NewScientistTech has an article about a robotic Strider, or STriDER as they like to call it. STriDER stands for Self-excited Tripedal Dynamic Experimental Robot. They mention both the tripods in HG Well's War of the Worlds and Half-Life 2's Striders in one of the videos posted along with the article, so you can only assume that this robotic version derived its name from the Striders in Half-Life 2.

"A three-legged robot with an unconventional and graceful walk has been developed by US researchers. Like humans, it exploits gravity to save energy with each step, but it also flips its entire body upside-down with each stride.

To take a step forwards, the robot shifts its weight onto two of its legs, allowing itself to fall forwards away from the third leg. Its body then flips upside-down and the third leg swings up between the other two just in time to catch the ground and return STriDER to a stable tripod stance. To change direction, the robot simply switches its choice of swinging leg."

Lit Fuse Films has come out with the first Team Fortress 2 machinima not created by VALVe. You can watch it by clicking here, or the image below.

"Ignis Solus is latin, and roughly translates to "burn alone". It is a bit of an experiment in improvised machinima, and as far as we can tell, also constitutes the first piece of Team Fortress Two machinima not created by Valve."

IGN has reviewed The Orange Box and given it a 9.5. Each game was scored individually and then combined to create the final score. You can read the review here.

"It's practically guaranteed that if you enjoy video games, you'll find at least one thing to like in this collection, though there's also a very good chance that you'll really enjoy all of it."

The Orange Box has officially been released, so I took the liberty of creating discussion threads for all three games. To access them, just click on the images below to go to that game's thread. You can talk about your thoughtson the game, reviews, or whatever you want. In the Team Fortress 2 thread, you can request to play with other HCU members in-game.

I've also updated all the different sections on The HeadCrab Union, with the exception of "Mods." All the HCU game pages have been updated with all the latest news and videos and the downloads section has been updated. Just letting you know in case you haven't neen checking those sections of the union because they've been outdated. I'll try to keep them updated from now on.

HCU's Half-Life 2: Episode Two Discussion Thread

HCU's Portal Discussion Thread

HCU's Team Fortress 2 Discussion Thread

Have a great time playing the Orange Box, and don't forget to stop in at The HeadCrab Union and talk about the games or find somebody to play online with!

IGN has reviewed The Orange Box and given it a 9.5. Each game wasscored individually and then combined to create the final score. You can read the review here.

"Orange Box is a terrific package and truly more than the sum of its parts. We highly recommend this to anyone who loves games. If you haven't played any Half-Life 2, this is a must buy. If you've played Half-Life 2 and are looking forward to Ep 2 and wouldn't mind checking out the other two games, we say go for it. If you only want Team Fortress 2 and have no interest in the others, you may want to get it individually. Any way you slice it, this is one hell of a deal."

VALVe has released their latest character demo for Team Fortress 2. This time it features the Demoman.

Name: Demoman
Role: Defense
Weapons: Grenade Launcher / Sticky Bombs / Bottle

Bio: A fierce temper, a fascination with all things explosive, and a terrible plan to kill the Loch Ness Monster cost the six year old Demoman his original set of adoptive parents. Later, back at the Crypt Grammar School for Orphans near Ullapool in the Scottish Highlands, the boy's bomb-making skills improved dramatically. His disposition and total number of intact eyeballs, however, did not.

CS-Nation has Previewed Half-Life 2: Episode Two. You can read the preview here.

"Really, what more is there to say? It's Half-Life 2: Episode 2. It has Half-Life in the title so you know it's going to be another great experience. Jaws will drop, revelations will occur, and more questions than answers will be raised. Perhaps, even a few heart strings will be tugged on, you'll just have to wait and see."

CS-Nation has a preview of Portal. You can check it out here.

"The narration is carried throughout the game by a snide and often sarcastic computerized female voice. The design decision to include this level of narration actually came rather late into the creation of the game. It was just too quiet, and the humorous voice was added break up the silence.

Interestingly enough, the developers requisitioned the help of Old Man Murray's Chet Faliszek and Erik Wolpaw to kick up the humor factor a few hundred notches. This is a narrative experience that you do not want to miss."

The 1up show covers all three new games in The Orange Box. Check it out here.

