It should come as no surprise to regular readers of Blast that I’m openly waiting with childish anticipation for Valve to even mention the words Half, Life and the number 3 in the same sentence, but they just don’t seem to be ready to spill the beans. When protests, mailings and sluething don’t work? What’s an anxious gamer to do? Well, apparently play the latest game in the series.

A group calling themselves “A Call for Communication” has organized a massive event, where over 30,000 people have pledged to sit down and play Half-Life 2 — all in an effort to get more communication from Valve. “We have decided to gain Valve’s attention by delivering a basic message: Your oldest and longest running fanbase would like better communication,” said one posting.

The event happens this Sunday from 11am-11:30Am PST. Now that’s my kind of protesting.

The message boards for Valve’s popular gaming portal Steam were reportedly hacked last night with multiple users claiming that the forums would redirect them to a website for the hacking group “Fknowned.”

Here’s where things get weird though, the group denies all involvement in the hack. So much so in fact that they have taken down their own site and denied any involvement in the incident.

It’s unlikely that any personal data was stolen in the hack. We’ll update you once we learn more.

Right now, Steam, Valve’s online gaming and matchmaking service is only available on PC, Mac and PS3, but the service’s online support forums feature a spot for Xbox Support, sparking rumors that the service could soon be unveiled for Microsoft’s console.

Valve has been very open about the fact that they’d love to see the service on the console, in fact Valve’s Erik Johnson told website Computer and Video Games that “We think customers would like Steam on Xbox 360. We think, anyway. We’d love to try that.” the company has also been very open about the fact that it’s not up to them as to when or if the the service hits the console, as much of the content (patches, mods) conflict with a number of Xbox Live’s policies.

It’s important to note that though the Steam service is currently unavailable on Xbox, a number of Valve’s games are, and the listing is more than likely due to that fact.

With all of the trash talk going on in the video game business lately, you’d expect the folks at Steam to be pretty pissed that EA won’t be offering their hugely anticipated shooter Battlefield 3 to the service in favor of their own client, Origin. You’ve apparently never met Gabe Newell.

Newell, head of Valve and Steam recently spoke to Develop Magazine regarding getting the publisher’s titles back on the service. “We have to show EA it’s a smart decision to have EA games on Steam, and we’re going to try to show them that,” he said.

Though Newell wasn’t clear on just how he was going to show EA, he was pretty confident that the two parties would be able to come to some kind of agreement. “I think at the end of the day we’re going to prove to Electronic Arts they have happier customers, a higher quality service, and will make more money if they have their titles on Steam. It’s our duty to demonstrate that to them. We don’t have a natural right to publish their games.”

Battlefield 3 launches October 25 on PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Origin.

EA has confirmed that highly anticipated shooter Battlefield 3 will not be available on Steam when it releases on October 25, instead, it will be exclusive to Origin, EA’s digital download system.

“Battlefield 3 will not be available on Steam as the service restricts our ability to directly support players,” an EA spokesperson told gaming blog Kotaku. “The service limits our ability to deliver patches and downloadable content directly to players. No other download service has adopted these practices. At EA, supporting our players is a top priority, and we are happy to partner with any download service that does not restrict our ability to connect directly with our own consumers.”

This isn’t the first time EA has pulled its AAA titles from the popular service, as Crysis 2, and Dragon Age 2 were both mysteriously pulled from the service recently.

Rumors circulated this morning that a countdown clock at the website for Aperture Science, the in game company for Valve’s upcoming Portal sequel would mark the announcement that the game would be released early.

Errr….yes and no.

The good news is that you CAN help get Portal 2 out and the even better news is that all you have to do is play a ton of really awesome indie games to make it happen. Sticking with the theme of needing more computing power to unlock the game early, the AR game’s release is dependent on Steam users playing a series of indie games like Super Meat Boy, The Ball and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. As of this writing, the computer is planning on releasing Portal 2 in about 86 hours. Not soon enough! It’s an easy equation really, more people playing more of these games and Portal 2 comes out even sooner.

Game distributor Steam and guide book penning team Prima  have joined forces, today announcing a partnership that will see game guides make their way online, and in the digital hands of gamers.

The guides can be downloaded and read or viewed in-game, hopefully reducing the extent of those frustrating moments when you get stuck and need a hand.

Game guides, now available on Steam

There are six guides available today including one for each of the following recent titles: Just Cause 2, Dragon Age: Origins, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Dragon Age: Origins Awakening and Splinter Cell: Conviction.

More titles are promised for the future, but don’t expect one for Counter Strike. That formula is simple; point and shoot.

Each Prima guide costs $19.99, but to coincide with the launch announcement, each of the six available today are going for half off, or a much more alluring $9.99.

