Once Valve gets around to releasing its magical future goggles, I’m hoping it’ll just start constantly beaming clever trailers for its games straight to my eyeballs. Between TF2′s “Meet The ___” series and Portal’s cavalcade of comedic excellence, I could spend all the rest of my days awkwardly cackling to myself on buses, in restaurants, and while committing the most unforgivable crime of them all: wearing sunglasses at night>. Everyone will hate me and take tremendous pleasure every time I stumble blindly into low-hanging signs or taller-than-ordinary children. Which brings us to Valve’s latest bit of advertorial brilliance: the story justification for the Perpetual Testing Initiative, as narrated by Aperture founder Cave Johnson.

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As hinted at March at GDC, Valve have now announced the imminent release of a puzzle creator for Portal 2. It’s going to be called the Portal 2 Perpetual Testing Initiative, it’s going to be out on the 8th May, and most of all, it’s going to be free.

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The appearance of Valve’s Gabe Newell on the inaugral Seven Day Cooldown podcast seems to have generated all the headlines in the world. Apple’s new boss didn’t really visit Valve, DOTA2 will use a brand new kind of free-to-play and, now, why ‘Ricochet 2′ has been so long coming. There is, I’m afraid, absolutely no way that ‘Ricochet 2′ is a veiled term for another game rather than a sequel to weirdo Tron-like jumpy multiplayer mod Ricochet. And doubly-definitely not a game that might have a ‘Half’ in the title. No sirree. (more…)

Despite having originally released all the way back in the year 2,000 Anno Domini, CounterStrike is still – still! – the number one game being played on Steam right now. That’s not even taking into account CounterStrike Source. It’s an astonishing achievement, and CounterStrike’s continued popularity is reason enough to pay attention to the new game from co-creator, Minh Le. That new game is Tactical Intervention, and it’s a project he quit his job at Valve to pursue. I sat down for a chat with him, and this is what ensued:> (more…)

Back when DOTA was nothing more than an elaborate WarCraft III map, it used to be my way of relaxing. Sure, I wasn’t some unholy whirlwind of might and magic, but it was an experience that fell somewhere on the spectrum between “pleasant” and “killing a million things.” Flash forward to today: I don’t really play LoL very often. It’s stressful! If I can get a couple friends together, sure, but the community’s a grab-bag of mean people who use curse words>. So, how does Valve plan to avoid walking down a similarly suicidal lane with DOTA 2? How does an oddly utopian-sounding player-driven wonderland strike you?

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It doesn’t take a lot for me to get obsessed. I’d managed to pull away from Team Fortress 2, but then Valve introduced the Strange category of weapons, stat-tracking guns and melee weapons that report how many kills each has, and I got into it all over again. I’m almost embarrassed by how easy it was to hook me back into the mainframe. Worryingly Valve have just added a new category of unlocks to augment the Strange weapons counting abilities: Strange Parts.

Only found in crates, Strange Parts will help you study specific aspects of your performance in battle by letting you customize your favorite Strange weapon. Now you’re free to track the number of enemies you gib, projectiles you reflect, heads you’ve shot, and more.

They’ve also dropped three new hats into the game, and that number is a more descriptive than you realise: there are only three in the entire game, and to get one you’ll most likely need to spend a significant amount of money. (more…)

Our e-sports correspondent is ESFI World’s Samuel Lingle>

It’s been a month since the last e-sports update, but fear not. They’re returning with weekly regularity. In theory.

Today I’m going to recap most of the bigger events of the past month or so, considering there was a lot of exciting stuff you guys may have missed. It’s StarCraft heavy by necessity, as the majority of e-sport events these days feature Blizzard’s popular RTS.

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I’ve been waiting for a John Walker simulator to arrive, and this is the closest I’ll probably ever get. It’s the Secret World’s GDC presentation, showing off Ragnar-Tørnquist’s increasingly-interesting (to me) MMO. You can pretend you’re in the room being John Walker, who can be seen here following Ragnar. Toss some water at the screen to simulate the tears that usually flow when John experiences a game by Ragnar. Or you can just watch the most complete look at the upcoming MMO yet. It includes a scene that suggests oral sex is being performed, so I’d not risk it at work or at a funeral. They really go down… look down… LOOK DOWN on that sort of thing. (more…)

The British Academy Video Game Awards took place on Friday night and Portal 2 was awarded highest honours, taking home little gold faces not only for Best Game, but also for Story and Design. Congratulations to Valve, who by this point must be making plans to put up some new shelves of award-bearing load strength. The popular vote went to Battlefield 3, which also won awards for Online Multiplayer and Audio Achievement.

The full list is celebrating after the jump.

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Remember the bit in Fight Club where Ed Norton is sitting on a plane and he explains to the guy sitting next to him his theory of “single-serving friends”? Well, something similar is true in multiplayer games. > (more…)