"Finally, Ryan's back to talk about one of his favorite subjects and the best $60 you will spend this year (no hyperbole, no joke), Valve's Orange Box. We've got brand new footage from Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, and Portal -- but don't worry, it's pretty spoiler-free for you sensitive-types. Watch with reckless impunity!"

It is finally here: The third and probably final installment in Adam Foster's amazing and spectacular single-player mod experience, Minerva: Metastasis. With some two and a half years in the making, this mod is ready to take its spot as one of the best we have seen yet. Get your downloaders and steam account ready for a wild and exhilarating ride! There is no doubt this mod will deliver.

The mod however, now uses the updated Half-Life 2: Episode One version of the Source engine and as a result, you'll need it to play the game. If you don't have it, I would encourage Mr. Foster's own advice in it being the perfect time to purchase the Orange box, which is a mighty fine deal indeed.

So what are you waiting for? If you found the official website too entirely cryptic, well then here are some easier links:

Official Link to file Download

Link to Gamespot Download

Link to Torrent Download

Besides the original Half-Life's commercial for the Dreamcast, which never actually came out, this is the first TV commercial for one of VALVe's games. The TV ad was for The Orange Box, which was shown off at Digital Life 2007 today. It's not a direct feed, but it's definitely worth watching. You can find it at GameTrailers.com.

CVG has come out with a new interview with the co-founder of VALVe, Gabe Newell. The whole interview can be read here, and you can read some excerpts below.

How effective do you think your episodic approach has been?

Newell: In terms of things like sales and our ability to move the technology forward it's been effective. We've been able to ship a lot more technology to customers faster than we would if we were still waiting to ship another Half-Life 2-scale monolithic project.

I think what we really want to do is have a couple of examples out there - Episode One, and how long it was to play and how long it took to develop, Episode Two, Portal and TF2, and then the third part of the trilogy.

And then sit down with the community and say, 'OK, so what do you want? Do you want us to do more episodes? Do you want us to really tighten down the time frames and look at the scope of what we're doing so that that's possible, for us to go back to the large monolithic projects?'

We just want to sit down with three examples in front of us and talk it over with gamers to find out what they would like us to do next.

I'd also like to spend some time with other people who have been experimenting with this, like the Sam & Max guys to find out what they've worked. And talk with Rob Pardo [lead designer on WoW] because essentially you can think of the things they've [Blizzard] been doing with World of Warcraft as serving episodes in an MMO.

Does Half-Life have an end? Do you guys have an idea of how you're going to wrap up this whole franchise?

Newell: Well, there's specific stories and character arcs or plot lines that we know terminate. We have this bible that covers a lot, and there's a lot of interesting stories to tell.

Portal, for example, is bringing out stuff about Aperture Science way before we had originally thought we'd be telling stories set in the Half-Life universe.

We'd certainly love to be working in other universes because any time you get two Valve people together they come up with five game ideas and thirteen universes that they would like to tell and play them in. So there's a lot of Half-Life left at Valve.

Kikizo has come out with a new interview with the co-founder of VALVe, Gabe Newell. The whole interview can be read here, and you can read some excerpts below.

Kikizo: So Episode 2 is all about learning a bit more, while Episode 3 will be about a resolution to a lot of things. How much is going to be resolved by the end of number three, is it all written already, is the story done?

Gabe: Yeah. The questions are more about how we tell the story than what the plot is, and the exposition is. So we think we're going to resolve a lot. But you know! It's hard to... how do you measure that? I think that people will feel a sense of closure on a bunch of things, as well as saying oh darn it, now there's a bunch of more stuff. That's the challenge with serialising our releases, how to give people a sense that yes things are moving forward, but still having things to find out about. But there should be a good sense that it wraps up a fair number of things.

Kikizo: People keep asking you about a potential Macintosh version, and your stance is that this is a strictly Windows project...?

Gabe: Well, we tried to have a conversation with Apple for several years, and they never seemed to... well, we have this pattern with Apple, where we meet with them, people there go "wow, gaming is incredibly important, we should do something with gaming". And then we'll say, "OK, here are three things you could do to make that better", and then they say OK, and then we never see them again. And then a year later, a new group of people show up, who apparently have no idea that the last group of people were there, and never follow though on anything. So, they seem to think that they want to do gaming, but there's never any follow through on any of the things they say they're going to do. That makes it hard to be excited about doing games for their platforms.

