Ninjas taught us silence is the language of assassins, but a half-crazed, blood-soaked theoretical physicist demonstrated silence works just as well for everyone else. Although Dishonored's Corvo Attano and Half-Life's Gordon Freeman share a common penchant for reticence, Arkane writer Austin Grossman told Kotaku he's rooting for his creation more than Valve's beloved hero. Why? "I find Gordon creepy as hell," he stated.

"I hate what Valve does with the silent protagonist," Grossman explained. "I find it incredibly awkward and really creepy. The difference between Dishonored and how it works in Half-Life 2 is that it's a lot more personal. I think you get that involvement because the character has personal relationships with people from the beginning. And it's very clear that people have f***ed with you in a very personal way."

Grossman contrasted the differences between Gordon's silence as a coping mechanic against the events transpiring in City 17 and beyond with Corvo's intentional muteness as an emphasis for the message conveyed through his actions. Grossman says Gordon's encounters involve people "talking at him, about him, and sometimes even for him. He just happens to be in the middle of this whole thing."

"I'm biased, of course, but I think Dishonored grips you much more viscerally and emotionally," he continued. "And that's on purpose. Corvo doesn't talk, and I think it works because everybody knows what Corvo would have to say, His actions form a sort of speech, something like, 'If I could kill the people who screwed with me...and if that includes you, then I'm going to kill you right now.'"

"This is like if Gabe Newell took acid..." is (the decent half of) one gamer's apt description of Half-Mind, a Half-Life 2 mod released in 2009 which was recently given a boost back into the disco spotlight via a gameplay video by YouTuber "vinesauce." A quick jaunt to Half-Mind's Mod DB entry reveals a terse mission statement of bringing Valve's magnum opus "to the brink of hilarity." It's easy imagining Gordon Freeman's struggles through the Combine's tyrannical grip on City 17 juxtaposed with an insatiable need to make everyone get down and party.

Among other oddments, the recorded footage features a chronically jiggling Dr. Kleiner and a pair of citizens exceptionally talented with communicating through foley. For the truly brave, the mod awaits your download.

It's not often you spot a softly glowing sign warning of gravity-changing crystals in puzzle-platformers, but Vitrum fills that niche nicely. On the e-shelf today from developer 9head Games, the indie puzzle-platformer shuffles up the house that Portal built with an array of power-granting crystals, a suitably bloom-ified tech motif, and a throbbing ambient electronica soundtrack worthy of space hibernation.

Solving Vitrum's Rubik-like room layouts involves harnessing energy from various crystals found during your travels. Most of the granted abilities -- a short air dash, a push of energy, and so on -- allude to solutions entailing timing and carefully aimed jumps. The real draw is the ability to combine the powers surging in each of your android hands and the almighty gravity crystal that exchanges floor with ceiling on the fly. There's a cliff-sharp ramping of puzzle difficulty -- it's no easy task to gyrate into a tiny cubby hole surrounded by deadly red crystals after simultaneously air dashing and watching the room spin sickeningly. Good luck.

Vitrum carries a pay-as-you-like price on Gumroad with a requested $5 minimum for covering overhead.

Valve did a sneaky, small-but-significant thing recently: it expanded its "Top Sellers" list on Steam to include one hundred games. The sales leaderboard doesn't tell us exactly how many copies a game sold, but it gives us a vague idea of how well certain games are doing on Steam in a given moment.

It's an inherently misleading metric—take that as a disclaimer. Still, as we sit in the shadow of some of 2012's biggest releases, I'd like to take a crack at gleaning what we can from this moment in time.

2K's having a great end of the year.
The $50 pre-sale of XCOM is outselling everything but Borderlands 2 on Steam. We might be able to chalk that up to fairly generous pre-purchase incentives (which could include a free copy of Civ 5 if enough people pre-buy it). It might be mild evidence that demos still work, too. Borderlands 2's high concurrent user count over the past few days (reaching 123,758 last weekend) is also evidence that 2K will win the weeks connecting September and October on Steam.

Digital pre-orders are a thing.
XCOM isn't the only thing-you-can-buy-but-can't-play-yet doing well. Joining the unreleased are Dishonored at #7, War of the Roses at #12, Football Manager 2013 at #17, Company of Heroes 2 at #29, and Hitman Absolution at #51. Even though there's no chance of a game going out of stock, Steam users don't seem to mind putting money down in advance, especially if they're rewarded with bonus content or a small discount for doing so.

