Hacking attacks and digital theft have been in the headlines a lot lately, whether it be the loss of user details on the PlayStation Network or a preview build of an upcoming game.

So let's look back today on a crime both more brazen and impressive than any we've seen in the past few years: the theft of Valve's Half-Life 2, months before it was actually released to the public.

In 2003, Valve was just a company that made video games. Namely, the classics Half-Life and Counter-Strike. Steam was yet to come (t would be released in September '03), and when it came people hated it, and there was no such thing as Portal or Left 4 Dead.

"Hacktivist" group Anonymous had only just been formed, it was before the erosion of online privacy brought about by social networking sites and before a lot of people even had things like credit card details stored online, let alone somewhere vulnerable enough for them to be stolen.

In short, it was a simpler time on the internet. A more civilized age. Or so we, and Valve Software, thought.

Towards the middle of 2003, Valve was putting the finishing touches on Half-Life 2, its hotly-anticipated sequel to what was regarded at the time as one of the greatest first-person shooters ever made. The game was due out in September 2003, to launch alongside the company's daring new online platform Steam, and people could not wait to get their hands on it.

One guy especially. German Axel Gembe went above and beyond the average Valve fan and conducted a sophisticated, and ultimately successful, attack on the company's network that ultimately led to his stealing of not just Half-Life 2's source code, but assets and other files that were enough to allow people to build a working, albeit unfinished, version of the game.

Gembe's attack began in September 2003, when Valve boss Gabe Newell's computer began exhibiting peculiar behaviour. Newell also discovered a few days later that one of his personal email accounts (a webmail account) had been compromised. Valve would later discover that not just Newell's computer, but several others at the company, had "keystroke recorders" installed on them, which let other people see what you've been typing on your keyboard (very handy for stealing passwords).

In other words, this was a very sophisticated attack. On September 19, 2003, an unauthorised copy of Half-Life 2's source code was made, and shortly after the lifted files were leaked onto the internet for all the world to see. And, even though the build was unfinished and unstable, actually playable (you can see some of the leaked build, featuring the cut Hydra and Alyx's old duds, to the left).

Valve boss Gabe Newell publicly acknowledged the hacks on October 2, at the same time asking Valve fans for assistance in tracking down those responsible.

The attack and subsequent leak was a disaster for Valve. The game ended up being delayed for months, and wouldn't be released until November 2004, over a year after it was supposed to be out. In the end, of course, the delay didn't matter, Half-Life 2 being one of the finest games ever made (the extra twelve months really helping), but remember, at the time, nobody knew that!

In its attempts to catch those responsible, Valve enlisted the help of the FBI, and a wacky attempt at luring Gembe (who had bizarrely confessed, albeit anonymously) to the US with a job offer failed, but by May 2004, Gembe's time was up. German police raided his home (actually on charges relating to his other hacking efforts, as the Germans didn't want him deported to the US to face the FBI) and he was arrested, though he'd escape jail time; in the end he was given two years' probation.

These days, the reformed hacker is repentant for his actions, telling Valve "I am so very sorry for what I did to you. I never intended to cause you harm. If I could undo it, I would. It still makes me sad thinking about it. I would have loved to just stay and watch you do your thing, but in the end I screwed it up. You are my favorite developer, and I will always buy your games."

Toy company NECA revealed at Comic-Con today that its range of merchandise based on the intellectual properties of Valve will start shipping in 2012. Oh, and they also let us know what they'll be!

While there are sadly no pictures yet of the figures or merch, here's what you'll need to be saving your money for next year:

HALF-LIFE 2

Gordon Freeman action figure

PORTAL 2

Atlas & P-Body action figures, replica Portal gun, "resin and plush" weighted companion cube

TEAM FORTRESS 2

Pyro, Heavy & Demo action figures

LEFT 4 DEAD 2

Boomer & Smoker action figures

So, mostly good news then! Bit of a shame about the L4D ones, though. I'd have liked to see the humans, Bill especially, up first.

