Activist types rejoice, a radical new sect of Half-Life 2: Episode 3 and Half-Life 3 supporters have congregated outside the Valve headquarters today.
The muttering throng, whose numbers peaked at literally several, demand the imminent release of another game in Valve’s legendary Half-Life series, or the studio will apparently face the embarrassment of a semi-permanent public protest outside of their building.
Sighted near the protest, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell was spotted in conversation with the protest, apparently trying to tell them when exactly they were going to start working on the new title without actually telling them when they were going to start work on the new title.
This Gabe sighting was captured by Bungie’s Jason Sussman. Gabe didn’t seem displeased with being photographed at all, in fact he allegedly provided the entire protest with lunch. Clearly we are but men among Gods.
The Washington Company is apparently also involved in today’s big rumour, a new iteration of classic mod Counter-Strike.
Twitter posts, comments by Valve staff and other outlets point to the title being either codenamed or named along the lines of ‘Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’.
Gabe himself was asked to comment on rumours of a Counter Strike release at GDC 2011, but remained tight-lipped, responding with; “We have to ship Portal 2, and then we have to ship DotA 2, and then we’ll worry about Counter-Strike.”. When the interviewer asked if there was going to be a CS release or not, Newell promptly gave them the old “I can’t say.”
Featured rumours have pinned down a few key new features, but I can only stress that these are rumoured features, so don’t get sad if they don’t make the final game.
- Planned to be released Q1 2012
- Focuses on 5v5 competition
- Press release within 24 hours from VALVe
- Plays on an updated source engine
- Individual & Team rankings
- New Guns added
- New Grenades
- Dust & Aztec major revamp
- Spamming still viable
- Ammo is free
More confirmation can be found at the ESEA Facebook page, after ESEA personnel, including developers of past iterations of Counter-Strike, got a neat visit to Valve-land. Hopefully they managed to get past the throng of protestors blocking access to the building.
The 3Ds has many features in its bag of tricks as well as the stereoscopic 3D display. Dual cameras on the back of the console allow the user to capture images from the real world to augment their gaming experience.
This in mind, Hideo Kojima, the man behind the acclaimed Metal Gear franchise, has come up with a unique way to add these features to the latest addition to the franchise. Metal Gear Solid 3 (now in 3D) for the 3DS sports a neat little feature using the cameras.
The game’s selectable camouflage allows the player to change their appearance to blend with their surroundings, which is pretty useful. However, more amusing camouflage options are rare and hard to find, so the new feature allows players to take images from the real world and apply them to Snake’s uniform. Meaning that for the first time ever, a super-badass-soldier-guy CAN run through the whole mission dressed in a Hello Kitty jumpsuit.
Here’s a test run of the feature using a Bic camera bag.
http://www.andriasang.com/blog/2011/08/12/mgs3ds_photo_camo/images/2132457724_full.jpg
The sequel the the sensational breakout hit Borderlands, Borderlands 2 is set to be live-streamed on 2K Games’ official uStream channel, featuring exclusive first-look gameplay and q-and-a with Gearbox developers.
The stream is Twitterfied too, allowing users to send their hastily typed questions to @2KGames or @GearboxSoftware and hardcore internet users can head over to the Gearbox forums too. The stream will go live at Friday August 19 at 16:00 BST (Four in the afternoon – tea time).
New features of Borderlands 2 confirmed are a dual-wielding Gunzerker class that is geared for rapid fire fun, weapon customisation including cosmetic and functional additions, a second ‘Eridium’ currency for purchasing weapon upgrades, ‘throwing guns’ that explode when thrown and respawn in the player’s hand with a new magazine, three more new characters, enhanced NPCs, storyline and enemies.
Holy dated reference, Batman, this one looks like it’s turning into a real co-op gorefest rivalling even the Left 4 Dead franchise!
Dead Island has now gone gold (the discs have been burned with the final iteration of that game’s code) and the game is on track for its September 6th targeted release on PS3, Xbox 360 and Windows PCs.