Bit-Tech reports: "This is why PC gaming is better than console gaming in our opinion; because of excellent mods like this which keep on improving on the games we all know and love.

When it comes to mods in fact it's tough to get more well known FakeFactory, the modder who's been working to improve the visual impact of the Half-Life games ever since their first release. The FakeFactory mods have been upping the polygon count (and amount of cleavage) on Half-Life 2's characters for a number of years now. "
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If you're thinking of buying the PC version of Left 4 Dead, you might want to look into purchasing the new Valve Complete Pack off Steam. In addition to L4D, the $100 package comes with both Half-Life games and a slew of additional content for each.
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Wired Write: After the secret source code for its then-unreleased shooter Half Life 2 showed up on file sharing services in 2003, game-maker Valve Software cooked up an elaborate ruse with the FBI targeting the German hacker suspected in the leak, even setting up a fake job interview in an effort to lure him to the United States for arrest.

The gambit ultimately failed, and Axel "Ago" Gembe remained safely in Germany. He was indicted last month in Los Angeles on new charges of creating the Agobot malware, and sharing it with a crew of U.S. hackers who used it to stage denial-of-service attacks in 2003.

In September 2003, the source code for the much-anticipated Half Life 2 game turned up online, and Valve's managing director, Gabe Newell, revealed that the company's network had been breached. In a post to the company's web forum, Newell asked for gamer's assistance in finding the hackers responsible.
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Marketing director Doug Lombardi says announcement may arrive later this year, though game is still more than a year off.

Although an announcement may be impending, a release date remains farther away on the horizon. "The next time you play as Gordon will be longer than the distance between [Half-Life 2] to [Episode 1], and [Episode 1] to [Episode 2]," cryptically noted Lombardi. Half-Life 2 was released for the PC in November 2004, with Episode 1 following in June 2006 and Episode 2 debuting alongside The Orange Box in October 2007. Doing the math, that would put Episode 3's release date as far off as 2010.
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"Ever watch the same disaster movie twice and find yourself trying to warn off the actors?"
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This mod from the Source Forts Team blends Deathmatch and Capture the Flag and adds other custom changes to the mix.
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Jailbreak is a Half-Life 2 modification similar to Team Deathmatch for Half-Life 2, but with a difference: two teams, two jails. When you kill a member of the opposite team, they respawn, locked up inside your jail. When a member of your team is killed, they respawn inside the enemy jail. Your objective is to imprison every member of the enemy team. The twist is that you can break out members of your own team, by fighting your way to the enemy jail and opening the doors. The game goes back and forth until one team is entirely locked up, the losers executed (in a variety of customised ways), then the next round begins.
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Valve's been quite busy getting ready to roll out some impressive updates to their games and Steam in general:

"Valve today announced Steam Cloud, a free Steam system that will retain users' saved games and configuration files indefinitely.

Half-Life and Half-Life 2 will be the first games to support the service....

The company is also working on several new Steam systems, including a driver auto-updater and calendar functionality.

Another feature in the works is a system-requirement checker. The program will analyze your hardware and compare it to multiple games, estimating your performance and recommending upgrades.

Valve is also considering storing replay videos and kill-cam screens from games such as Team Fortress 2 and Day of Defeat: Source. "
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18th Jan, 2008 [Warning: Like our Portal article from December, this piece features some pretty heady discourse, and also benefits from a visit from Mr. Narrative Theory. If that stuff makes you run screaming, then feel free to run screaming. Also, if you haven't completed Half-Life 2, leave now. This contains some inhuman spoilers.] Half-Life 2 is widely and rightly regarded as a modern classic. In terms of both gameplay and artistry there have been few, if any, games in the FPS genre which ...
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To celebrate Christmas, the Black Mesa team released a new batch of media for the upcoming Half-Life re-creation mod Black Mesa. Included within are a website re-vamp, new high-resolution screenshots, newly revealed areas, new weaponry, and the launch of a devblog.
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