It may be a little rough around the edges in some places, but in others, this fan-made Half-Life 2 movie is one of the most impressive I've ever seen.

Half-Life fan film [Super Punch]

In this Monday morning episode of Speak Up on Kotaku, commenter Cobaltios tells the story of how he drifted away from PC gaming, only to have Valve's downloadable PC game service drag him right back in.

Well, if it wasn't official before, I'd say it is now...

Steam has officially re-converted me to a PC gamer. Wait, what do I mean by "re-converted"? Well...

I actually debuted my gaming experience on the PC with DOS games, and for the most part, had always rather enjoyed playing games on the PC. Some of my favorite games were on the PC; SimCity, Roller Coaster Tycoon, MechWarrior, StarCraft (later on), Muppet Treasure Island (point and click adventure game that I thought was good) and a few other games that I've forgotten but were still definitely part of my gaming time.

However, at the time, installing a game and getting them to work was hella tricky. There would be settings that would prevent a game from working, components that needed to be upgraded for them to work... it was annoying.

Once I got into video game consoles, I started to go with that path and stick with it since it was far simpler to play video games on. Sure, I'd stick with consoles for the most and play some PC games on the side, but I wasn't playing as many games on the PC as I'd used to.

Eventually, I decided to completely stick with consoles for my gaming needs. I thought it was a good decision; games were cheap enough if you knew where to look, extra controllers were easy enough to find, and getting the game to work was relatively a simple matter. So, I pretty much just switched sides.

Then, sometime a little into 2007, during my last year of high school, I was introduced to the Half Life series (I had actually heard about it before, but was a bit apprehensive about it at first). Didn't give it much thought, but hey, okay cool. Then the whole buzz about Portal hit, so I checked out a few videos. My god, I had to play this! Only one problem, it was for 360/PS3/PC... but I didn't have either of the HD consoles... and I seriously doubted my PC could run it, but I decided to go through with it anyways. At this time, I had just moved to a new location (used to live in Alberta, now I live in Ontario) and therefore didn't have a job. So, yes, I pirated Portal. Granted, after actually giving the "burnt" copy a try, the game would crash after attempting to go through the first portal. Found out the "crash" was due to hardware being inadequate :P.

Somewhat discouraged, I came across something that essentially acted as a "free" version of Steam; PacCafe/Steam. It was designed to enable people to get certain games off of Steam for free. Lacking any means of actual funds, I gave it try, and decided to go with Half Life 2. Having already watched a walkthrough of the game, I knew what I had to expect and therefore was looking forward to it.

My PC could just barely run it. Slow, chugged, lagged, but still relatively playable. I eventually had a period where I sort of decided to ignore PC gaming for a while, and headed back to my other 2 consoles at the time, Wii and PS2.

However, after acquiring a better video card, and some extra RAM for my computer (CPU was still a bit "old", but still relatively functional at the time), I was then able to finally play Half Life 2 properly. I eventually tested it with Portal, and although a tad sluggish as well, it was still actually playable. I later bought both Portal and Half Life 2/Episode1/2 later on, but was still unable to use Steam properly due to lack of means to actually pay for things (didn't own a credit card).

I was still pro console gamer... up until a point in 2010. That was when I was in college, and I needed to pay for some food, but I had yet to receive my student loan. What did I do? I activated my credit card... and soon after, I would discover how to use it to pay for online games.

Hoo boy... started it with Knights of the Old Republic, after a classmate informed me of Steam having a $5 deal on it. I later bought Minecraft, which would essentially be my undoing. Minecraft would be my slow convergence into the PC gaming side... but it wasn't done yet. I later found out about the Left 4 Dead deal involving buying both games, plus the special event DLC... all for $10. You could imagine my surprise when I did this; after having bought console games for more than that for a single game, having all that... for $10, was a surprise in itself. Team Fortress 2 was next, being sold for $10 as well.

