Black Mesa: So Close I Can Smell It

Black Mesa, the total remake and modernization of the original Half-Life game seems to be getting closer and closer to completion but if previous fan remakes are anything to go by we'll never see it.

Well, OK, maybe we'll never *play* it as you can actually see it right here in glorious internet widescreen! I was mildly interested after seeing screenshots from previous iterations but this trailer really gets my blood running hot... oooh baby.

*fingers crossed* they make their 2009 projected release date (if you can call an entire year a release date).

Big Week In Gaming

If the excitement of the New Xbox Experience wasn't enough for you then wait until the awesomeness of Left 4 Dead hits your screen. Out on PC and Xbox 360 L4D is Valve's latest twist on the first person shooter game genre, this time with way more zombies, 4-player co-op play and a server-side AI "director" which determines what will happen to you in the game ensuring you get a unique experience each time through.

I played the demo last week with a mate and two AI characters as we cut a path through hordes of festering zombies. The majority of the them go down with a couple of shots from your shotgun, assault rifle or pistols but there are a few "hero" zombies which take more damage to defeat.

Today the full version of the game was released both in old style retail outlets and via Steam, Valve's digital distribution network/tool. I had a quick bash of the game this morning and even managed to luck my way into an achievement.

There are 4 of us lined up (in the real world) to play through the game in its entirety via the internet as the "survivors" and I can't wait. Friday night we hit the streets of Dodgeville to try to battle our way out of the city and hopefully safety.

Steamy News For Gamers

Back in March Valve Corp. announced the upcoming release of Steam Cloud, a series of services that allows gamers using the Steam platform to store game configuration settings in "the cloud". Well it's coming out just in time for the release of Left 4 Dead, Valve's new multiplayer zombie shooter.

This means that if you're like me and rarely use the default keyboard configuration you can upload your settings to the Steam Cloud and grab them any time you like. So if you buy a new PC or your game is really buggy and resets the config each time it crashes (I'm looking DIRECTLY at you Bioshock) or you're on your mate's PC or whatever, you can set everything to what you're comfortable with.

"For some time now, Steam has allowed gamers to log on from any computer in the world and access their applications. This also makes it easy to upgrade a PC without worrying about losing your games," said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. "Steam Cloud is a natural extension of the portability Steam affords gamers and developers, and we intend to expand its feature set as it is used in Left 4 Dead and other games coming to Steam."

What would be really great is if games that share a common engine or common settings could import from another game. For example, imagine loading up Left 4 Dead for the first time and a prompt appears asking if you'd like to import your Half-Life 2 control settings.

TF2: Meet The Sniper

Kotaku have a streamed version of the Team Fortress 2: Meet the Sniper video available here: http://kotaku.com/5017287/meet-the-sniper. Alternative (But not as good quality) link from the TF2 Wiki: http://tf2wiki.net/wiki/Meet_the_Sniper. Another superbly animated and humourous look at the charaters of TF2.