http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBamb_bBhbo

Of the pile of custom L4D2 campaigns I've played, Questionable Ethics has stuck with me most. It's filled with surprise; a white-walled gauntlet of mystery and torture that you must, must, must download. I introduced Tyler and Chris to the four-stage campaign, then we sat down to talk about it.

A sly Team Fortress 2 update yesterday added a secret wedding ring as a craftable item. It's called "Something Special for Someone Special" and is described as being a "level 100 ring." The item wasn't revealed in the patch notes. Players posted their discovery on the Team Fortress 2 wiki after digging through the file changes made by the update.

If you play Team Fortress 2 regularly with your loved one, prepare yourself for a sudden proposal. It could happen between control points, it could happen in the middle of a desperate Payload defence. But which map would be best? The spires of badlands have some pretty good views, The roof of the bridge on 2Fort would get everyone's attention. If you want somewhere really, really quiet, there's always Hydro.

It might not be for a real marriage proposal, of course. Perhaps one of the classes has finally plucked up the courage to propose to the Pyro. He/she/it has been waiting long enough. If an in-game marriage proposal does come out of this, Team Fortress 2 will join a unique collection of games, including World of Warcraft and Minecraft, that have been used to pop the question. It'll be hard to beat the Portal 2 proposal below, though. It featured unique dialogue from Glados' voice actor, Ellen McLain, and looked just like this:

The Team Fortress 2 Australian Christmas celebratory extravaganza is go! The free update adds a new control point map called Foundry which, according to the achievements list, will feature a big, deadly cauldron fire. Pyros and Engineers get new class packs and 50 items are 75% off in the Mann-Co store. The update is detailed on the Australian Christmas page on the Team Fortress 2 site. "But what about the new hats?" you're perhaps asking, clawing at your unhatted head with eager fingers. Read on and all shall be revealed.

Having your face stuck inside a gas mask that's also inside a space helmet makes it awfully hard to smoke a pipe. The Pyro's new helmet solves that problem by building a pipe into the space helmet. It looks a lot better than it sounds. He's also getting some new weapons, including The Third Degree, a fire axe that will damage the player your hitting, and any players attached to them by medic beams (ie. Medics). The Phlogistinator is a flamethrower that will gradually boost its "Mmmmph" meter with all damage dealt. It can then be activated to heal yourself and crit anyone you're flaming at the time. That sounds powerful.

Engineers, meanwhile, will be able to earn the Brainiac Pack. This includes some Einstein style hair, a wrench that can teleport him back to the spawn zone and a "level 10 indivisible Particle Smasher." It shoots bolts that pass through enemies. If it hits a medic, it'll dock them 10% of their medigun charge. Stricken spies will be stripped of 20% of their cloak power.

Valve also mention "14 new holiday-themed weapons, hats and cosmetic items by the TF community's item creators." This will see some of the fantastic entries we've seen in the Steam Workshop making their way into the full game. These items will only be available by unlocking the "nice crates" that will be appearing in TF2's maps for the duration of Australian Christmas. "Naughty crates" will also drop. These contain "Smissmass lights" that can be used to spruce up weapons. The item drop rate will be doubled for the first week of the event, which kicked off yesterday. Bonanza!

Sit down internet. We've got a story to tell.

Once upon a time on 4Chan, a lengthy thread was started in which posters would construct an email to Gabe Newell, one word at a time. The result was complete gibberish. You can read it here. Suriprisingly, Newell apparently replied to the email with this message.

"I don't suppose it would ease your wrath if I told you we're announcing all of your favourite things at E3 2012?"

Then, a follow up message, posted on Reddit. "I can see how the wording caused some confusion there. Yes, we are announcing something with a three in it."

THREE MUSKETEERS CONFIRMED. The emails may be fake, of course, but Valve have been in a playful mood recently. There was that employee who turned up to a local game developer conference in a Half Life 3 tee. With the release of a code-filled teaser trailer over the weekend, and the appearance of the @Doug_Rattman Twitter feed, one thing is certain. Valve have started another ARG.


Item One: In which Wheatley rants against a background full of probable clues



The video above, hosted on GameTrailers, was shown as part of an awards ceremony over the weekend. In the background there are plenty of streaming numbers, barcodes and visual artefacts that are just bound to contain hidden messages.

