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Unofficial Half-Life Remake Looking Prettier By The Year

10:40AM Michael McWhertor | Welcome to my third annual post on new media for the Half-Life fan-created remake Black Mesa (formerly known as Black Mesa: Source). It doesn’t appear to be any closer to release than it was when I wrote about it in 2006 and 2007, but the new screen shots, released on the original game’s ten year anniversary, are worth a peek. More »

Frets On Fire For The Blind

7:00PM Stuart Houghton | Although you might expect music based games like Guitar Hero to appeal to visually impaired gamers, they do tend to rely on on-screen cues which makes following a tune difficult/impossible. More »

Source Mods Free on Steam

9:30AM Brian Crecente | To celebrate the launch of MODs on Steam, Valve is giving away five “leading Source MODs” to anyone who owns a Source-based game. The publisher is also offering Half-Life 2: Episode One on steam for $5. The free MOD pack comes with Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency, Synergy, and Zombie Panic. “Valve has been supporting the MOD community since the company’s inception, offering updates to the SDK, holding MOD Expos and being the first to bring a MOD to retail with Counter-Strike in November 2000,” said Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing at Valve. “The debut of these MODs on Steam marks the beginning of a new level of support for the MOD community by putting the leading MODs at the finger tips of over 15 million targeted gamers.” Once the MOD pack, available now, is installed it will appear in the Steam “My Games” list and the MODs will receive automatic updates just like other games on Steam. Also, the MODs support Steamworks, providing stat tracking and tighter integration with the Steam community. Steam Powered More »

Half-Life’s G-Man Gets Even More Frightening

1:40AM Mike Fahey | The G-Man from Half-Life series has long been one of the spookiest figures in gaming for me. His mysterious motives and menacing disposition were the cause of many a nightmare while I was playing through the first game. Welcome to my new nightmare. Byron Mallett was screwing around with implementing some motion capture data in Source when something went horribly, horribly wrong. I’m not sure if this alleviates my fear of the G-Man or raises it to an all new level. Either way, thanks for sharing Byron! More »

Valve Updates Source SDK: Prepares for Mods

3:00AM Flynn De Marco | In this week’s Steam update, Valve has revealed they have updated the Source SDK for games included in The Orange Box. This means modders will now be able to easily create new maps and content for their favourite games including Half-Life 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2. You can access the SDK through the “Tools” tab in your friendly neighbourhood Steam client. If they like your mod enough, you may even find it featured on the Steam site. Good luck and happy modding! More »

Bethesda Offers Advice To Future Designers

5:40AM Mark Wilson | Aside from keeping tabs on the industry by refreshing Kotaku at least 150 times a day (or recommendation), there are other ways to prepare for the wide world of game design and break into a career promising endless hours for lesser pay. And Bethesda’s Matt Grandstaff is here to tell you how! Get your hands on the Source SDK, The Elder Scrolls Construction Set, the Neverwinter Nights toolset (either game, 1 or 2 or both!). Make lots of mods. When the time is right and you have a chance to interview for a design job, show them all your kick arse mods. Of course, the same would apply for modding the software of pretty much any company you’d like to work for. But when you make it and publish your first title, we ask that you send us one of your two complimentary copies out of gratitude. Breaking into Games: I want to be a Designer! [via gamingtoday] More »

Source SDK Adds Sweet Orange Box Support

12:09PM Michael McWhertor | The latest edition of the Source software developers kit adds support for the three most recent releases from Valve in Portal, Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode Two. You may know them collectively better as The Orange Box. That means we should be on the receiving end of a slew of new Portal and Team Fortress 2 user created maps courtesy of the Hammer World Editor and fabulous machinima nearing the levels of Valve’s internally created TF2 character class clips courtesy of the Faceposer tool. Details on the Source SDK are available at the Valve Developer Community wiki and should give budding map designers a good place to start. Quick, someone remake a working de_dust2 in Portal before the next guy does. More »

Half-Life 2: The RTS

10:00AM Logan Booker | It looks more like a 3D Jagged Alliance than a real-time strategy, going by the screenshot above. But the official website for Half-Life 2 Wars makes it clear the Source-based modification is most definitely an RTS. The first public release, 0.1, is available for download, and it’s easy to see a decent amount of work has gone into the mod. Except there’s no base building, though I think we can cut them a bit of slack on this point. Most of the work seems to have gone into getting the camera and user interface right. I suppose once these are perfected, the team will be able to focus on AI and actual gameplay. Download mirrors are available on the Wars site, so you can try out what they’ve done so far. Support the modding community. It gives so much and asks for little in return. Half-Life 2 Wars [Official site] More »