter.The artwork comes in the form of trading cards that Valve team members designed near the end of Team Fortress 2's development. They never went into mass production but the web site is now showing off the designs for the cards. So far four have been revealed for the Engineer, the Demoman, the Heavy and the Medic. The other character classes will get their own trading cards and they will be revealed on the site in the coming weeks....

It's a digital fire sale on Steam where the Weekend Deal features Sin Episodes: Emergence for 66% off -- which rings up to $4.99. Valve's original leap into the episodic market, SiN Episodes was originally scheduled as a nine-part series but was canceled at the end of 2006 after numerous internal issues - including staff departures - at developer Ritual Entertainment. While the game received generally favorable review scores (Metacritic: 75) we wonder, does it bother you that you'll never get to see how it all ends - even for $5? The promotional price ends on July 7....

It seems a tad appropriate that the Fourth of July holiday weekend will also have a new major update for Day of Defeat Source, the WWII multiplayer shooter from Valve. The developer just released that update to the game via their Steam client, adding a lot of new content and features.The new version adds a new map to the game, Palermo, which is based loosely on the real Italian city that was the site of one of US General George S Patton's victories (it' also based on a popular community made map Sarleno). The update also adds 51 new achievements to the game, player stats, Steam Community integration and a new freeze cam that will let players look to see who killed them (and even take a screenshot of the event). Some new visual effects to the game have been added as well. People who haven't player Day of Defeat Source will be happy to know that from July 4-6 you will be able to play the full game for free....

Valve continues to tweak their extremely popular multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2 and on Monday the developer released a new patch that may (or may not) upset fans of the Pyro class. The update, released via Steam, has two changes to the flamethrower using character . One of the issues "fixed" is "backburner's flame critical hits not being recalculated after collision. This meant that it would check if the target was looking away once and after that the flame could score a critical hit again even if the orientation change" Yet another "fix" in the update "added back some damage falloff to the Pyro's flamethrower. Not nearly as extreme as it was before the Pyro class pack." Head to the Steam web site for the full change list....

Those crazy game publishers from Austin, Texas have now invaded Valve's Steam service. We are speaking of course of Gamecock, the relatively new organization devoted to releasing new original games and holding wild press events. Now PC gamers who use the Steam service will be able to download current and upcoming Gamecock titles.Currently you can download Firefly Studios' RTS game Stronghold Crusader Extreme and the first of two episodes of the Crackpot Entertainment action-adventure title Insecticide. The second episode of the game, along with the WWII stealth action game Velvet Assassin and the first person shooter Legendary will be released later this year via Steam....

A 20-year-old hacker who had stolen private information from Valve and Activision has been arrested and will face numerous charges. According to ITExaminer, the "evildoer is being charged and questioned for downloading Activision's video game Enemy Territory: Quake War whilst it was still in development."The hacker known as MaddoxX is also responsible for infiltrating "a third-party site used by Valve to handle the Cyber Café business partner program, which is part of the game distribution network Steam."In a literal display of abject foolishness, MaddoxX "distributed photos of his Valve hack as proof." Completing his hacking resume is a charge for "stealing credit card data of 50.000 customers from an English tickets site. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the hacker managed to burn 13 million Euros playing poker online and shopping for notebooks, flat screens and MP3 players."...