Take a look at the full catalog here.

Steam for Mac launched a couple days ago and while we remain disappointed  that it’s not called iSteam, there is good news.

Portal, the award-winning and mind-bending puzzle game from Valve, in celebration of Steam’s arrival for Steve Jobs’ computers, has gone free now until May 24.

But I’m guessing you already knew that. Here’s something (hopefully) new. Valve released this cute, little trailer for the game today and well, it does its job. Enjoy.

Yesterday, May 12, was the first day in the history of the world, Mac users could download Steam and enjoy the fruits of its gaming power.

The celebration continues today, as Valve announced it’s giving away copies of the fascinating puzzle game Portal now until May 24.

What lifts this announcement from good to great is that the freebie is being offered to both Mac and PC users.

If you haven’t played Portal yet, now is absolutely the time.

Portal is FREE!

In a not so surprising announcement, Valve today revealed its popular digital distribution service Steam is coming to Mac this April.

TF2 on Mac

That’s right, soon Left 4 Dead, Half-Life, Counter Strike, Team Fortress 2 and Portal will finally arrive for followers of Apple.

“As we transition from entertainment as a product to entertainment as a service, customers and developers need open, high-quality Internet clients,” said Gabe Newell, President of Valve. “The Mac is a great platform for entertainment services.”

The Mac version of Steam will mirror its Windows counterpart but will add a feature called “Steam Play.” This feature will allow anyone buying Valve games through Steam on Mac to play them on Windows Steam

“We looked at a variety of methods to get our games onto the Mac and in the end decided to go with native versions rather than emulation,” said John Cook, Director of Steam Development. “The inclusion of WebKit into Steam, and of OpenGL into Source gives us a lot of flexibility in how we move these technologies forward. We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360. Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates. Furthermore, Mac and Windows players will be part of the same multiplayer universe, sharing servers, lobbies, and so forth. We fully support a heterogeneous mix of servers and clients. The first Mac Steam client will be the new generation currently in beta testing on Windows.”

Portal 2 will be the first Valve title to launch on Mac and PC at the same time this Fall.

Any Mac gamers out there partying in the streets at this news?

Source: Kotaku

Steam is pretty much the best service for PC gamers, and if it wasn’t already great enough, Valve recently launched an open beta for a dynamically overhauled iteration of the beast.

The new iTunes feel

Valve’s calling it “A Brand New Steam” and it looks to be a generally more effective way to play your favorite games.

You can sign up to join the public beta right here and here’s what awaits you.

An expanded friends list, allowing you to keep better track of what your friends are up to, an aggregated news feed, a way to see your in-game achievements on the fly, and, for the true game enthusiast, the library has been updated allowing you to form categories like “games I should play with my girlfriend” or “games I shouldn’t tell my girlfriend about.”

Storefront.

On top of everything, the user interface just looks sleeker, and that’s nice.

Head on over to the “A Brand New Steam” page for full details on the revamp.

Somewhere between completely loathing the difficulty of the last level and finishing the game, I finally "got" Osmos. You see, Osmos was able to do what no other zen (or ambient) game has actually made me do—chill out. Osmos has made me contemplate the very essence of human existence, evolution, consumption, and so much more. The difficulty of Osmos’ later levels was very frustrating at first, and often caused me to quit the game rather angrily; I was approaching Osmos like I would any other game, swiftly trying to complete all given goals in the pursuit of completion. Once I started approaching Osmos as not a game, but as an experience, I was able to fully appreciate the genius behind it.

Osmos is an indie game developed by Hemisphere Games, a startup development studio of six contributors. In Osmos, you control an organic "mote", which is essentially a one-celled organism with hopes of one day devouring everything around it. There are two important laws of how things work in the world of Osmos. Firstly, bigger things consume (and thus gain the volume of) smaller things, but never the other way around. Secondly, in order to accelerate forward, an object must expel some of its own mass behind it; much like Newton’s third law, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

A mote.

With a few exceptions, the goal in Osmos is to "become the biggest”. In order to do this, you must hunt down smaller motes and dodge bigger ones. In order to hunt the smaller motes down, you must propel yourself by ejecting chunks of your own mass behind you. This dynamic alone is what can make the game so challenging, as an edible mote can quickly become your predator after you expel the mass necessary to chase it down in the first place. Even worse, perhaps you’ll see two tasty motes ahead, both a bit smaller than yourself; while on your way to snatch them both up, they collide and one devours the other entirely, suddenly you have no choice but to flee or die. Though most motes are just dummy organisms without the ability to think or move at will, if you wait too long to hunt down prey these dummy organisms will eat each other up and make it impossible for you to win. Things get a bit more complicated when you encounter more advanced organisms like the Biophobe. The Biophobe has the ability to sense danger, and will avoid being eaten by you at all costs. The more advanced organisms are skilled hunters, and will quickly become very large if the player does not act fast.

