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This isn’t just your average War of the Worlds parody video made using Garry’s Mod in Half-Life 2, this is an awesome War of the World parody video made using Garry’s Mod in Half-Life 2.

I have to say, it intrigued me with the trailer, which you can check out here. And if you’d like to download it, we have it available in other facets of FileFront.com.

The bad jokes are what kept me going, because I’m just a huge fan of good, bad jokes. If you get my drift.

Those of you into Firearms: Source Half Life 2 modification need to get over to the Firearms: Source site and check out the new content. There are screenshots of several new levels with names such as Iwo Jima, Coldwar, Mines, and Canyon Carnage. More show off their new weapon skinner’s handiwork. You can also find an example of their new multi-ethnic player models. There is also a video montage from their recent alpha test runs.

Some of their developers are now keeping public development journals for those who want to follow new content more closely.

There is good news for Europe and Asia. The game is being translated into German, Swedish, French, Spanish and Chinese and the forums already support these languages. The screens are beautiful. Nice work guys.

Noesis Interactive and Sumthing Distribution are poised to bring you the Mod Your World training series. The DVD series for the Valve Source platform and other upcoming Noesis projects provides instruction for gamers and future game developers on how to mod Source powered games such as Half-Life 2 or Counter-Strike. Players will learn to design, build and integrate their own 3D characters, maps and props into games from Valve, Softimage, Autodesk and other industry leaders.

“Our goal is to deliver all the training tools gamers need to max out their ‘mods’ for Source powered games,” said Dave Larson, CEO of Noesis Interactive. “Our singular focus is to deliver the training the video gaming community wants, and we are delighted to partner with Sumthing Distribution in releasing our definitive product line of training tools for Source powered games to a mass audience.”

Set shortly before the arrival of Gordon Freeman in City 17, this single player modification for Half-Life 2 features a side-story starring a Black Mesa operative named Adrian Shepard. It seems something is cooking that the ‘ole G-man does not like so he cracks Adrian out of stasis and sends him on a mission inside the still resisting base against Combine invaders and other enemies. The mod features 5 levels and an introduction and according to the creator it takes most players about an hour to explore.

Despite the short play length it is nice to see mod writers expanding a bit on the world of Half-Life in ways that feel organic. Check out the mod here and let us know what you think.

Just to warn you, the first impressions feature that Eurogamer has about Episode Two are very detailed.

In fact, you may want to steer clear of it just to save yourself some surprises, if you’re the kind that likes to wait. Me? I’m an immediate-gratification type of guy, and I needed to see for myself exactly what will be in store for me when I shell out my dollars for the game.

So many exciting twists and turns though… an unexpected death? The new cinematic-physics engine creating a stir?

Nice, is all I have to say.

Gamesindustry.biz has an interview with Gabe Newell, head of Valve, regarding its plans to remain an independent player in the video game world. Newell cites the fact that the company has no interest in moving to a publisher owned business model at this time, and that unlike the movie industry self financed third party companies are actually in a good position to continue producing works because they maintain some amount of creative control.

“I’m glad that we have orders of magnitude greater ability to make those decisions that we think are the right ones, that customers will say ‘Good job’ rather than worry that some third party’s going to step in and tell us to ship on a particular date or take this out or put this out or whatever.”

Valve is currently at work on Half-Life Episode 2, the latest version of Team Fortress and the new Portal game mode while pre-production has begun on the third and final Half-Life 2 episode as well.

Eurogame’s Tom Bramwell has an interview with Valve’s marketing director Doug Lombardi. He says with Episode 2 in the final stages of production, Episode 3 is in preproduction and will be ramping up very quickly. Valve hints that Episode three will finally take the gamer out of City 17. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series, while fans wait for “Half-Life 3″ to hit shelves, Valve has been issuing episodic additions to the Half-Life 2 storyline.

Well, those of you waiting for TF2 need to go out and come up with another $10. Why? Valve has cancelled Half-Life 2: The Black Box.

Originally planned to contain Episode 2 of Half-Life, Portal, and TF2, the Black Box would have been $10 cheaper than the Orange Box. Doug Lombardi, Valve’s director of marketing, said, “The Black Box has been cancelled. We’re going to have one package, The Orange Box, available on the PC (US$49.99) as well as the 360 and PS3 (US$ 59.99). In addition to the three new products — Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life: Episode Two — The Orange Box will also contain the full version of Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One.”

What does this mean to gamers?
Read the full article »

Holy SH*T! It’s almost done. I’ve been waiting for this for a long time now, and I think a lot of other people are anxious as well.

Shacknews has the word on what’s going on with HL2, and it looks like there’s a few screenshots of the game.

I thought Episode I was kind of a let down, with only about four hours of gameplay. It was satisfying, but just about as much as Japanese food is to a Texan, meaning that what I wanted was a steak and not Sashimi. But don’t get me wrong, Maguro is excellent.

This week’s Valve / Steam Update brings some good news for Half-Life 2 fans: Episode 2 is nearing completion. While the update is sparse on details, it does feature three pieces of concept art (one can be seen to the right) that are said to be part of the finished product we’ll see soon.

In addition, Steam added to its catalog. Some of the new additions include Sid Meier’s Railroads, Railroad Tycoon II and III, and even XCom: Terror From the Deep! If you’re hooked on Steam, you must have XCom. Not getting that one is tantamount to not being a gamer.