Valve wants the Xbox Live Arcade version of upcoming shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to feature Steamworks integration.

But it faces a tough job convincing Microsoft to let it do so.

"We certainly can deliver a lot of value to customers to the degree to which we have those capabilities," Valve boss Gabe Newell told Eurogamer.

"The PS3, obviously we made a lot more progress with that. The PS3 customers of Portal 2 are going to start to see the benefits of that with Portal 2 DLC coming out in September. So we'd really like to be able to do that for Xbox customers as well."

The PS3 version of Portal 2 features a number of exclusive features as a result of Steamworks integration, including cross-platform play with the PC version.

There's also cross-platform chat, Steam Achievements (earned in synch with Trophies), player profiles and game invites. You can even play Portal 2 on a PC or Mac - Valve grants a free PC/Mac Steam edition of the game to PS3 gamers.

Xbox Live, however, remains a closed platform, with Microsoft employing strict guidelines on what publishers can and cannot do.

"The main thing is having Microsoft get comfortable with it and let us do it," Newell said of the challenges Valve faces bringing Steamworks to Xbox.

"Right now, there's a huge amount of updates and free content we've been able to deliver to people who have The Orange Box that we haven't been able to deliver to the Xbox because of the restrictions that have been placed on us on Xbox Live.

"We'd love to see those relaxed. Other developers on the PS3 are starting to benefit from Sony's more open approach. Hopefully that will help Microsoft see that's a good strategy for making customers happy, that the barbarians won't tear down the walls of Xbox and turn it into some chaotic wasteland."

One game making use of Sony's more relaxed policy is Dust 514, from Eve Online developer CCP.

"Let's just say that with Sony at least they have policies that allow us to build the game the way we want," CCP CTO Halldor Fannar said during an E3 presentation attended by Eurogamer in June. "That is one of the reasons why we've gone with PSN."

Valve isn't the first MMO developer to find Xbox Live troublesome.

Last year Final Fantasy XIV Online creator and director Hiromichi Tanaka told Eurogamer that a "closed" Xbox Live blocked the game from appearing on Xbox 360.

"The main reason why we couldn't go with Xbox 360 was the Xbox Live system," he explained. "[Live is] different to the normal internet environment, so when we wanted to introduce this game in the same environment as Windows PC it had to be PS3, so that was our choice.

"Microsoft has a different point of view: they want to have a closed environment for Xbox Live. We're still talking to... We couldn't come to an agreement on Xbox Live."

MMO developer Cryptic chucked in the towel on an Xbox 360 version of Champions Online in early 2010. Producer Craig Zinkievich told Eurogamer he was frustrated with the business side of getting an MMO on Xbox Live; the game itself, he said, ran just fine.

Sony, however, seems more open to the idea of allowing MMO developers to play by their own rules on the Network.

"Sony allows us to use our systems," Fannar explained. "Microsoft has Xbox Live. They're very strict on that. There are a lot of issues we run into. It may be a basic thing people don't realise, but with Dust and Eve on Sony's network, we can allow them to chat together. Voice chat, text chat, that's all one world.

"One of the reasons for the partnership with Sony is because they're opening up new ways to do these things. We're going to be managing most of it. We're using PlayStation just for credentials, stuff like that. Then it's all our stuff.

"With our agreement with Sony they seem to be fine with our three month expansion cycle. They've been looking at the MMO space for a while, trying to understand why something like that hasn't still happened on the console. They're coming to terms with it. There are certain things they have to relax just to allow these things to function."

Still, there appears to be hope for Xbox 360 owners - a report in June claimed free-to-play games were coming to the console and that Microsoft was talking with developers to discuss free-to-play game deals.

And last month Hi-Rez Studios boss Todd Harris, who is making Tribes: Ascend, told Eurogamer free-to-play games supported by micro-transactions on Xbox 360 were "inevitable".

Valve is yet to decide how to monetise CS: GO - indeed it may end up free to play, as its other shooter, Team Fortress 2, is.

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Square Enix will release the latest game from former Valve designer and Portal co-creator Kim Swift, with an official unveiling due this weekend.

