As far as webcomics go, Penny Arcade is pretty damn swell. But it’s become more than a mere webcomic, what with Child’s Play and PAX. Recently, it’s been moving into the big world of game journalism (assuming we can still call it journalism), with the terrific Penny Arcade Report, helmed by Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica. And they’ve got quite the treat for us - a 5,000 word interview with Gabe Newell (and his new beard), and an in-depth look at the insides of Valve HQ. Let’s check it out!
Category: Games
There are few things in my life that make me smile more than Podcast 17. While that sounds suspiciously like a toothpaste advertisement, I can assure you that Podcast 17 is no mere toothpaste! No, sir – it is a terrific podcast! That I happen to co-host. Which makes it even more terrific when Podcast 17 interviews Merle Dandridge, the voice of the one and only Alyx Vance. It’s a pretty lengthy interview, and Glenn manages to get a VERY interesting reaction regarding EP3 out of Merle at one point. It’s really informative, so go check it out!
The CS:GO beta started on the 1st of December last year. Originally billed as a mere stress test, it was rather barren regarding game features and functionality, and felt, quite frankly, like a console port. In addition, it felt like Valve had not taken the title very seriously (the first ever CS:GO tournament was not sponsored by Valve or even advertised by it… unlike Dota 2′s first tournament). Nonetheless, the beta was, and still is an enjoyable experience, and most testers held hope that frequent updates would make it into an even greater experience.
Two months later, it seemed like Valve had all but forgotten about CS:GO. It was still pretty much unchanged, and the “early 2012″ date didn’t seem like it was going to hold up. Then, out of nowhere, Valve saves the day, with a gigantic update for the beta, adding new maps, new weapons, all-new features as well as redesigning the website and inviting thousands of new players. The stress test is over – now the CS:GO beta really begins.
At their core, video games are essentially entertainment - designed to be fun. They accomplish these two objectives through all sorts of ways, within the various genres of the gaming world. Most of the games we play are mere entertainment, created to be fun. But recently, many have debated whether or not video games are truly art. But this debate goes beyond gaming itself: for instance, can we classify the Roundhay Garden Scene as art? While we’re at that, can we classify the Mona Lisa as entertainment? Is all entertainment actually art, or is all art somehow entertainment? It’s a multifaceted argument that might be going on for a very long while. I, personally, am of the conviction that, yes, video games are art. Of course, there are some games that simultaneously represent both entertainment and art (Portal 1, Half-Life 2). There are also some games that lead more towards the art side, but they still maintain the basic framework of a video game. If they didn’t, we’d have a tough time calling them video games.
But in comes something that might shake up the way we look at video games. That something is Dear Esther. Originally designed as a free HL2 mod in 2008, Dear Esther was a terrific, if flawed experiment regarding interactive, non-linear storytelling conveyed through a video game. Almost 4 years later, the same team, plus one master level designer, have returned to remake and reimagine Dear Esther, almost from the ground up, as a independent Source game. That which was primitive is now beautiful, and a whole new audience could be exposed to this interesting creation. But is it more than just an experiment, or, perhaps, is it more than just a video game? Well, read on to find out!
The Doctor Grordbort item packs have brought new life to Team Fortress 2, at the cost of art style purity. Based on WETA Workshop’s wacky line of steampunk gizmos, we’ve had three of these: one for the Soldier; one for the Pyro; and one for the Engineer. And Valve and WETA aren’t done yet – hit the jump to find out why and how!
Almost 10 years ago, Valve was involved in a turbulent, and controversial legal showdown with their then-publisher, Vivendi, regarding their bizarre and near-hostile practices (illegally distributing Valve games to Asian cyber cafes, withholding game royalties from Valve, purposely delaying CS: Condition Zero). Valve was victorious, although Activision Blizzard would later refuse to continue settlement payments to Valve.
Then, when Dota 2 was first revealed, and when Valve first filed for the trademark “DOTA”, Riot Games, the creators of the Action RTS title League of Legends (and the company that former Dota caretaker Steve “Guinsoo” Feak currently finds himself in the employ of), filed for ownership of the “Defense of the Ancients” trademark in direct opposition to Valve, as DotA-Allstars (the Riot Games subsidiary company owned by Guinsoo and Steve “Pendragon” Mescon, former community manager for Dota – the company would later be acquired by Blizzard, from Riot Games in 2011). What most people don’t know is that they also filed for ownership of the “DOTA” trademark itself, on the same day – for whatever reason, Pendragon and Guinsoo forgot to publicize that fact.
Then Rob Pardo of Blizzard also expressed his concern over Valve’s move - one year later, when the mediocre “Blizzard DotA” was revealed to the world, Frank Pearce of Blizzard would share the exact same thoughts on the issue… as would Mike Morhaime of Blizzard. Still, the general consensus was that, for the time being, Blizzard and Valve would keep the peace, and the trademark issue would ultimately be resolved in one way or another, hopefully with Valve acquiring both the DOTA and the “Defense of the Ancients” trademarks.
But sometimes it’s just too good to be true. And it is in this case. Just today, folks found out that about 3 months ago, Blizzard went on an all-out trademark dispute with Valve, over the “DOTA” trademark.
Black Mesa. The place where the world went to hell. In the original Half-Life, we only see a relatively small part of it, but even so, what we do see amounts to an underground complex the size of a small city. Even though HL1 was never really known for its logical level design, many fans have tried to put together a cohesive map of the complex (such as this top-down overview by “Sterd”; this composite model by “Ripa”; and this realistic 3D map by David Dryburgh). But no one has ever tried to put a map together completely by memory, and by hand! What’s that? They have? Christ, is there anything the community hasn’t done in the time it took Valve to make HL3?
Call For Communication’s “A Red Letter Day” Is Successful, With Over 13,000 Fans Playing Half-Life 2
Late last month, the Call for Communication announced “A Red Letter Day”, a group event that would bring tens of thousands of Half-Life fans together in playing Half-Life 2, for half an hour on the 4th of February. That was yesterday, and it turns out… it did!
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