Ever since the birth of the atom bomb, man has been obsessed with his demise at its hands. From “On The Beach” to “Dr. Strangelove”, and from “DEFCON” to “Fallout”, we seem to have a hard-on for the nuclear holocaust. But something that many people seem to be ignoring is the idea of the post-nuclear society. Post-nuclear nation-states, and post-nuclear warfare. It’s a concept that has been neglected by many.

However, these visions are no longer confined to our dreams, or rather, our nightmares. No, now we have Nuclear Dawn. While it first began development long ago, in 2005, as an independent Source mod, its turbulent and troubled development soon led to it being lost in the depths of development hell. Luckily, InterWave Studios bravely journeyed into that sinister dimension, and after a couple more years in development later, it is now a full-fledged commercial Source game. But is it a fearsome bunker-buster, or is it a mere dud? Read on!

Phishing isn’t new, and certainly not for Steam accounts. While Steam Guard has been an integral defence since the last major Steam Community upgrade, it still isn’t enough. We take a look at a new method of circumventing Steam Guard and how attackers can gain access to your account.

This is an editorial by Lilgreenman which discusses the involvement of humour and comedic elements in Valve’s more recent games. All views expressed in this article are his own.

With all the noise Valve makes about Team Fortress 2 being “The world’s number 1 hat simulator”, their creative staff seem to have neglected a grounding in hat-based literature. Specifically, it seems they’ve never picked up a copy of the best selling hat-based book of all time (eat it, Oliver Sacks!), Dr. Seuss’ 1957 classic The Cat in the Hat.

Spoilers ahead for those who haven’t read C-I-T-H: The moral of the book is related to the two young protagonists by the titular feline, after he helps them clean up after a rowdy playtime session; “It’s fun to have fun, but you have to know how.” Which brings me, in my roundabout way, to my point. Valve’s top writers – internet comedy alumni Erik Wolpaw, Chet Faliszek and Jay Pinkerton – don’t seem to know how to have fun.

The oh-so-long wait between Episode Two and… whatever the next Half-Life will be, is starting to be very tough for the Half-Life fanbase. During the 6-year wait between HL1 and HL2, we at least had the modding community and the active HL1 multiplayer scene, but we also had official spin-off games like Opposing Force, Blue Shift, and Decay. Whereas now… we’ve sort of got… well, nothing. I’m sure some sort of Half-Life game released during this wait would have tided everyone over a bit.

But maybe that was the plan. Sure, the plan has changed, but what if Valve did intend to do just that? Well, today, we might have evidence pointing towards that.

Are we being deceived? While unlikely, it’s interesting to speculate that we may be lead astray by the Vortigaunts.

This is an editorial by Aabicus which analyses the successfulness of free-to-play games in the gaming industry with relation to Team Fortress 2. All views expressed here are his own.

The Free-to-play model is the current trend in multiplayer online games at the moment, most frequently seen in MMOs, MOBAs and shooters. Since several high-profile games (including Team Fortress 2) proved the model worked, the gaming industry have seen a staggering amount of F2P releases, some of whom keep their revenue-enhancing devices subtle and others who make real-world money the most valuable resource a player can have.

Did Breen truly believe joining the Combine would advance the human race? Or was he merely doing his best to save the species from extinction? We may never know. Or maybe we will… We investigate this enigma in an attempt to bring new theories to light.

From a technical standpoint, Aperture Science and the Combine go together like peas in a prisoner pod. There are some startling similarities between their weapons and equipment that may point to an unseen element of the story.