The game, which Square's tease dubs "incredibly fascinating and quirky", is being developed at Dark Void developer Airtight Games, where Swift is now a project lead. We'll find out more about the title this Saturday at the PAX Prime show in Seattle.

Swift joined Valve straight out of Washington tech college DigiPen in 2005, where she co-developed Narbacular Drop - the direct inspiration for Portal's basic mechanics. As well as Portal, she also worked on Left 4 Dead 2 before leaving for Airtight back in December 2009.

Airtight's last effort, Capcom-published jet-pack actioner Dark Void, missed the mark when it launched back in January 2010, picking up a scrappy 5/10 from Eurogamer's Dan Pearson.

If you pre-order Deus Ex: Human Revolution on Steam, you'll receive eight new, Deus Ex-themed items in Team Fortress 2.

These items are available separately from Team Fortress 2's in-game Mann Co. Store, and through item drops and crafting.

Half of the Deus Ex items are cosmetic: Deus Specs (glasses), The Company Man (baseball cap), The Nanobalaclava (helmet - Spy only) and The Purity Fist (robotic arm - Heavy only).

The other four items affect gameplay. The Machina sniper rifle is for the Sniper class and, at full charge, adds 15 per cent damage and player-penetrating bullets. But The Machina uses exposing tracer rounds and will only go bang when zoomed.

The Diamondback hand gun (looks like a Magnum) is for the Spy. This grants a critical shot for each building destroyed with your sapper attached. But in general use, The Diamondback has a minus 15 per cent damage penalty and no chance for random critical hits.

The Widowmaker and The Short Circuit are for the Engineer. The Widowmaker (is it a shotgun?) adds 100 per cent of damage to ammo and requires no reload. But the ammo cost is expensive: -60 metal each shot.

The Short Circuit attaches to your hand and fires an electric field that damages projectiles and players. But there's chance for random critical hits and you'll lose 35 metal each shot.

Team Fortress 2 has turned free-to-play, which means you've little excuse not to at least try it. Then consider Eurogamer's recent 10/10 Team Fortress 2 re-review, and you have even fewer excuses not to dive in. Most old PCs can handle it.

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You can now trade in virtual items for other virtual items through Steam.

Steam Trading Beta lets you do that, and trade Steam gifts: games on Steam you've bought but not yet added to your Games Library.

Currently Team Fortress 2 items and Steam Gifts can be traded.

You can try it out now by going to Steam, then Settings, then opting into Steam Trading Beta.

"Now your Steam Community profile will have an item inventory, and you'll be able to view the item inventories of every public profile in the Steam community," Valve said.

You can invite people to trade through Group Chat, and trade with anyone in your Friends List who's also opted in.

To do so, you need to right click on their name and select Invite to Trade. Once the offer is accepted, a trade window will open up.

There's more on the Trading Beta FAQ.

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Garry's Mod has passed the one million downloads mark, six years after it was first made public.

"This is a pretty big deal for me considering this all started off as a tiny tiny modification about six years ago," wrote creator Garry Newman on his blog. "This is more than I could have ever expected or wished for!"

Newman added that he had hoped to have a "big secret update" ready for when the milestone was passed, but it's running behind schedule.

"Anyway – thanks to everyone that's contributed to Garry's Mod – whether that be directly by dedicating your time to creating new content for other players or indirectly by playing and enjoying all that Garry's Mod has to offer!"

Garry's Mod is a physics sandbox 'game' modded from Half-Life 2. The $10 download lets you manipulate and mess around with objects and characters from most Source-powered Valve games.

Few people will praise Portal higher than lead Brink writer Ed Stern.

During a Develop Conference talk he called Valve's creation "the greatest combination of premise, setting and player interaction we're ever likely to see".

Portal 1 came as part of The Orange Box in 2007. But the bite-sized compliment to Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Team Fortress 2 quickly whipped up tumultuous applause of its own, scoring 9/10 in Eurogamer's Portal review. "One of the most interesting and delightful things Valve has ever done," Tom Bramwell wrote.