At this point, PC gaming for me was gradually picking up. The games that originally brought me back to PC gaming would also be acquired for the Xbox 360.

Then the Black Friday Steam sales hit last year. Man did I buy a lot of stuff. Some of it were indie packs, others were games I had initially pirated, but decided that for such a low price, I'm buying it!

When I finally did upgrade my PC proper (better CPU and motherboard), playing some of the more... troublesome games were a snap! Minecraft, being the bigger one, worked flawlessly (almost), and playing other games wasn't so bad. I eventually started playing more and more PC games. Many of them I had initially wanted for console, but the prices really appealed to me.

Things took an immense change just recently after both this year's summer sale, and me purchasing a PS2 to PC adapter; allowing me to use a PS2 controller to play my games with. Or at least those that could be optimized with one.

Now? My computer still can't quite play the vast majority of the games I've recently purchased, but now that I know of the components I need to upgrade in order to make them work, it's not so bad. Installing them is easier than ever, and even if they don't work the first time, patches, user feedback and the general community is there to make sure getting to play these games is incredibly easy.

Verdict: I haven't entirely reconverted, but let's just say I can understand the perspective of PC gamers more than I used to be able to, and my old PC gaming self is learning to make compromises between my console gaming self.

I still find the term of the "Glorious PC Gaming Master Race" a tad... "snobbish", as it were, but I do respect for their general views and the fact that PC gaming is quite versatile; even though it does require a decent cash deposit to get things working optimally. But, once you do, purchasing the software needed to make use of that, is a joke!

Source Code is a 2011 thriller starring Chesty "Jake Gyllenhaal" Jake. So it's fitting that when somebody made a replica machinima trailer of it, they made it using Half-Life 2's Source Engine.

Compare it to the original here.

[thanks everyone who sent this in!]

This poster, recently slapped up on the walls of some of New York City's subway stations, advertises the next season of AMC's Breaking Bad. But gamers like me who look at it will probably see something else.

Gordon Freeman, hero of Half-Life, is that you?

This is Freeman as he appears on the box art for 2006's Half-Life 2 in 2004. There hasn't been a new Half-Life game since 2007, despite fans' frequent pleas to series' creator Valve Software to make a new one.

Gordon, it's nice to see you again... sort of.

I don't watch Breaking Bad (I know, I know... I should). I'm guessing that there's no actual Half-Life crossover in the show.

As for this poster, others people appear to have noticed this earlier this month. I didn't catch it until this week, when the posters started going up at stations for Manhattan and Brooklyn's worst subway line, the C train.

Since it'll never actually happen, Martin Latta has gone and given the world the next best thing: unofficial LEGO Half-Life 2.

It's not the first custom LEGO we've seen around these parts, we know. But in building the Combine's colossal Strider, and nailing every detail about it, Latta does enough to stand out from the crowd.

While you're taking it all in, you should also check out the Combine Transport he built last year (as well as some Crysis stuff), also viewable from his Flickr page.

Half-Life [thire5 @ Flickr, via The Brothers Brick]

Between all the running and riding in little boats and more running you end up covering quite a lot of ground in Half-Life 2! What makes this somewhat unique, though, is that you do it all in immediate succession.

There's no cutscenes where you jump in a helicopter and reappear 1,000 miles away, or hitch a ride on a tank for a few days. Every area you enter leads on from the one you just left, meaning it's possible to draw up a map of the entire game.

Like this one! You lose most (well, all) of Half-Life 2's beauty, but that's more than made up for by the sheer scale of the thing.

That, and the dawning realisation that you end up spending the majority of the game going the wrong way.

You can expand the map into a readable size by clicking on it, but to get the full thing you can hit the link below.

HL2_overview [unleashthedog, via PC Gamer]

It looks more organic than robotic.

The four legs march under the barrel chest of the robot, snapping up two at a time in perfect precision. But when Boston Dynamic's creation, BigDog, is pushed, or it walks across ice, it suddenly looks very much alive as it stumbles to correct itself, and succeeds.

