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SiN Episode 1: Emergence Preload Continues
27 Apr 2006 by Josh Hubi | Steam |

Today Steam continued the preloading of Sin Episodes: Emergence. The full game will be made available for play May 10th at 10:00am PST.

Valve Turns on the Faucet for 360
27 Apr 2006 by Josh Hubi | Valve |

Valve Software has opened up its spigots and has announced that it is in development of several titles for the Xbox 360. Valve is responsible for hit PC titles Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike. Valve released a current-gen Xbox version of Half-Life 2 last year, but received weak sales figures.

Valve said that the future games would be using a reworked version of the Source Engine. Game Newell, president of Valve said, "Whether developing a traditional FPS, RTS, RPG or delving into new genres, the Xbox 360 is a great platform for expanding Source and our game experiences."

The range of game genres mentioned by Newell is expansive and it seems likely that Valve may be considering other game topics besides its well-known shooters. The interest of the general gaming community seems to be shifting away from the glut of shooters that are crowding game shelves. Hopefully, the talent at Valve will also recognize this trend and vary their game development strategy.

The Ship Shipping in September
26 Apr 2006 by Josh Hubi | Half-Life 2 Modification |

Mindscape has announced that this September we will see the launch of The Ship, a first person maritime game set aboard steam liners in the 1930s. The game first came to life as a mod of a game franchise some of you may know of: Half-Life.

This mod is now becoming a full blown game that will feature single and multiplayer gameplay and will contain some aspects of micro-management, with players having to deal with food consumption, social interaction and sleeping.

Gameplay itself revolves around what is being called "the hunt." Essentially, players are told to track down someone and kill them with whatever weapons necessary. Now this may sound exciting and all, but we're thinking there probably aren't going to be many options in terms of BFGs because of the 1930s setting. Monacle-induced deaths, anyone?

Expect more information as it becomes available when the game is paraded around at E3.

Black Mesa : Source update
24 Apr 2006 by Josh Hubi | Half-Life 2 Modification |

quote:
We've been hearing a lot of things circulate throughout the community recently, so to clarify: we're NOT dead. We're working behind the scenes and Black Mesa is really starting to shape up. Our weapons are in-game, skinned and undergoing the animating process. Our levels are filling up with custom textures and world props. Instead of ERROR signs, we now have houndeyes and bullsquids to play with. Instead of Kleiners everywhere, we actually have some of our own scientists standing about: sadly, not yelling profanity at Gordon just yet.

Hacked!
23 Apr 2006 by Josh Hubi | Site News |

yes yes yes, our server has been hacked and we lost our database. We have lost our forums but we are lucky to have a month old backup. All hosted sites but leak-free.org have not been harmed while the worm eating virus was eating away at the server.

Leak-Free and hlgamer felt full force of this attack. Leak-Free.org has their database and ftp folder wiped out and so did hlgamer. all other sites have not been touched by this worm. We are back up and still going strong. This did not stop the development of the new hlgamer site but it did stop the news posting. I will return to news posting later tonight...

SiN 1 Update
19 Apr 2006 by Josh Hubi | Steam |

Updates to SiN 1 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

SiN 1

> Added new deathmatch map Spool
> Fixed incorrect game name being reported to Steam
> Fixed French version of the game dropping the player to the console in the Chemical Plant and Mountain Gorge levels
> Civilian females no longer turn bright red when shot
> Unused map name removed from multiplayer map list

HL2: Episode 1 Set to Preload on May 1st
18 Apr 2006 by Josh Hubi | HL2 : Aftermath |

May is just around the corner and the developers at Valve are on their toes as they prepare for the release date of the next chapter to their best selling title, Half-Life 2.

The first episode of the expansion will take place right after the events of the previous game and will put you once again in the world of Gordon Freeman and characters like the G-Man.

No doubt with only a couple weeks left, there's going to be growing excitement.

"We're frantically trying to put the finishing touches on Episode One for preloading to begin May 1st. The past couple of days have been spent with the team adding commentary tracks. Hopefully it will be interesting for people to gain some insight into our development processes. It's pretty hectic around the office, but it is always a lot of fun to be so close to shipping," said a rep at Valve.

Mark your calendars for May 1, when the game is set to preload.

No, We did not stop posting....
18 Apr 2006 by Josh Hubi | Other |

No guys, We have not stoped posting news. We are still giving you news daily even if its junk. There is just no news floating in the modifications world right now. We will keep our eyes open!

The 411
17 Apr 2006 by Josh Hubi | Site News |

It was kind of odd for us to shut down and go in our reconstruction stages without letting the community know a bit of information. I have gotten many e-mails from the community members wanting to know what's going down. Well I am about to tell you.

HLGamer is currently undergoing reconstruction it terms of a new site design and content. Since 2003 we have became rather large from a small forums to a major resource and this may be a big bump to our site's life by going into reconstruction. Our estimated date of launching is May 5th or even earlier. Remember that we are still posting news daily so you can still count on us for your daily news source.

Steam News for April 14th, 2006
15 Apr 2006 by Josh Hubi | Steam |

We've noticed that more and more people are taking a look at Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45, and a real community has formed around the game. The team that built the game, Tripwire, has released its first update and more will follow. They put together an all new gameplay movie, and they've also been getting some nice press that you can find on their Metacritic page.

There are just a little over three weeks left for you to preload SiN Episode 1: Emergence before it is unlocked. Remember that if you pre-purchase the game before it is made available on May 10th, you will save 10% on the $19.95 price.

Meanwhile, here at Valve, we're frantically trying to put the finishing touches on Episode One for preloading to begin May 1st. The past couple of days have been spent with the team adding commentary tracks. Hopefully it will be interesting for people to gain some insight into our development processes. It's pretty hectic around the office, but it is always a lot of fun to be so close to shipping.

Counter-Strike: Source and Earth 2160 Update Available
14 Apr 2006 by Josh Hubi | Steam |

Updates to Counter-Strike: Source and Earth 2160 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Counter-Strike: Source:

> Added HDR lighting to de_dust
> Resized some crates in de_dust to fix players being able to peek over
> Added GSG9 and Arctic player models
> Improved lag compensation
> Unified client and server player anims
> Bot navigation files on disk are preferred over nav files embedded in bsps
> Bots can use drop-down ladders

Earth 2610:

> Fixed save games not saving to disk correctly

Garry's Mod to be Sold Through Steam
14 Apr 2006 by Josh Hubi | Half-Life 2 Modification |

Garry's Mod, the popular physics playground seems to have been snatched up by VALVe, and is now going to be sold through Steam. Something surprising is that Garry was just about to ditch his mod, but this new deal with VALVe saved the day. You can read the announcement in this interview.

"Garry’s Mod, the Source-powered physics sandbox famed across the games industry, is to be sold over Steam for $10 US, with profits split evenly between Garry and his team of contributors and Valve. What is currently known as version 9.1 will lose its number and become the initial paid release, while the current version (9.04) will remain as a free demo."