Where are the MMOs? Oh, right.
Zero MMOs appear in today's top 100. I might consider that unsurprising—we wouldn't expect too many people to be picking up competitors while Guild Wars 2 and Pandaria are drawing the attention, and neither are available on Steam. Still, it's a little surprising not to see RIFT ($10) or EVE Online: Inferno ($20) popping up anywhere.

Call of Duty remains a PC fixture.
The sense that Call of Duty remains a fixture for PC gamers is supported by SteamGraph data. Some form of Call of Duty make up 10 whole entries of the Steam's top 100. Many of those are map packs, but the performance of Call of Duty: Black Ops - Mac Edition (#41) is interesting to me. It released yesterday, September 27, and it's outperforming stuff like Civ V: GOTY and Natural Selection 2. Modern Warfare 3 is 50% off until October 1, and it's sitting comfortably at #5.

DayZ continues to have a long tail.
I don't think Arma 2: Combined Operations (what you need to play DayZ) has left the top ten of Steam's Top Sellers since it caught on in May and June. It seems to be outperforming other games that released in May and June like Sins: Rebellion (#56), Max Payne 3 (#76), Civ 5: Gods & Kings (#20), and Spec Ops: The Line (unlisted).



Below: the data, captured at 6:05 PM PDT. Ctrl + Fing encouraged.



Top Ten
Borderlands 2
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Total War Master Collection
Torchlight II
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Carrier Command: Gaea Mission
Dishonored
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Arma 2: Combined Operations
Empire: Total War



#11-25
Castle Crashers
War of the Roses
Borderlands 2 Season Pass
FTL: Faster Than Light
Cortex Command
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Football Manager 2013
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Dawnguard
Garry's Mod
Sid Meier's Civilization V - Gods 'n Kings
Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition
The Binding of Isaac
Half Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax Ultimate Boy
Left 4 Dead 2
Hell Year! Wrath of the Dead Rabbit



#26-50
F1 2012
Hearts of Iron III: Their Finest Hour
Rome: Total War - Gold
Company of Heroes 2
Total War Shogun 2 - Fall of the Samurai
Sid Meier's Civilization V
Counter-Strike: Source
Borderlands: Game of the Year
Worms Revolution
Total War Mega Pack
Terraria
The Walking Dead
Rocksmith
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Collection 3: Chaos Pack
Call of Duty: Black Ops - Mac Edition
Binding of Isaac: Wrath of the Lamb
Portal 2
McPixel
Sid Meier's Civilization V: Game of the Year
Total War: SHOGUN 2
The Sims 3
Counter-Strike Complete
Hearts of Iron 3 Collection
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition



#51-100
Hitman: Absolution
Borderlands
Train Simulator 2013
The Testament of Sherlock Holmes
Medieval II Gold
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Orcs Must Die! 2 - Family Ties Booster Pack
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
The Amazing Spider-Man
Orcs Must Die! 2
Saints Row: The Third
Dead Island: GOTY
Natural Selection 2
Orcs Must Die! 2 - Complete Pack
Half-Life 2
Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Rome: Total War - Complete
The Orange Box
Borderlands 2 + Official Brady Guide
Batman: Arkham City GOTY
Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead
Grand Theft Auto IV
Endless Space
Killing Floor
Call of Duty: World at War
Max Payne 3
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
SPORE
I Am Alive
Fallout 3: GOTY
Fallen Enchantress
Valve Complete Pack
Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition
Mount & Blade: Warband
New Star Soccer 5
Portal Bundle
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Collection 2
Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 Expansion
Counter-Strike
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare® 3 Collection 1
Arma 2
Might & Magic Heroes VI - Danse Macabre Adventure Pack
Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013
Call of Duty: Black Ops
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD
STAR WARS: Knights of the Old Republic II
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Planets Under Attack
Transformers: Fall of Cybertron
Age of Empires III: Complete Collection

Reiterating: We don't know what formula or data drives Steam's Top Sellers rankings. It's probably safest to consider them a representation of what games are selling well in one moment of time on Steam.

Nothing rumbles like the metal mosh pit of a medieval scrap in full swing. After a successful Kickstarter run, Torn Banner's Chivalry: Medieval Warfare expanded upon its origins as a Half-Life 2 mod into a standalone first-person multiplayer slasher with blood-soaked jerkins and jerks soaking in blood. Chivalry's latest trailer, comprised entirely of in-game footage, blasts the mayhem of battle into your eyeballs before revealing an October 16 release date. Have a look above, but we heartily recommend augmenting your viewing experience with the thrash-metal riff of your choice.

