Rumor Mill: Half Life 3 Steam Achievements Leaked?

If you are a true gamer than you already know about Half Life aka the biggest FPS series of all time. The Orange Box which included Half Life 2: Episode 2 was released 4 years ago and there has been nothing regarding Half Life 3 or Half Life 2: Episode 3 since. After the success of Portal 2 some have speculated that Valve doesn't even need Half Life 3 since it can make successful games without the Half Life name.

But after the rumor about Half Life 3 being announced at the VGAs hit people got extremely excited. A reader over at Stickskills.com found possibly the holy grail of Half Life 3 information. He uncovered the Steam achievements for the game.

It was soon discovered that the page where the achievements were located abruptly vanished. And by vanished I mean brought up an error page. There's always the possibility that this is real information but then again, things like these tend to be busted.

Steam to Start Rolling Out Faster Downloads, Tease Dota 2 Release 'Soon'

Steam is arguably the best way to buy video games on the PC, however downloading those games is a rather lengthy affair, especially with large games like The Witcher 2. Well Valve is hoping to help improve the speed of Steam downloads via a new content system. All of the deep technical details have been detailed in a blog post.

To put it in layman's terms, downloading games, DLC, and other content will be a much quicker process. HD trailers are already utilizing this new download system, with the first major piece of content being the long awaited Dota 2.

While Valve announced Dota 2 a while ago, they haven't shown us what it looks like or when it's going to be released.

"Over time, more and more of the content on Steam will be delivered using this new system." Says Valve. "Soon, Dota 2 will be delivered using it."

The key word there is 'soon.' When it comes to Valve though we don't necessarily know what 'soon' means.

Rumors have pointed to Valve giving an official unveiling of Dota 2 at Gamescon, next month in Germany.

PSA: Team Fortress 2 is Now "Free to Play" on Steam!

Need a really fast-paced, competitive, and just a hell of a lot of fun online FPS game? If you haven't played Team Fortress 2 yet, now's your chance, if you're playing it on PC. Originally released as part of The Orange Box from Valve Software in 2007, it has finally gone Free to Play on Steam! Yep, you don't pay squat to play at all!

I suggest go download it now and have a hell of a good time. There's a bit of a learning curve, but when you get used to it, you'll get addicted!

EA Games Start Disappearing From Steam

Lately Electronic Arts has been heavily pushing its new game distribution service Origin, claiming that it would be the only way to get the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic digitally. This raised a lot of questions, one of the biggest ones being how EA would continue to deal with Steam. It looks like we may have gotten an answer earlier today as we saw Crysis 2, Alice: Madness Returns, and Battlefield 3 all disappearing from the service.

Neither Valve or EA have commented on this yet, though other press outlets are reporting that a statement will be coming later today.

As of this moment you're still able to purchase older EA games such as Mass Effect 2, and Need for Speed games. It looks like EA is only holding back/pulling their upcoming and most recent titles with the hope to drive traffic to their new service.

As we learn more we'll let you know.

Cue the Sad Trombone, Valve Not Showing Any Games at E3

It seemed unlikely that we would hear about a new project from Valve so soon after Portal 2 came out, but it's hard to give up hopes that we may finally get to hear about Half-Life 3. Well Valve crushed the hopes of seeing anything at E3 this year when they announced they're not showing anything.

"We are not showing any titles at this year's show," says Valve.

Now this doesn't completely rule out Valve showing up at one of the big press conferences and surprising everyone. They did the same and showed the Left 4 Dead 2 trailer at the Microsoft's event, and Gabe Newell showed up at Sony's presser last E3 where he promised Portal 2 would be the best console version of Portal 2.

So while its not impossible for them to show up and blow everyones minds, just don't hold your breath.