Featured Threads Archive

It's official. The Lost Coast will be released this evening (in a few moments actually). As you all should know, The Lost Coast is free for all owners of Half-Life 2.[br]Though anyone can play it on their lower-end system, to appreciate the full benefits of The Lost Coast, you will need a high end machine to play. Lost Coast features some excellent graphical features including HDR, double resolution textures and much higher-polygon models (and much more).[br]The Lost Coast will contain around 15 minutes of brand new game play, set around parts of the City 17 coastal area that was originally cut from the game.[br]Watch this space for an announcement as to when it is released.[br]UPDATE: Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast has now been released. Restart your Steam clients to play.

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[br]The countdown has reached zero and the result is the Portal 2 Steam system offline website.[br]The result seems to be a website which shows the concurrent users playing each of the potato sack games. The more of us playing the games counts towards to recruited CPUs required to reboot GLaDOS, resulting in the early release of Portal 2. The current projected time is around 90 hours.[br]You can help by just leaving a potato sack game running or playing them more!

It's been a while since we had any sort of on-going feature here at Halflife2.net, but today I'm pleased to announce that we're now running a mailbag feature![br]Every month we'll set a topic and all you need to do is e-mail us with your opinions and you might have the chance of winning a top prize if you submit the best letter to us.[br]This month's topic is about Episodic gaming and you can read the full details, here.[br]The best letters and the winner will be published in two weeks time, when once again we'll be posing another topic.[br]Got something else to say? Just e-mail us anyway!

Portal has received an update, one line, check it out:[br]Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations. - Steam News[br]Timeline of events:

From a press release from Valve:

A Half-Life 2 update has been released via Steam. Please restart Steam to apply the update.

Included in this update:[br]Half-Life 2: Deathmatch

• New multiplayer game featuring physics simulation system

Half-Life 2/Source SDK

• Includes game code needed to create Half-Life 2/Source MODs
• New Half-Life 2 sample character model
• Ability to edit Half-Life 2 maps
• Maya model exporter
• 3D Studio Max model exporter source code
• Sample MOD with vehicles

Source Updates

• HTTP and non-HTTP map auto downloading functionality
• Enhanced dedicated server logging capabilities
• Various tweaks and fixes

*Also: A Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Map Making Contest has been announced. The winning entry will receive a cash prize of $5,000. Two runner up entries will receive a cash prize of $3,000.

When Gamespot's current Greatest Video Game Hero contest was first mentioned on our community forums, I ignored it. Gordon Freeman was matched against Snake of the Metal Gear Solid series and trailing by tens of thousands of votes, a slump that at the time seemed overwhelming to me. No way could the illustrious Gordon Freeman compete against Snake and his console fanboy hordes, especially not when already lost in his dust as the unfortunate mouth of Pac-Man in the vote's pie chart.[br]

I was wrong. Today I stumbled across the competition again after checking an email in the news inbox about it, and was stunned by what I found. Despite being down by a huge amount, right now Gordon Freeman has 49.9% of the vote, trailing his adversary Snake by only a touch over 100 votes, with nearly 80,000 votes total. I couldn't let it lie - while a news post on Halflife2.net isn't close to sufficient to make up a 10,000 vote...

One of the most talked about mods reveals an official trailer today, also stating their release isn't far off. It looks brilliant. Black Mesa website.

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Well the sales have come a little earlier this year, but my word...there are some incredible deals to feast your eyes on! Visit the Steam store page now.[br]There will be special daily sales too and today there are amazing savings to be had!

• Battlefield 2 - ?3.75
• Borderlands - ?20.09
• Red Faction Guerilla - ?8.74
• Resident Evil 5 - ?14.99

There is also the unreal pack, atari games, eidos pack, THQ pack, Rockstar collection, 2k games, ubisoft games & major indie titles.