Every moment is Osmos is beautiful.

Once you pass the initial tutorial segment, you are given a choice of three paths to follow in the game. Following one path will have you facing off against other sentient organisms (like the Biophobe) and testing your instinctual survival skills. Ruthless consumption and hunting is the only way to survive this part of Osmos, bringing Darwin’s concept of survival of the fittest to mind. The second path contains some of the most head-scratching portions of Osmos. Some of the levels on the second path put you into a big space with many other motes just floating around, like previously mentioned, these levels require speed and accuracy to win. Later on you will encounter "impasse" levels which are incredibly cramped with huge motes sitting in your way. These impasse levels require players to employ creative strategies, and will take a lot of thought and patience to win. Finally, there is the third path which focuses on physics. This third path introduces "attractors" and "repulsors". Repulsors simply push away from any other mote, and can be tricky to hunt down. Attractors act as potent gravity wells which will suck in and devour any mote smaller than itself. Some levels will start off with you and hundreds of other motes orbiting one attractor; as usual, your goal will be to "become the biggest", or possibly "absorb the attractor", something which will destroy the gravitational balance and send the remaining motes into the distance. These orbiting levels become more advanced later on, and will require plenty of patience and skill to perfect.

If patience really isn’t your thing, Osmos features the ability to manipulate time. With the press of a button, you can instantly slow down or speed up time. This can make long trips from one side of an attractor to another fly by, while making precision movements in impasse levels much easier to pull off. Time manipulation even has the neat side effect of eerily speeding up or slowing down the game’s soundtrack.

Sentient motes are your prime target.

Osmos features ambient music from various artists. In most cases, the tunes match the gameplay perfectly. The music and sounds work together to make a very chilled-out environment, and will even dynamically change in certain levels. Occasionally, however, the calming music will directly contradict with the frantic competition between you and another mote. Graphically, Osmos is fantastic and minimalist. The color palette helps drive home the soothing essence of the game, while the swirling and glowing of the motes can be absolutely entrancing.

Blast Factor: Whether it’s relaxing meditation or challenging gameplay you seek, Osmos has you covered. Hemisphere Games has produced a zen gaming experience unmatched by any developer before it. For the price, Osmos is the perfect end to a long work day or stressful gaming session.

Osmos is available for PC, Mac, and Linux for $10.00, it can be downloaded directly from Hemisphere Games, Steam, Direct2Drive, or Games for Windows. A copy of this game was purchased for reviewing purposes.

Need something to do this weekend? Love Counter Strike and now have a rig that can handle its big brother Source?

If so, this is your weekend, as the Steam Weekend Deal, available today, is on Counter Strike: Source.

The game’s dropped from $19.99 to $4.99, making it an alluring option for any PC gamer who hasn’t experienced its frenzied and insanely addictive multiplayer action.

It’s not a new title, but it’s still one of the most actively played titles for PC and if I wasn’t such a Counter Strike purist I’d play it more often.

I only play Counter Strike 1.6. My rig can handle Source, but I just don’t like it. For $5 though, you should definitely consider.

Steam Weekend Deal: Counter Strike Source $5

Online digital warehouse Steam is selling Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Director’s Cut for the bargain rate of $5.

There are 4 challenges exclusive to this PC version, but really, for $5, if your PC can run it, and you’ve never played it, we don’t foresee a better deal than this.

More information on the deal, its system requirements, and lots more, at the Assassin’s Creed Director’s Cut Steam page.

Source: Slickdeals

If you’re a PC gamer and prefer to purchase your goods digitally you’re likely already well aware of the deep catalogue of games available on Steam, the leading digital warehouse, and the service added 6 new Electronic Arts titles to its ranks today.

The titles are Need for Speed: SHIFT, Battlefield 2: Complete Collection, Medal of Honor: Airborne, Godfather, Godfather 2, and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, and are all available right now.

After the addition of today’s half-dozen, the total number of EA games on Steam jumps up to 20 in the price range of between $10 and $50.

Steam Games via Kotaku

Valve today detailed pre-order goodies for the zombie-killing sequel Left 4 Dead 2. Early demo access, 10% off the game when it hits, and in-game premiums are yours, provided you throw money down.

Anyone pre-purchasing through Steam or other participating retailers can start playing October 27, when the early-demo period is said to begin, save 10% off the MSRP, and earn the American Baseball Bat, one of the game’s new melee weapons.

If you’re not yet sold on the sequel. Steam is also offering the original Left 4 Dead at 50% off, or $14.99, and that comes with all the new DLC, including Crash Course.