GameSpot has aquired a hands-on preview of Half-Life 2: Episode Two, which comes along with new pictures and three gameplay videos. The preview can be located here.

From Halflife2.net:

"For people who wonder if the PC versions of Episode Two and Portal will have Achievements like Team Fortress 2, I just got a confirmation from Robin Walker that both Episode Two and Portal will have Achievements.

(...Not only will you get notifications when you fulfill an achievement, but you'll also get a notification when you progress significantly towards fulfilling one. And yes, Episode Two & Portal have achievements as well.)

Also reported on csnation.net it seems that Counter-Strike: Source, Day Of Defeat: Source and HL2: Deathmatch will have stats pages so the players can track their stats."

I'm trying to play catchup here after not having dedicated internet at my new house for about three weeks, so I'm going to list all the news that was missed all in this one article.

- Halflife2.net reviews the Fortress Forever mod here.

- Beta 2 of the mod Insurgency will be released sometime in October.

- The Team Fortress 2 beta is now live. Pre-orderThe Orange Box to play it now.

- EuroGamer gives Team Fortress 2 a 9/10 in their review here.

- PC Gamer gives the Orange Box a 94/100.

- These six videos of Team Fortress 2 have been uploaded onto YouTube.
Gravelpit
Dustbowl
2Fort
Granary
Well
Hydro

- Action Trip has posted a preview of Team Fortress 2 here.

- The Steam Community has been officially released to the public.

- The Fortress Forever mod has finally been released. Take your pick between the cartoony Team Fortress 2 and the realistic Fortress Forever. You can download it from GameSpot here.

- VALVe releases the Team Fortress 2 character video for the Engineer.

The Orange Box-featuring Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2, and Portal, as well as the complete Half-Life 2 experience to date-is now available for pre-purchase via Steam, a leading online platform for the distribution of PC games. Those who pre-purchase the PC edition via Steam before October 10th will save 10% off the $49.95 regular price and get exclusive access to the Team Fortress 2 beta.

The Orange Box, penned by IGN as ".the package which could legitimately be called the deal of the century," features three highly-awaited new games by Valve: Half-Life 2: Episode Two, the second installment in the Half-Life 2 episodic trilogy; Team Fortress 2; and Portal, the game that blends puzzles, first person action, and adventure gaming to produce an experience like no other.

To bring gamers up to date with the Half-Life 2 universe, The Orange Box also includes Half-Life 2, the best-selling and highest-rated action game series of all time, and the episodic debut Half-Life 2: Episode One. Customers who already own these titles will have the ability to conveniently "gift" them to a friend upon official release of The Orange Box.

Starting September 17th, those who pre-purchase The Orange Box via Steam can download and activate the beta release of Team Fortress 2 (TF2). This year's most anticipated online action game, TF2 delivers new game types, a signature art form powered by Valve's next generation animation technology, persistent player statistics, and more.

As a special bonus, those who pre-purchase The Orange Box via Steam will also receive a copy of Peggle Extreme. PopCap and Valve have teamed up to create a special edition of the game cited by MSNBC.com as one of the "Top 5 Most Addicting Games of All Time." This first ever collaboration is themed around content from Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal which will positively result in Extreme Fever!

Available at retail on October 10th in North America and October 12th in the rest of the world, retail copies of The Orange Box will be offered for an estimated price of $49.95 on the PC and $59.95 on the Xbox 360 console systems. The 10% pre-purchase discount also applies to these versions at participating retail outlets.

A great six minute video of Half-Life 2: Episode Two with never before seen footage has been put up by GameTrailers.com. It features Gordon and Alyx's climactic encounter with one of the Combine Advisors, one of the floating slug-like creatures we've seen in both Half-Life 2 and Episode One, but never encountered ourselves. The video features new technologies, such as the lighting improvement and the cinematic physics.

YouGamers has an article up that features the minimum and recommended specs for the Orange Box. There is also a small part where Gabe Newell of VALVe talks about their plans for the Half-Life series after Episode Three is out.

