Update – Clicking the second ’s’ in the Remote Access link takes you to the Black Mesa (Source) mod website.

Update 2 – That link has been changed a few times since I last updated this, whatever this is just an attempt by a mod at getting some exposure. They succeeded, but only because the initial impression was that this was a Valve piece of work.

Original Story

Damn it.

Is Valve re-entering the Viral marketing world? Prior to the release of Portal Aperture Science was found on the web and masses of information was uncovered by many people who were eagerly anticipating Portal. A new site knows as Black Mesa Research has recently surfaced on the web. Look at the ‘About Us’ and ‘Latest News’ sections.

What does this all mean? Well the ‘Contact’ e-mail address leads to an immediate Delivery Status Notification reply and a Whois.Net search doesn’t indicate a Seattle based registration which is where Valve is based.

To throw a further spanner in the works a ‘John Q. Fake’ sent an e-mail to the halflife2.net news address telling us to look closer at this thread which was started on the 17th July.

Furthemore there is a ‘Aemote Access’ link at the bottom on the Black Mesa Research site which require a username and password. I am sure someone can dig up more on this.

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Back at the start of April it was revealed that EA Sportswas putting a halt to the release of some titles on the PC. Nearly three months later Peter Moore has confirmed that EA Sports titles will be returning to the PC next year.

So next year we can expect titles such as Madden, NCAA Football and I assume a whole host of others to appear on the PC. With a focus on online connectivity.

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According to Chris Remo (of Gamastura fame) was at the Comic-Con at over these past few days and has revealed some interesting new plans from EA. The mega-publisher has revealed that they are planning to market pre-built machines as being Crysis ready. It seems that EA are intent ensuring that customers can buy a PC that they know will play Crytek’s upcoming Crysis Warhead.

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According to an extremely over the top e-mail I have just received from EA, the Red Alert 3 public beta will soon be going live. As EA have mentioned before regarding this beta the sooner you registered your key the better.

Considering it is already the 26th of July does this may mean that the public beta will be going live sometime next week, however nothing is for definite in the world of EA and Command and Conquer.

Read on for the full e-mail transcript

GTA IV Malaysian Mag Cover

That has arrived via a forumite on halflife2.net and is the latest piece of the puzzle regarding a GTA IV PC release. That is a cover of what seems to be the latest copy of the Malaysian version of PC Gamer and claims that GTA IV is “soon on PC.”

European retailer City Disc is still listing a PC version of GTA IV for a 30th October release.

As of right now neither Take Two nor Rockstar have responded to enquiries about the magazine cover, and it is unclear whether the magazine has just compiled rumours of a PC release of GTA IV or has confirmed information on it.

That is just one of the great endings to Aisle (by way of Rock, Paper, Shotgun) an amazing piece of Interactive Fiction. Using commands such as ‘Laugh’ and ‘Cry’ (there are over 100 different actions all told) you will get a different ending to the story.

What is most interesting about Aisle is the way that you can learn more and more about the backstory using different commands and getting different endings. You will gradually find a myriad of different story lines that have been worked into Aisle, they really are great.

You can get it from here if you have a .z5 interpretor otherwise you can play the in-browser version here.

I know Mike Patton from his time as the lead singer of Faith No More. I loved his stuff and thought he had a great voice. Thus it was to my surprise when I read this interview with The A.V. Club where he reveals his secret work with video games as a voice actor. He has done work on Bionic Commando and Portal and will be featuring in Left 4 Dead as well.

AVC: You also had a brief appearance in Portal, the Valve game, and there’s talk about you perhaps appearing in their game Left 4 Dead.

MP: I think what they did is they took some material that I’d already recorded for Portal—maybe it was vice versa. Basically that came out of the same session of work.

If you are a fan of Patton’s work then check out the interview here.

According to this recent 1up report Games for Windows Live Gold is now totally and utterly free. That means that for all those games that have utilised the Games for Windows Live in the past (The Club, Shadowgrounds anyone?) and future Games for Windows Live games (Dawn of War II) will incorporate the full Games for Windows Live Gold service for free.

So multiplayer achievements, matchmaking, Games for Windows voice chat and even cross-platform gaming are now all free! There are also plans for a Games for Windows Marketplace which will match the Xbox version with demos and downloadable content amongst the other crap available.

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Quake Live, wow, that looks fun. That looks like the kind of shooter we have been missing for quite a while now, pure blooded Death Match. I know the latest Unreal may be the newest Death Match game on the block, but anything that harks back to the qualities of Quake III doesn’t really have a chance.

Though really it is Battlefield Heroes which is the rival of Quake Live. Those two are the upcoming big hitters in the world of free to play online shooters available for the masses. It will certainly be interesting to see which comes out on top.

Left 4 Dead Box Art

Undoubtedly that is some great box art for Left 4 Dead. This is a game which seems finally to be nearing release with Valve confirming that people can start placing pre-orders at retail. Valve also reveal that more media will be coming later this week ahead of the November release.

Hell yeah.