In recent talks with CVG, Doug Lombardi has told us that the much anticipated 3 way package originally scheduled for the end of 2006, then moved to early 07, seems to have been struck down by the Valve delay virus. Sob sob![br]We can only speculate what the cause of this further delay is, however the sheer size of the upcoming release probably needs that much extra work to chug out the quality we are used to by Valve on PC as well as X360 & PS3. Bite your lips for now!

[br]Valve, in their almighty wisdom, have realised that being outside just isn't safe any more. From big oil spills to little viruses other people have, to the ear-bleeding noise of vuvuzelas, being outside is the worst place anyone can be right now.[br]So to make up for it, Valve have started the Perils of Summer Sale. From now until July 4th, gamers can expect incredible savings off many titles, including special 1-day sales where prices of some games will be cut up to 90%![br]As an extra precaution, Valve advise you add extra sunscreen, because these savings are hot![br]Valve have added an encore sale of all the top sellers from the summer sale, good news for customers, bad news for those of us trying to point out the best deals. Regardless, here are some highlights:

• Civilisation IV...

The following is a direct quote of Gamespot's news post:

Today I was able to get a World Exclusive Interview with the man that reviewed Half-Life 2 first, Senior Editor Chuck Osborn from PCGamer. So let’s just get straight to it.[br]
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Half-Life Fallout reports that they’ve received word from Valve’s Gabe Newell on a final confirmation of Half-Life 2’s steam and retail packages. They have also revealed that the full version of Counter-Strike: Source will be available to Steam purchasers next week.

We are nearing the time till Valve's presentation begins (2pm PST, 10pm GMT) and our colleague Smash is on location at the Los Angeles Conference Centre, reporting back his findings. You can follow him through twitter right here - http://twitpic.com/6h3rt[br]
[br]Update 1: So far since arriving, smash has wandered into the 360 demo booth and found a playable Left 4 Dead 2 demo. Picture here.[br]Update 2: L4D2 playtest in valves room. not an expansion. pc and 360 nov 17. screen shots later at hl2.net. no ep3 at e3.[br]Disappointing news, no episode 3 at E3. So Episode 3 really is an ambitious project, there is still nothing to show for it!? I am surprised.

Today the Staff at halflife2.net have officially announced the opening of the halflife2.net Wiki. This Wiki is a major step forward in strengthening the halflife2.net community and spreading the word of Half-Life 2.

[br]This is surely a proud day for everyone at halflife2.net and we hope everyone will make use of this new tool. Which can be found - http://www.halflife2.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page [br] Please give your...

Garry's popular and astounding enormo-sandbox mod will soon be available through Steam for a price, as reported in The Steam Review. The move is an interesting and perhaps surprising one that's sure to divide opinions (hey, if charging for expansion packs will draw flames then this sure will). Those who have said in the...

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"Deploying surprise in 3... 2... 1..."
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The much anticipated surprise for Portal 2 has been revealed, folks. On stage in front of a jam-packed mega theater, Gabe Newell announced today at the E3 2010 Sony press briefing that Portal 2 will be on the Playstaion 3. Portal 2 will then be on the PC, MAC, PS3, and X360, and the game will be released simultaneously on all four platforms some-Valve-time in 2011. And because the Playstation 3 version will support Steamworks, it will "make it the best console version of the game." Take that, Xbox! Here's what Gabe had to say:

[br]Steam will automatically begin downloading this large update to Team Fortress 2 now. A highly anticipated update, that includes many new features including:

• New game mode - Payload Race (with new map Pipeline)
• Two new official arena maps: Nucleus and Sawmill (with new weather conditions)
• 35 new achievements for the Sniper Class
• 34 new achievements for the Spy Class
• The Huntsman, Razorback and Jarate new weapon unlocks for the Sniper
• The Dead ringer, Cloak & Dagger and The Ambassador new weapon unlocks for the Spy

Remember Team Fortress 2 is now available for a free weekend (starting now), so anyone can play this update (preload here), and if you wish to purchase after, TF2 is available at half price. Let us know your thoughts on how these new additions play!