The royal we have a bit of vomit phobia. The last time I threw up was college (go figure), but the time before that was grade school: Fruit roll-ups everywhere. Upcoming shooter Left 4 Dead from developer brings out the puke for the Versus mode hi-jinx. Valve's Doug Lombardi explains:

Yeah, there's this slapstick quality to the game that really comes to life on Versus mode. When you're playing as a Boomer, your best shot is to vomit on somebody and maybe see the horde come in before you get taken out. You're not going to be around too long.

It's funny how something that simple and insane-sounding is fun and so satisfying. It's really something different than you've done in a game before, and I think that's part of the charm of it. It's like, "Wow, I vomited on all these people and I get to watch all these zombies and rip them to shreds." You know, there's this sense of a little bit of the accomplishment thing, but then there's also this slapstick moment where it's like, "I vomited on him."

Valve, breaking new ground in in-game upchucking.

Left 4 Dead Interview: Versus Mode, Demo Details, and the Joy of Vomit [Shacknews]

Half-Life 2's "episodic" expansions are hardly what you'd call episodic in the gaming sense of the word. Other series can knock out two, sometimes even three full games in the time it takes Valve to cobble together a single 4-6 hour mission pack. Of course, the wait's always worth it, since nobody does it quite like Valve does it, but still. Long waits hurt. And when something hurts, we like to blame somebody. So who can we blame for the agonising wait between Episode 2 and Episode 3? Blame Left 4 Dead. And blame Team Fortress 2.

Valve's Doug Lombardi:

So I mean, we're taking more time because it's a more ambitious project. We also sort of had Left 4 Dead become this big thing in the middle of it that we wanted to spend more time on, and you've just got a lot of stuff that we spent this year doing with Team Fortress 2 updates and what have you. So there's just a lot going on, and then an ambitious project on top of it caused the schedule to move out a little bit from the delta of the last three releases in the franchise.

Goddamnit Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead, how dare you...ah, who are we kidding. We can't get mad at you guys.

Valve on Episode Three: 'A More Ambitious Project' [Shacknews]

If there's one thing Valve excels at, it's making us wait. If you thought the wait between Half-Life 2 and the episodes that followed it were long, expect to wait even longer for the third (and final?) episode in the continuing adventures of Gordon Freeman. Valve's marketing man Doug Lombardi tells Kikizo that Episode Three is going to be longer than the wait between every other entry in the series — longer than the wait for Episode One, longer than the wait for Episode Two.

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What we'd seen of Left 4 Dead at Games Convention, we'd mostly seen before. Just prior to E3, we played through the entirety of the game's first scenario, a sprint to the roof of a hospital through a cluster of zombies, where the four survivors await evacuation by helicopter. And, should you be too lazy to check out our impressions from that gameplay session, we'll just tell you it was tight, adrenaline pumping stuff.

There were only a few noticeable changes in the Games Convention build. It was our first look at the updated models and skins for the four playable characters, each given a new coat of paint to help further distinguish them from the hordes of undead.

But it was the new touches of detail — and the promise of more Left 4 Dead — that sparked our interest once again.

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Owners of the Xbox 360 version of Team Fortress 2 will be scarfing down sandviches and delivering payloads later this year, as Valve is finally bringing all the updates delivered via Steam to the Xbox Live Marketplace. That means new, class-specific Achievements, new unlockable weapons for the Pyro, Medic and Heavy, new gameplay modes and new maps, all on your Xbox 360.

Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi got that piece of business out of the way just before our latest Left 4 Dead demo, saying that the developer wanted to build up a massive update for Xbox 360 users before delivering. Given that Valve is being forced to charge for the update, they wanted to ensure that 360 owners were getting their money's worth.

So, how much? The price isn't final, but Valve is hoping to go as low as possible, aiming for a ten dollar price tag. Not too shabby. Sorry, PS3 owners, no word on when or if Valve will be giving you the same Team Fortress 2 updates.

Rumours have been swirling on the internet that Valve's eagerly awaited zombie shooter Left 4 Dead for the Xbox 360 and PC would also be hitting the PLAYSTATION 3. Seems those rumours have been smashed pretty hard for the time being by Valve's Doug Lombardi, who states:

There is no PS3 version of Left 4 Dead currently in production.

Hey, maybe there will be one day! But that day is not today.

Left 4 Dead on the PS3? [IGN Thanks, Duong!]

In this terrifying edition of Justify Your Game, Doug Lombardi takes a crack at justifying Valve's upcoming co-op FPS Left 4 Dead. Can he persuade us in 15 seconds?

Speaking with Valve's Doug Lombardi earlier this week at E3, we got onto the topic of the upcoming Xbox Live Arcade version of Portal. I wanted to know what gamers could expect from the game and why Valve decided to tweak it for the XBLA release.

"It's about giving gamers more choices, more points of entry to get to the party, open more gates to the theme park as it were", he said. "It makes a lot of sense for us.

"The main idea is that this is Portal available as a download, and there is additional content as advanced challenges that will be available to you after you finish the critical path of the game".

But will we be seeing more of GlaDOS this time around, or perhaps an extended storyline?

"No", he said, breaking hearts everywhere. "That's for a game to be named later perhaps".

To check out our full interview with Lombardi and hear him pontificate on everything from Left 4 Dead Machinima to Steam as an archive for games hit up the link below.

Left 4 Dead May Get Machinima Maker Post Launch [Kotaku]

According to E3.net and various excited internet reports, Half-Life 2: Episode Three will be making its debut appearance at E3, just a few weeks away. According to the site, it will also be joined by titles like Kid Icarus and Animal Crossing for Wii. That'd be great news, if E3.net were the official E3 site, as some reports have claimed, and not an unofficial UGO owned web site.

According to Valve's marketing director Doug Lombardi Half-Life 2: Episode Three won't be making an appearance at E3 this year, with the listing chalked up to a "misprint (or something)". We would assume that if Valve is showcasing anything at E3 this year, it will be Left 4 Dead which is planned for a November 4 release.

Valve might make some of the best games for grown-ups around, but that doesn't mean they're a one-trick pony. Speaking with CVG, Doug Lombardi has said that they're actually interested in making games for kids as well:

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