Despite what Valve plans or doesn’t plan to do regarding the next Half-Life, or how long they plan on developing it, there’s no denying that they’ve dropped the ball when it comes to communicating with the Half-Life community, and the gaming community at large. As a result, they may have inflicted a fatal injury upon the franchise and its community. There’s better ways to ensure a lengthy development time than acting like the franchise in question doesn’t exist, and occasionally annoying your fanbase by blatantly trolling them.

Whenever Half-Life 3 does come out, we’re all pretty sure it’s going to be monumental. I wouldn’t expect any less from a Half-Life game that’s been in development for nearly a decade. But I think we can all agree that Valve isn’t doing this right. At all. So what can we do? Can we even do anything at all? Well, there might be something. Let’s see what it is…

Here’s one for the history books: the world’s fastest HL: Blue Shift speedrun. And another one for the history books: this thing was released almost 3 months ago. So the only logical conclusion here is… quadrazid is fast, Vic is slow. It’s funny, you see, because I can’t strafejump for s**t. Hell, I can barely tell the difference between strafejumping and bhopping. But I still manage to dominate Portal 2’s Challenge Mode on my Friends list.

This is how desperate the Half-Life fanbase has become. Or, at the very least, certain elements of it. They are… well, they are… uh…

Seasoned Half-Life fans will, without a doubt, remember the contents of Gordon Freeman’s locker in the Anomalous Materials locker room at Black Mesa, right down to the tiniest of objects. But there is one that stands out, even years after the game’s release: a picture of a baby girl. Fans have speculated on what exactly this means for Gordon: did he have a daughter? Or is she Alyx Vance? Or… Chell? Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw has stated that this may simply be a relative, or a relative’s child: perhaps a niece, or a goddaughter. But most fans don’t know who the girl really is. Well, you’re about to find out.

Speedrunning! It’s been around since 1994. Some consider it a form of art, some don’t. But what we do know about it is that it is damn fun to watch! I mean, come on. Whether you’re watching a Quake speedrun, a Metroid speedrun, or what have you, it’s almost as entertaining as actually playing the game in question.

There’s two main types of speedruns: single-segment speedruns and multi-segment speedruns. The latter is a speedrun in which the runner does not actually do it in one sitting – he does it in multiple sittings, in multiple segments to ensure perfection and correct any mistakes. The former is a speedrun made out of one single segment. No pausing, no saving. One single sitting. That means every time you make a mistake, you either bear with it, or call off the entire thing and start over. So a single-segment represents the ultimate test of skill and endurance.

The Valve community hasn’t shied away from speedrunning either. Last year’s astounding 9-minute Portal speedrun by DemonStrate still holds the world record for Portal speedruns. And there’s also been numerous Half-Life speedruns – single-segment, multi-segment, crowbar-only, you name it, these guys have probably done it.

The world speedrunning record for Half-Life 1 is still held by Blake “Spider-Waffle” Piepho, who completed his infamous “Half-Life in Half an Hour” speedrun (for which a series of commentary videos can be found here) in October of 2006, with a time of 29 minutes and 41 seconds. Blake’s also done a number of other Half-Life speedruns. For more information on Half-Life speed runs in particular, head over to Source Runs. You should also check out the Speed Demo Archive, and the Speed Run Wiki.

But let’s get to business, shall we?

We all know Portal’s a short game. Most people finish it in just over 3 hours. Except for this guy.

From that video, you might have realized that Wheatley has a new voice! You also might have noticed we don’t know when Portal 2 is coming out. Summer? Fall? Not to fear. News time!

Reporting up here in the black and white LambdaGeneration dirigible HQ, I bring you fantastic news! So don those manacles and grab a cigar because the exiting nostalgic news is after the jump!

In a recent interview published by  ComputerAndVideoGames.com Valve Software’s VP of Marketing Doug Lombardi stated:

“We hate to make you wait. But we have no announcements regarding Mr. Freeman or his ongoing adventures at this time”

This is unsettling news  to hear almost three years after the release of Half-Life 2: Episode Two. Looking at this news from a positive perspective, Doug didn’t mention ‘Episode Three’; could this mean that the next Half-Life installment is going to be a larger adventure than previously planned?

Either way, it’s not like Valve’s secrecy is a surprise to anyone anymore…

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=258751

According to a post on the official Black Mesa Half-Life 2 mod forums, lead developer ‘natedgreat3’ claims that despite the lack of updates, the much anticipated mod will be released before 2011. Black Mesa has been in development since 2004 in an attempt to re-create the original Half-Life using Half-Life 2’s Source Engine. For those looking forward to the mod, this is great news!