Designed to be the robotic replacement for pack animals or small vehicles, this future day robotic mule almost resembles the product of video games like Metal Gear Solid, Half-Life 2 or Portal.

Video of the quadruped robot first hit in 2008 and last month the company behind the design got an order for a super fast version and a human-like two-legged robot leading readers to liken their look to works of fantasy and fiction.

But robotics design company Boston Dynamics says the design similarities are purely coincidental. Their U.S. military funded robots are products of pure functionality, aesthetics doesn't enter into their creations.

"We did not do any aesthetic design on BigDog," said Marc Raibert, former MIT professor and founder of Boston Dynamics. "We talk about getting a designer to work on (the military version of BigDog), but have not done anything about it. We sometimes use artists to create concept sketches when developing new ideas for robots, but the robot designers do not use the sketches when doing the designs."

When people see his company's robots in action and think Transformers or robots from video games it's because of their own imagination, not his company's designs.

"I think much of what a person sees when viewing a robot comes from what is already in the person's head," he said. "Like a Robot Rorshach test."

Raibert says that the company has been in touch with some high-end car designers about the Legged Squad Support System, the follow up to BigDog destined for military use, but that they haven't hired anyone yet.

"We are working on LS3, which is the follow-on to BigDog and closer to fielding," he said. "It might get skins to help keep the dirt and water out. Right now we are focused on functionality. We might make a cosmetic pass later, but there are quite a few constraints just based on functionality, such as packing everything in and retaining mobility."

I asked Raibert if his company plans, during the final stages of design, to change the look of the robots meant for military use. Would he want to design them to instill a sense of fear in those that see them, or perhaps to help an operator form some sort of bond with the bots.

No, Raibert says, instead the company's focus is on "mobility, reliability, ease of use, range, load carriage, etc."

Raibert says his designers aren't even that worried about the uncanny valley. The notion of the uncanny valley first came up in robot design and later became a concern in video game graphics. The theory is that the more robots look and act like humans, the more revulsion real humans will feel toward them.

While Boston Dynamics is working on two robots that will take on the form of humans, PETMAN and the military-funded Atlas, the designers don't seem too worried about that valley.

"We sometimes talk about uncanny valley with respect to them, though the focus in our discussions is on their behavior and the quality of their motion, rather than on the exact robot shape and coverings," Raibert said.

And what of those first soldier destined to work alongside these bulking, four-legged and two-legged robots? Is it possible that a robot design could fail simply because the people who will work with them must are repulsed by them?

Raibert says his company hasn't done any studies to look into the possible effects of the uncanny valley on soldiers in the field, but he thinks Atlas, Cheetah and LS3's usefulness will outweigh any aesthetic issues.

"I think if the robots we built help soldiers and marines carry heavy stuff, so they don't have to carry it themselves, they will think LS3 or BigDog is a beautiful thing, no matter what it looks like," Raibert said. "Same for any other function that helps them with their jobs. For all I know, they may like it better if it is ugly, like the family mutt."

Well Played is an internationally syndicated weekly news and opinion column about the big stories of the week in the gaming industry and its bigger impact on things to come. Feel free to join in the discussion.

What if, instead of action figures and comic books, our favourite video games inspired classic, dog-eared works of literature instead?

These images by A. J. Hateley show us just such a scenario, taking some fairly random games - a little Half-Life 2 here, a little Deadly Premonition there - and basing torn old books on their stories and worlds. Some are literal interpretations - much like those we all so enjoyed back in 2009 - while others go a little further, becoming pieces of fiction merely based upon (or inspired by) the source material.

As a man who has allergic reactions these days to heady works of literature, I think I might just settle in with a glass of wine and that "Green Influenza" survival guide. You never know when it'll come in handy!

Wilderness As A Girl [AJ Hateley, via it 8-bit]