In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Valve Software VP Doug Lombardi revealed that if talks of acquisition came about from industry giants such as Electronic Arts, he would be "happy to have that conversation."Since the merger between Activision and Vivendi Games that resulted in Activision Blizzard, arguably the industry's greatest force in terms of publishing, the gaming world is one that is beginning to revolve around mergers and acquisitions. Electronic Arts, once the undisputed juggernaut of the publishing world, would certainly consider themselves blessed if they were to acquire Valve. In fact, given the relationship between Valve and EA, who will be publishing Left 4 Dead when it releases this November, such talks seem likely.Describing the relationship between Valve and Electronic Arts as "really good," Lombardi praised EA for their understanding of Steam, perhaps Valve's greatest contribution to PC gaming. "EA was very progressive about saying, 'We understand who you guys are. We understand what Steam is. We don't want Steam to go away,'" said Lombardi....

Team Fortress 2 designer Jakob Jungels recently updated the official TF2 blog with exciting information: beginning with the next game update, the team will unveil new environments created using a new toolset.The decision to create new item types came from the variety of character achievements introduced in the last couple of upgrades. As achievement details become more involved, the designers wanted great environment diversity to spice up the gameplay. "As we create more and more maps with these achievement packs," Jungels wrote, "we want our level designers to have more to work with in terms of giving their settings a unique look."In order to diversity new levels, the Team Fortress 2 designers asked themselves questions concerning matters such as how to evolve existing assets without creating too many new set pieces (thereby increasing development time), creating unique experiences, and how to ensure environment versatility so that only important changes, rather than time-consuming superficial details, are made in future updates....

Valve just keeps giving customers of its Steam service some extra value in its game collections. This weekend Steam announced the Strategy First collection with a whopping 22 games available to download from the Canadian based game publisher (some of the titles are Empire Interactive games; both companies are owned by Silverstar Holdings).If you bought all of the games separately via Steam it would cost $339.78 but under the Strategy First collection you can get them all for only $69.99. That price is apparently only until August 18; there's no word on what the price for the collection will be after that date....

Gamers interested in a stylistic approach to 2D platforming should note the arrival of Eternity's Child on Valve's Steam digital distribution service. Even better, the visually appealing platformer developed by SilverSphere Studios is currently marked down 10 per cent from its standard price of $4.99, weighing in at only $4.49 until August 7.Boasting "quirky" hand-drawn 2D graphics, Eternity's Child should be a breath of fresh air for gamers tired of the seemingly never-ending swarm of photorealistic shooters. Graphics can only look so realistic, but games such as Team Fortress 2 and Eternity's Child, which feature a unique stylized approach, can seem fresh due to the unique approach to aesthetics. ...

Usually Valve announces which game or games it will have as a heavy discount for the weekend via Steam. However, developer S2 Games has beat Valve to the punch by announcing on their web site that starting sometime today and running through the weekend that the multiplayer fantasy FPS-RTS game Savage 2 will have its price reduced from $29.99 to just $9.99.In addition to the Steam sale, S2 Games is supposed to release a patch for Savage 2 by the end of the week. The web site states the patch will have " . . .lots of improvements, balance, and optimizations. The K2 Engine will run better with additonal enhancements." So it seems like perfect timing for the Steam sale....

If you download your games via Steam, you might be a . . . well, not a redneck but maybe smart. Valve's Steam service continues to gain publishers and this week Steam added seven games from ValuSoft, the budget brand from THQ.All seven games in the line-up cost $19.99 but until August 5 people can download and purchase them for 10 percent off that price. That includes the PC game Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? This adaptation of the Fox primetime game show lets you embarrass yourself in the comfort of your own home answering questions that you should know the answers to and getting ribbed by the show' host Jeff Foxworthy. That's more terrifying than playing Doom....