Portal 2 had big shoes to fill. But step into them it did, by earning 10/10 in Eurogamer's Portal 2 review. "It's a masterpiece," wrote Oli Welsh.

Ed Stern's comments about Portal were made answering whether Splash Damage overwrote Brink, a multiplayer-focused game.

"Brink is about frantic running and shooting, it's not exploring this world we've set up. It's a shooter," stated Stern.

"It's not about its setting in the same way that BioShock or Dragon Age or, God help us, Portal is. Portal, for my money, [is] the greatest combination of premise, setting and player interaction we're ever likely to see.

"All of this concepting and agonising and rewriting was for a shooter game that could have been red versus blue," Stern added. "Arguably we did not need a story in the first place."

Stern said Splash Damage chose a story because "we wanted to demonstrate as a story studio that we could do this stuff". Splash Damage wanted to add meaning to proceedings, although the mid-fight chaos often negated this.

"But I'm really glad we tried," said Stern. "I do not think Brink would have been a better game for having less world [built] into it."

Brink, released in May, tried to seamlessly weld single and multiplayer gameplay. Persist past its obtuse opening and you'll discover "an exceptional team shooter", wrote Simon Park in Eurogamer's Brink review - "smart, supremely well balanced and with a unique, exciting art style".

Video: Brink: PS3 versus Xbox 360.

In the introduction to our very first Game of the Week, I wrote this: "If there's nothing at all we can recommend that week - hey, it might happen - we'll take the opportunity to highlight something from previous weeks that you (or we) might have missed."

How about something from previous years?

It's not even like there really is nothing to recommend this week. Ms. Splosion Man definitely has its fans and would be a worthy contender, right? So why am I just not feeling it?

I suppose it's the suspicion that, as Simon wrote, this sequel has simply been "freshened by lipstick and a bow". Until I read his review, I had no idea that Ms. Pac-Man was an unauthorized rip-off made without Namco's permission by its impatient distributor Midway. Sure, she's canonised now, but it's a dangerous spirit for Twisted Pixel to invoke.

Me? I returned to Gran Turismo 5 this week, after a friend told me about the Seasonal Events: effectively new single-player playlists for the racer that dole out unbelievable quantities of experience and money. That 1967 Lamborghini Miura Concept is within reach at last!

I've been having fun, and am struck by how exciting a drive Polyphony's grand folly remains. But I'm also feeling a little uncomfortable. I just need to do 30 laps of Le Mans to get my shiny new fake possession... Maybe this recovering World of Warcraft player isn't quite ready to bring the grind back into his life.

But it made me think. Most of us games writers don't stick with games long after release, because something else comes along that requires our attention. I suspect the same is true for many of you readers, being people of taste and curiosity with an insatiable hunger for everything gaming has to offer.

But few are the games that stand still now, and even in some high-profile cases like GT5, it's only those games' communities that are keeping track. In 2011, a game doesn't have to be a subscription-funded MMO to be an entirely different proposition four years down the line.

That's why, when a reader emailed us requesting a re-review of a multiplayer shooter from 2007, I was only too happy to organise it.

Team Fortress 2

"Now Team Fortress 2 has gone free-to-play, you should do a re-review of it. I came across your old review of it from 2007 and it almost reads like a review of some older, forgotten game that inspired TF2," wrote Ollie Fox.

Rich Stanton's Team Fortress 2 re-review agreed with Ollie, booting Tom's original 9 up to a 10 and dropping some other heavy numbers: 200 updates! 29 new maps!

"There isn't one game called Team Fortress 2. There are hundreds," Rich wrote. "Its famously long development time used to see it compared to Duke Nukem Forever, but that doesn't hold water any more: Duke's finished. The development of TF2 goes on and on... It understands that persistence is as much about personality as power, and is one of the most consistently surprising and inventive games you'll ever play."

Team Fortress 2 players - and sadly, that means players of the PC (and now Mac) game, which has long left the static console versions behind - don't need us to remind us how great a multiplayer shooter it is. Some would claim that all those guys playing Halo, COD and Battlefield are, in a sense, kidding, and looking at TF2's razor-sharp dynamics and never-ending fountain of free content, you can see what they mean.