I remember playing through Decay, the co-op bonus mode found in the PS2 version of Half-Life back in the day. I found it interesting as you could either play it split-screen with a friend, or let the AI control the other character. You took the role of two female members of the Black Mesa staff and were charged with doing things such as sending that little piece of rock that caused all hell on Earth to break out into a lift for Gordon to use.

What is interesting is that a group of modders have recreated Decay as a port for the PC version of the classic Half-Life. It will be interesting to see how it all works on the PC, time to download it myself perhaps?

I have often thought, not seriously, but it has often come to mind that Steam does not make full use of potential. However it seems like this is about to change as it has been revealed that mods are making their way onto Steam. Soon mods such as Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency, Synergy, and Zombie Panic will be available to download for free by any Steam users who own a Source based game.

These mods will make use of Steamworks and will receive automatic updates in much the same way as games do via Steam. This is really a great step forward for Steam, Valve and mod teams. I think one of the main reasons why I don’t play many mods for Source games is the lack of Steam integration. Now this is changing I think mods will become a hell of a lot more popular.

My good friend DigiQ8 has revealed the Left 4 Dead system requirements over on halflife2.net thanks to some sneaky e-mailing with Doug Lombardi. Here is the low-down:

- OS: Windows Vista, XP or 2000

- CPU: 3.0 GHz P4, Dual Core 2.0 or AMD64X2 (or higher)

- RAM: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista

- DISC DRIVE: DVD-ROM Drive

- HARD DRIVE: At least 7.5 GB of free space

- VIDEO: Direct X 9 compatible video card (Video card must be 256 MB or more and should be a DirectX 9-compatible with support for pixel shader 2.0)

- SOUND: Direct X9.0c compatible sound card

While the requirements have certainly gone up since the days of Team Fortress 2 and the rest of the Orange Box they don’t seem too steep, a bit steeper than I would’ve thought, though I guess with all the new effects needed for L4D Valve had to make some adjustments somewhere. Anyway I know I am sorted, and for me that is all that matters.

It has been a long while since I last talked about the next patch for the classic Battlefield 2. Well the latest word on the street is that the patch is still being worked on with an aim of a Winter release.

There has been a lot of discussions on the Battlefield forums regarding the Battlefield 2 Update 1.50, so this is to let you all know what’s happening.

Update 1.50 is still in development, we have held back on releasing the update as we have become aware of and are taking preventative measures against 3rd party tools which have been severely affecting everyone’s playing experience recently by crashing dedicated servers, clients as well as allowing account spoofing. We hope you understand our decision to delay the release to resolve these issues rather than releasing early with a need to update again.

We are looking to release this update by Winter of this year.

Nothing else at all, so a case of wait and see what it brings.

I recently had the chance to chat to Nicholas from Portal Prelude about the mod over on hafllife2.net in a lengthy interview covering all kinds of stuff such as:

Chris - How do you feel fans of Portal are going to react to seeing other NPCs in the game?

Our testers were not that annoyed. Because there’s no GlaDOS, and because it’s in the past. We needed to find something a bit more “realistic” and “familiar” to talk with the player. The former human employees of Aperture Science were a really good idea, because basically, we never really see them during the test. You hear them, and you know they’re watching you, just like if it was GlaDOS.

Why don’t you read the whole thing?

Good Old Games was always going to be a hit with a whole bunch of old classic PC games being made available at good prices with no DRM and plentiful support. However I had one bug-bear on getting into the GOG Beta, you could only use Visa or Mastercard, this prevented me from buying games such as Fallout and Original War.

Fortunately PayPal can now be used to pay for the games on GOG. As such I have gone out and bought Fallout and Original War. Having purchased my first game on GOG I then bought Fallout 2 with my code for a free Interplay game. This offer is only available to those who signed up to the Beta before September 7th and it ends on September 22 at 11:59pm (EDT), 2008.

I can see GOG becoming an important place for many gamers to use in the future, it is damn good.

EA caused an outrage amongst many with some dubious decisions regarding the DRM that came with Spore. It seems that they are starting to realise the damage they have done to the game with the DRM and are back tracking rapidly in order to appease fans of the game. It emerged a week or so ago that the install limit had been bumped up to 5, now EA are taking things a step further and changing the account system.

The long and short of it is this, you can now have five screen names for one account. You will have to go to the Spore website and set up the screen names there, from then on you will be able to log in to any of the screen names when you log into your account. Creatures will appear in the Sporepedia under the name of the screen name which created them. There is no current timeline for when this will go live, just a matter of waiting I guess. It obviously isn’t an ideal improvement, but it is a small improvement. More details can be found here.

Patch 1.08 has been released for the amazing Trials 2. This is one hell of a big patch that sees a load of new exciting features arrive to the game. First up is the introduction of voice-overs for the game from Brandon DiCamillo, Art Webb and Rake Yohn. These guys are famous for their work on Jackass, Viva La Bam and a whole host of other wacky projects. I haven’t had the chance to check out what they sound like in game yet, but when I do I will let you know.

The chat system has been overhauled, there are new chat rooms for the teams in game as well as language specific chats. This goes hand in hand with new multi-language support. I am pleased to see that Welsh wasn’t included, I want that language burried.

As ever there have been graphics changes with improved graphics for the higher end users as well as a new mode that has been especially designed for low-end machines and laptops. This also means the game is now compatible with ultra-portable mini-laptops such as teh Asus EEE. This is just another reason to add to the growing list of reasons for why I should get myself an EEE.

Finally there are 14 new free tracks bringing the total to over 60. Hells yeah.

Can’t wait to get my crash helmet back on for some more Trials action.

It seems that The Political Machine 2008 is having a free version named ‘Express’ released.

This free version places the player in the role of the campaign manager for McCain or Obama (the two US Presidential candidates) and gives them 21 weeks to win the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election.

I love The Political Machine so this is a great way for anyone new to the game to get a taste of what it is all about.

The latest Metallica album, Death Magnetic was released the other week, it was released in stores and via Guitar Hero. I say who needs Guitar Hero? I started to play some of the songs via Audiosurf and I had an immense time. I had forgotten how cool it was just to ride the songs (that sounds so trippy) and chill out with some great tunes. Guitar Hero, pah that is just too complicated with all these instrument things getting in the way. Audiosurf is where it should be at.

Death Magentic rocks by the by.