Every weekend Valve puts up one game on their Steam download service that is sold for 50 percent or more for just a couple of days. This weekend, they have one of the best games in recent years at a bargain price. We are speaking of Bioshock, the innovative and visually terrific first person shooter from developer 2K Boston/Australia and publisher 2K Games.If you haven't experienced exploring the underwater city of Rapture and trying to save or kill Little Sisters, you owe it to yourself to download the PC version of the game via Steam for just $14.99 before Monday. Oh, did you hear there's a sequel and a movie version in the works? Yep, it definately something that all the kids are talking about....

Your daily wrap-up of the hottest stories in PC gaming in the last 24 hours. E308: Dark Void ImpressionsThe first part of Dark Void plays out they way anyone would expect an action shooter would. There isn't much to help the game stand out without the benefit of an upgraded jet pack. Until then, the player moves through like most other shooters, picking up new and inventive weapons along with ammo while picking off waves of incoming soldiers along the way. E308: Damnation ImpressionsGoing vertical is one of the more prominent themes of this year's E3, but before players fly around the Dark Void using a jet pack, they might be scaling the buildings of Damnation. Damnation takes place in an alternate history United States, where the industrial revolution took a radically different turn. The result is a 1900's America that looks both new and familiar at the same time. Left 4 Dead box art revealedValve Software VP of marketing Doug Lombardi has released the official box art for developer Turtle Rock Studios' upcoming Left 4 Dead, a squad-based shooter that will pit humans in a fight for survival against legions of zombies. Though we find the box art to be stylish yet simple, snazzy yet unassuming, we find ourselves hesitant to award the art a thumbs-up. Portal: Still Alive already available on PCKeyboard-and-mousers up in arms over the recent announcement that Xbox Live Arcade would be receiving exclusive Portal content in the form of Portal: Still Alive need not fret: apparently the forthcoming bonus content has already been alive on the PC for quite some time. Frogster unveils strong MMO line-upPlayers looking for a variety of themes in the prolific MMO genre need not look further than Frogster, a PC game publisher with an emphasis on virtual worlds. Due out during the second half of 2008 are StoneAge 2, Runes of Magic, and The Chronicles of Spellborn, which should complement Frogster's existing portfolio of casual MMO titles. ...

Valve Software VP of marketing Doug Lombardi has released the official box art for developer Turtle Rock Studios' upcoming Left 4 Dead, a squad-based shooter that will pit humans in a fight for survival against legions of zombies. Though we find the box art to be stylish yet simple, snazzy yet unassuming, we find ourselves hesitant to award the art a thumbs-up.A number of different characters will be available to hunt down the city's undead legions. Because Left 4 Dead will prominently feature undead gorging and head-popping, Valve has affirmed their hope to integrate movie recording and playback features into the game, certain that players will wan to relieve their glorious escapes -- and eviscerations.Wielding guns, grenades, and a release date of November 4, 2008, Left 4 Dead will be released on PC and Xbox 360....

Keyboard-and-mousers up in arms over the recent announcement that Xbox Live Arcade would be receiving exclusive Portal content in the form of Portal: Still Alive need not fret: apparently the forthcoming bonus content has already been alive on the PC for quite some time.Valve Software's marketing VP Doug Lombardi explained to Gamasutra writer Chris Remo that the content from Portal: Still Alive has actually been lifted and revamped from Portal: The Flash Version MapPack. Portal: The Flash Version was created as a tribute to Valve's puzzle-shooter hybrid, and Flash Version MapPack is simply an extension of that tribute. Download the map pack and follow the instructions to assimilate the Flash game's maps into your copy of Portal."So if you're a PC Portal owner who, like me, was feeling excluded by Still Alive's bonus content, fear not: you get to play that content first, and for free," says Remo....

During E3 we managed to miss the fact that Valve's Steam service added a number of new games to its downloadable line-up. The major new additions are all of the PC games in Ubisoft's Ghost Recon series of tactical shooters. Valve has all five games in a special collection pack for $39.99 and until July 22 you can get the pack for the discounted price of $35.99.Also added to the Steam line-up is the Monte Cristo RPG Silverfall and the indie casual puppet themed game The Wonderful End of the World from developer Dejobaan Games. Both titles are currently 10 percent off their regular price this week only...

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....