High Scores And Egos: There's Always A Bigger Doodle 
The Last Moments Of GAME 
How Bad User Interfaces Are Ruining Video Games And Other Wonderful Things 
She Tried To Make Good Video Games For Girls, Whatever That Meant 
The Story Of Doodle Jump: Brotherly Love And Digital Snacks 
Sunday Comics: Dead Island Valve just let us know that a demo for Half-Life 2: Episode Two will be available via Xbox Live tomorrow, November 22. The developer also specifies that it’s the first demo to be available from The Orange Box, hinting that those with a lack of orange in their library may have an opportunity to get hands-on with demos for Portal and Team Fortress 2. Hope those without the game enjoy it, but how much more convincing do you need that this is one of the best releases of the year? Seriously!
This week, The Escapist’s fast-talking resident-cranky pants Yahtzee Croshaw reviews three games: Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal. He actually adores one of them. Before you watch, guesses in the comment section!
I’ve yet to play through the second episode of the Half-Life 2 expansions, but I now know that I’ll have to do it twice to get the full experience. PC Gamer’s Tom Francis recounts his journey, one that’s seemingly spoiler rich, of guiding a garden gnome through the entirety of the latest Gordon Freeman adventure. Doing so and—spoiler alert!—stashing the little guy into a rocket at the end of the game unlocks one of the more difficult to accomplish achievements. Brilliant stuff, but it’s hard to expect anything less from Valve. Great screenshots at the link below.
I Played Through Episode Two Holding A Goddamn Gnome (Spoilers) [James via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
Valve might (MIGHT) consider doing away with their episodic model for future titles. You may remember they instituted the plan for their series of Half-Life 2 expansions. You may also remember the first of these appearing in April 2006, with the second only scheduled to arrive later this year. Those are long waits for short games, and Gabe Newell says they’ll be taking stock of your thoughts on the subject once Episode 3‘s done: I think what we really want to do is have a couple of examples out there – Episode One, and how long it was to play and how long it took to develop, Episode Two, Portal and TF2 and then the third part of the trilogy; and then sit down with the community and say, ‘OK, so what do you want?
I may as well jump the gun, get it off my chest now: six years between full games, I can do, I’m easily distracted, but long waits between 3-4 hour releases? No, thanks. Valve: Episodic game plan may not last [CVG]