Item The Second: In which Doug Rattman rants on the Twitters

After lying dormant for months, Doug_Rattman has burst into life with the words "It βegins."

Then he starts tweeting long series of numbers in a similar format to the ones strobing alongside Wheatley in the above trailer, things like: "AV - 10.0 | 8.2 | 12.6 | 15.2 | 7.8 | 0.2 | 17.9 | 6.9 | 21.1 | 3.7 | 21.2 | 20.4 | 10.7 - Connection Lost"

Oh god. Here we go again. Could it have something to do with an upcoming Steam sale, could it all be leading toward a Half Life 3 reveal?

This is just a sneak peak of a longer fan film that creators Airsoft GI are planning to release soon, spotted on RPS. It's been a great year for classy fan films, from the Fallout 3 film, Nuka Break, to Beyond Black Mesa and Infectious Designer's recent Half-Life inspired short, Origins. From the looks of the trailer, this Left 4 Dead film could top them all. Look, Zoey's even clutching Bill's discarded beret. Poor Bill :(

http://youtu.be/n7bkewdgjKA

Glados has escaped the confines of the Aperture Science testing facility, and has decided to spend a bit of time tormenting tower defence gamers instead. You Monster, the new expansion for Defense Grid, will add eight new maps and 35 challange missions, in which Glados will challenge you to hold back another alien invasion, noting your progress all the while and designing new tests for you to complete. The DLC is set to come out on Steam on December 7. Check out the Defense Grid site for more info.

The new Counter-Strike beta is a GO, and Evan has been on the frontlines to bring us his thoughts on the rebooted counter-terrorist warfare. Josh fills us in on the biggest updates to hit WoW, EVE, and DCUO this week, while Greg and Chris barely make it out of their encounter with Serious Sam: BFE with their miniguns intact (and live to tell about it). And, try as we might, we just can't help ourselves but talk about Skyrim. Then again, who could blame us?

PC Gamer US Podcast 297: Friendly Fire

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It's just a man in a T-shirt of course, but there's a Half-Life 3 logo on the front of it and a Valve employee inside it.

Art director and executive producer at UberEnt (the team behind Super Monday Night Combat) posted the photo above on Twitter with the message "All I'm saying is I saw this at a local game developer event worn by a Valve employee," sensibly attaching a #ValveTrolling hashtag. He couldn't get any more info out of Valve's man but he confirms that "I did try to smother my face in his chest on the HL3 logo." This did not help.

A long time ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, Valve announced that they'd release three follow up episodes for Half-Life 2, allowing them to put out shorter stories at a faster clip. The episodes so far have taken longer and longer to develop, and Episode 2 ended up being longer than most modern shooter campaigns. Years on from Episode 2's release, it would make sense for the next game to ditch the episode format and become Half Life 3. Recently, the Cambridge Student asked Gabe Newell whether he considers releasing Half-Life 2 sequels in an episodic form a mistake. "Not yet," he said.

Valve have repeatedly said that they're still committed to the Half Life series. We'll surely see another one one day. WE JUST WANT TO KNOW HOW IT ENDS.

http://youtu.be/HrvFGga5Nik

Are you on it? Have you shot many men? Does it still feel like Counter-Strike? The starting gun has gone off, head-shotting a terrorist twenty metres away and signalling the launch of the Global Offensive closed beta. COUNTER-TERRORISTS WIN.

There's a video of the closed beta above, from Evil Avatar. It looks like Counter-Strike, it sounds like Counter-Strike, but does it taste like Counter-Strike? We won't know until we've jumped in and licked the sand on Dust. Valve have said that they'll gradually send out new beta invites until the closed beta is essentially an open beta, so don't worry if you're not in this round of testing.

http://youtu.be/Zw684xM2cUo

Half-Life: Origins comes from the same team behind the excellent Beyond Black Mesa short film released earlier this year. It's a short but evocative take on those famous first moments of the original Half-Life, the peaceful train journey before all that nastiness with the interdimensional portal, and the aliens, and the crowbar. It captures the workmanlike atmosphere of Black Mesa quite nicely, though the chap playing Gordon keeps reminding me how perfect Hugh Laurie would be for the role. Infectious Designer should ask him to do their next film, I'm sure he's not busy.