"We met with Gabe Newell from Valve Software at GC 2007, and he was kind enough to share the minimum and recommended system requirements to run The Orange Box games. While it's great to see that even an old PC can still run Team Fortress 2, Portal and of course Half-Life 2: Episode 2, for the best gameplay experience you should make sure your PC has enough horsepower. Valve has been pretty accurate with their recommendations in the past, so if your PC meets the Recommended specs in Game-o-Meter's The Orange Box page, you'll get the most out of these hot new titles!

Here are the minimum specs:

1.7 GHz Pentium 4
512 MB system RAM
DirectX 8 compatible video card

For the Recommended specs and more details check out the Game-o-Meter!

Gabe also shed some light on future Half-Life 2 episodes. While the release date for HL2: Episode 3 isn't set, Valve is working on it for subsequent release after The Orange Box comes out. After Episode 3, however, they will have a break, sit back and look at where the series is going. Does this mean we'll see a climactic ending of the story arc at the end of Episode 3?"

Name: Soldier
Role: Offense
Weapons: Rocket Launcher / Shotgun / Shovel
Favorite World War: 2
Special Ability: Rocket Jump

Bio: Though he wanted desperately to fight in World War 2, the Soldier was rejected from every branch of the U.S. military. Undaunted, he bought his own ticket to Europe. After arriving and finally locating Poland, the Soldier taught himself how to load and fire a variety of weapons before embarking on a Nazi killing spree for which he was awarded several medals that he designed and made himself. His rampage ended immediately upon hearing about the end of the war in 1949.

We'll be in Germany next week showcasing Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 at the Leipzig Games Convention, one of the biggest annual games events in the world. At the show, we'll debut the second installment in our Team Fortress 2 character movies: you've been introduced to the Heavy Weapons Guy, now get ready to meet the Soldier. We'll post the movie on Steam soon.

Thousands of computer graphics pros migrated to the annual SIGGRAPH convention last week, where artist-in-residence Jason Mitchell gave a presentation on TF2's unique art. If you're interested in the technical or artistic choices that go into game development, watch the movie (.wmv, 75MB) that Jason showed during his talk. If you're not afraid of formulas and technical-speak, you can even read the white paper, "Illustrative Rendering in Team Fortress 2." (pdf)

As you know, BioShock will be available on Steam next Tuesday in the US, next Friday in Europe. You can beat the stampede to nab the game by pre-loading it today. At 1pm PST, the game will automatically activate and the rest of your life will fall by the wayside. Based on early reviews, we're as excited as the rest of the global gaming community to play it.

VALVe today announced that BioShock, the highly-anticipated and award-winning first-person shooter by 2K Games is available for pre-purchase now via Steam. Starting today, gamers can pre-order BioShock on Steam (www.steamgames.com) for $49.95, and begin playing the moment the game is made available.

One of the most anticipated games of 2007, BioShock is the "genetically enhanced" first person shooter that lets players do things never before possible in the genre - turn everything into a weapon, biologically modify your body with plasmids, hack devices and systems, upgrade weapons and craft new ammo variants, and experiment with different battle techniques.
Gamers enter the game as a cast-away in Rapture, an underwater Utopia torn apart by civil war. Caught between powerful forces and hunted down by genetically modified "splicers" and deadly security systems, players have to come to grips with a deadly, mysterious world filled with powerful technology and fascinating characters. No encounter ever plays out the same and no two gamers will play BioShock the same way.

"Over the next six months, gamers will be hit with a barrage of highly-anticipated titles," said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. "The lion's share of these great new releases will be PC games. And with the gameplay and graphic innovations featured in BioShock, it promises to be one of the most important games released in 2007."

BioShock is currently scheduled to be available via Steam and at retail on August 21 in the U.S. and August 24 in Europe. For more information or to pre-purchase BioShock, please visit www.steamgames.com.

A bunch of new screenshots for Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Team Fortress 2 have been released. The first screenshot has been under discussion, since one of the computer monitors displays the letters REA, which means it's possible that it could fully read out "BOREALIS." The Borealis was a ship where you were originally supposed to start out on Half-Life 2, but was later changed to the train sequence intro. It's a possibility at least.