Company of Heroes 2 has rolled out its tiered pre-order goals on Steam, each of which will unlock a new level of free stuff for everyone who shells out for the Eastern Front rumble. Just for pre-ordering, you're guaranteed beta access and two medium vehicle skins (one for the Russkies, and one for the Germans). Three more unlockable tiers will be added if enough people pre-order the game.

At the first reward tier (specific numbers for how many pre-orders are needed to unlock each one aren't given), everyone gets a German and a Soviet hat for Team Fortress 2. The second tier adds a free copy of Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War 2's stand-alone Retribution expansion. The third and final tier unlocks an "In-Game currency gift to be used towards purchasing future content," an XP boost, a unit boost, and a new commander archetype.

This is the first we've heard of CoH2 having any sort of in-game currency system, and xp/unit boosts sound similar to the kinds of things you can buy in free-to-play multiplayer RTS games like Age of Empires Online. They're also reminiscent of the canceled Company of Heroes Online, and it would be unsurprising to find that some ideas from that project have been rolled into this sequel. It seems like a persistent commander leveling system in multiplayer has been all but confirmed.

Team Fortress 2 established itself as some of the best team-based shooting ever, but according to Lead Designer Robin Walker, PC Gaming's premier hat sim was also a test case for Valve's long-term survival. In an interview with Gamasutra, Walker revealed how the game's successful item economy doubled as an exploratory probe into MMO mechanics which Valve felt would factor into its livelihood going forward.

"Our secondary goal was to see if we could explore specific game and business design spaces that we felt were potentially a requirement for the long-term survival of our company," Walker said.

", MMOs were the dominant story in the industry, and one concern we had was that we might not be able to survive if we didn’t build one. We didn’t think we were ready to undertake that, but we did think that we might be able to build some pieces of one, learning enough so that if or when we did need to build one, we had less risk on the table. We decided that persistent item design and storage seemed like a reasonable amount of risk for us to bite off, and could be made to fit into TF2’s gameplay."

Valve's decision to turn Team Fortress 2 free-to-play last year also stemmed from monitoring ongoing MMO trends of shifting from subscriptions to microtransactional and pay-once models. "A couple of years later ... we were starting to feel the same way about microtransactions as we did initially about MMOs: that our company was at risk if we didn’t have internal experience and hard data on them," said Walker.

That most players I encounter during my rocket-spamming binges seem festooned head-to-toe with user-made badges, hats, facial hair, clothing, deodorant, and even spectral high-fives speaks volumes of Valve's favorable foray into MMO economics, a financial result Walker also acknowledged.

Read the full interview at Gamasutra.

Let's kick off this Friday morning with one of the cutest weapons of war you'll ever see - a Portal 2 turret that replaces its guns with flashing lights, but otherwise acts just like the turrets in the game.



While nowhere near as nice, if you want your own turret, Gaming Heads is selling one in very limited quantities. As for other Portal merch, ThinkGeek on the other hand would have been your place to go for an authentic, though sadly non-functional Portal Gun, had it not sold out of them 30 minutes after saying "So, we have this..." A few other options are still around though if you don't mind paying a little more to have your very own Aperture experience.

Cake and jumpsuit sold seperately. Literally.

Note: This post originally suggested that the one in the video was the Gaming Heads model. This turned out to be inaccurate, so has been changed. Sorry about that.

Halloween is one of the few events I forgive for being teased obnoxiously early by halfhearted grocery store decorations and late-night Elvira beer commercials. Similarly, you've probably noticed Team Fortress 2's Steam Workshop page populating with Halloween-themed items already. Valve extended an official call-out yesterday for entries and ratings to the shambling Scream Fortress 2 update.

Crafters have until October 1 to cram the Workshop full of hats, weapons, and...well, more hats celebrating summer's end with ghostly effects and loud wailing noises. "Scariness doesn't just happen, people," Valve chides. "It's serious business."

Established modding communities already jumped to the task - TF2Mods' nearly month-old Night of the Living Update packs almost 60 items so far - but I'm looking forward to individual efforts and killcams of players donning the best Halloween tributes in the best hat simulator around.

Only a few days remain before Black Mesa's Higgs-inclusive LG Orbifold teleportation (thanks, Kleiner) zaps it onto our PCs this Friday, and the team's latest batch of screenshots invokes a similar sense of mystery and alien terror Half-Life's original preview shots carried so long ago. Check out Resonance Cascadians the Vortigaunt, Houndeye, Bullsquid, and Gargantua below.