Monte Cristo Games’ next-gen city building game, Cities XL, is now available for pre-order on Steam. The Limited Edition game offers the entire game, five extra maps, landmarks, two permanent blueprints, and an in-game t-shirt for player’s avatars with a unique web tag. The game is available for $39.99. If you’re interested in another building game that isn’t Sims City, I definitely suggest checking out Cities XL. You can learn more about the pre-order here. If you want to learn more before the October 9 release, just check out the official website here. Comment below with your thoughts and opinions on the game.

In celebration of today’s “Crash Course” DLC launch, the Left 4 Dead Game of the Year Edition is now $14.99 through digital warehouse Steam.

If your PC can run it, and if you’ve never felt the awesome force of a shotgun ripping limbs from the undead, this is the time to get in on the action.

The Game of the Year Edition contains all DLC ever released for the zombie-fest of a title, well, except for this.

Left 4 Dead on Steam

Legendary puzzle-game makers PopCap and famed RPG studio Square Enix teamed up today and announced “Gyromancer,” an RPG Puzzle game that’ll likely steal hours and hours away from our busy lives.

Thrusting together PopCap’s Bejeweled Twist and Square Enix’s mastery of the RPG genre comes the new project due out on XBLA and Steam sometime in the unnamed future.

“We’ve always enjoyed a strong partnership with PopCap Games and Gyromancer represents our goal of developing unique gaming experiences, ” said John Yamamoto, president and chief executive officer of Square Enix, Inc. “We believe that Gyromancer will appeal not only to core gamers, but will further introduce the RPG genre to casual gamers as well.”

Want more? Here’s the official announcement trailer shown at the Tokyo Game Show today.

The FPS/MMO hybrid, Fallen Earth, is set to hit physical shelves and digital warehouses this coming Tuesday, but if you want to play right now, look no further than digital download powerhouse Steam.

The digital video game purveyor is now accepting pre-purchases on the title and those who do so will earn access to the game right today, no waiting necessary.

“We are excited to bring Fallen Earth to Steam’s thriving community of subscribers,” said Jessica Orr, product manager for Fallen Earth. “The Steam partnership gives our fans more choices and flexibility for purchase.”

What’s more, if you do throw down the $50 to pre-purchase the game, you’ll earn an in-game Steam t-shirt good enabling you+5 bonus to the Scavenging, Nature and Geology skills helpful when harvesting materials as well as 10+ bonus to the Social skill, enabling your character to get minor discounts from merchants.

We’ve played Fallen Earth and more than enjoyed our time in the post-apocalyptic world, and for anyone already sold, why not pick up these extras?

Pre-Purchase Fallen Earth on Steam

Steam, in celebration of Unreal Tournament’s 10th birthday, is allowing gamers to play the game for free this weekend.

Unreal Tournament first launched in 1999 and today, ten years later the game, though changed, is still frenzied, fun, and addicting.

The free weekend officially begins this afternoon 4PM Boston time, but if you want, you can pre-load the game right now and not have to wait a second when the clock strikes 4.

Unreal Tournament Black consists of UT3, the Titan Pack, which includes lots of new weapons, vehicles, environments, as well as two new game-types; Greed and Betrayal.

Head over to the official Steam Unreal Tournament 3 Black product detail page for info on the free access and lots more.

America’s Army 3, the latest installment in the government created series, is coming to digital warehouse Steam June 17, but is available to pre-load right now.

America’s Army has full stat tracking, over 10,000,000 registered users, and is of course, free to play by way of American tax dollars footing the development bill.

What’s more, a graphic AA3 novel, also funded with your hard-earned dollars is free and available to read on the games’ website.

America’s Army Three

Economy got you down? Struggling to see the real value in your gaming dollar?‚ ‚  If that sounds like you, Steam’s got your back.

This weekend only, award winning zombie slaughter-fest Left 4 Dead, is available for PC owners through Steam for $24.99.‚  Killing the undead is just so much more appealing when it costs 50 percent less to do so.

Left 4 Dead, the co-op based and incredibly addictive first person shooter released by Valve in November puts you in the shoes of one of four unlucky strangers who must ward off the zombie apocalypse in order to survive.

Heralded as one of the top first person shooters of 2008, Left 4 Dead is more than just a great multiplayer experience; it’s an adventure that, through adaptive A.I., will change each time you play it. But don’t take my word for it, read our full written review here.

Furthermore, Valve announced Wednesday that the forthcoming Survival Pack, which contains a new multiplayer game mode entitled Survival, as well as two complete campaigns for versus mode will be released free of charge to all PC and Xbox 360 owners.

If you’ve been thinking about picking up this game, run this little speed-test and you’ll be good to go.

Left 4 Dead on Steam.