Could it be ... Half-Life 3?

And when I say "Half-Life 3," I do not mean "Half-Life 2, Episode 3." 

Consider the following:  There was a gap of five years between the original Half-Life and HL2.  During that time, Valve created the Source Engine to replace the GoldSrc Engine that powered HL1.  

Half-Life 2 was released on November 16, 2004.  HL2-Episode One followed about a year and a half later, in June 2006, and Episode Two showed up about 16 months after that, in October 2007.  That's when the Orange Box was released, which included a pretty hefty update to the Source Engine.

So, we're coming up on three years.  The notion of "episodic content" -- wherein shorter Half-Life installments are released over shorter intervals -- has withered and died.  Episode One took forever, but it didn't take three years.

As we noted a few days ago, Valve has a surprise in store for their June 14 E3 exhibition, and Gabe Newell later said (maybe) that the surprise is not Episode Three.  Fire up the rumor mill.

VG247 says it has a source, and that source is saying that the surprise may, in fact, be the announcement of Valve's Source Engine 2.  The anonymous informant is even saying that the game the next Source Engine will be running at E3 might just be Half-Life 3.

After three years, maybe it shouldn't be a surprise, but if this is real ... holy hell.  I've been predicting this since L4D2 came out -- without Episode Three -- and I still don't believe it.

(I'm not being facetious here.  I really don't believe it.)

Adobe software sports "critical security flaw"

From the BBC:

Adobe has acknowledged a "critical" security flaw in its Reader, Acrobat and Flash Player software.

Adobe says the vulnerability potentially enables hackers to take control of affected computer systems.

Users running Windows, Macintosh or Linux might all be open to attack.

The company is working to fix the problem. In the meantime, users of Reader, Acrobat and Flash are advised to ensure their anti-virus software is up to date.

"It doesn't really get any worse than a 'zero-day' vulnerability like this," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, a security software company.

He said that hackers could create a "booby-trapped Flash animation, or PDF" that would give them access to a person's computer, potentially allowing them to harvest personal information or use the machine to send spam messages.

UPDATE: They say it's fixed.

Deus Ex 3

As game trailers go, this is one of the best you'll ever see.

ATI Catalyst hotfix for BF2

ATI Catalyst™ 10.5a Hotfix features:

The ATI Catalyst 10.5a Hotfix provides resolution for the following issue:

    * Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - Long load times for new maps when using a Windows® 7 / Windows Vista® based system with an:

          o ATI Radeon HD 4xxx series graphics card

          o ATI Radeon HD 3xxx series graphics card

          o ATI Radeon HD 2xxx series graphics card

Download: In order to download and install the ATI Catalyst 10.5a Hotfix, click on the following link (edit:  the link will take you to ATI's hotfix page):

    * ATI Catalyst 10.5a Hotfix for Windows 7 / Windows Vista 32-bit / 64-bit Edition

Yeah, about Alpha Protocol

This may well be creative fakery, but someone claiming to be an Obsidian dev is slamming the game they just released:

Posting in the comments section of Joystiq's Alpha Protocol review (which calls the game "a technical nightmare"), the anonymous Obsidian man - known only as 'a tired dev' - backs up the US site's negative comments.

"I worked on this game (a fact of which I am not proud). I'm not here to defend it; I agree with all these reviews," the post reads.

"The Executive Producer for the game, Chris Parker (also an owner of the company), seemed to think he was the world's greatest designer ever, and created all these absolutely shitty systems and wouldn't listen to any of the real designers or devs about things that just didn't work.

You can read the rest of rant at CVG.

The best part?  The same developer is working on Fallout: New Vegas.

surprise

Dear Subject Name Here,

Aperture Science is pleased to inform you that we have partnered with Valve to announce the gala CANCELLATION of the June 14 Portal 2 event at the Regal Theater. The event will be replaced by a surprise. And even though the cancellation of the event certainly counts as a surprise, we are pleased to further announce that the cancellation of the event is not THE surprise. However, per International treaties regarding the definition of the word "surprise", of which both Aperture Science and Valve are signatories, the time, date and content of the actual surprise will only become available as you experience the surprise.

If you'd like to ask fruitless questions about the E3 Portal 2 surprise or, more fruitfully, schedule an appointment to attend a Portal 2 screening at the Valve booth during E3, please contact Valve's Special Envoy to Surprises, Doug Lombardi.

Thank you for << RECORD SCRATCH!!! >>

PS: The surprising record scratch is also not the surprise.

GT reviews Alpha Protocol

It ain't pretty:

Video Games | Alpha Protocol | Review HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Sapphire Radeon HD 5970 4GB Toxic Review

Review on Bit-Tech.net.  The specs:

• Graphics processor 2 x ATI Radeon HD 5970, 900MHz
• Pipeline 2 x 1,600 stream processors (900MHz), 2 x 32 ROPs
• Memory 2 x 2GB GDDR5, 4.8GHz effective
• Bandwidth 2 x 153.6GB/sec, 256-bit interface
• Compatibility DirectX 11, OpenGL 3.1
• Outputs/Inputs 2 x DVI, 1 x mini-DisplayPort, 1 x CrossFire
• Power Connections 2 x 8-pin, side-mounted
• Size 310mm long, triple-slot
• Warranty two-year

More badness

From Kalms on the Steam Bad Company 2 forums (today):

Client R8 / Server R12 are in QA

-----------------------------------------
The next release of the game client is currently in QA.

We will perform another synchronized client/server update. It is expected to take place early next week.

The client update will be roughly 500MB in size.

Changelog:

Server - Some potential sources for lag/rubberbanding have been eliminated
Server - The old reserved slots has been replaced by a kick-on-demand system like in BF2
Server - Log file for server admins: all remote admin interface commands/events are logged
Server - Log file for server admins: major server events + all chat messages are logged
Server - Idle kick is controllable
Server - Profanity filter can be disabled
Server - Teamkill-kick system is controllable
Server - Ticket counts and bleed rate are controllable per-level
Server - Infantry only mode available per-level
Server - Initial spawn delay and respawn delay are adjustable
Server - Server description can be up to 400 characters, and use "|" for line breaks
Server - Banlist can contain up to 10.000 entries
Server - reduced latency in packet handling

Admin Interface - fixed the player.onKill spam that occasionally happened
Admin Interface - ensured that player.onJoin events always report the player name
Admin Interface - events triggered when people spawn
Admin Interface - much more info on kills
Admin Interface - detailed stats are reported at end-of-round

Gameplay - Various minor level bugfixes
Gameplay - Helicopter handling has been tweaked
Gameplay - Weapon tweaks have been implemented based on PC public feedback
Gameplay - Fixed technical hang when a crate was armed outside of the combat area
Gameplay - "Victory is near" message was shown for the wrong team on Valparaíso, this has been fixed
Gameplay - Countermeasures can be fired when driving a helicopter
Gameplay - The brightness of the pilot view in the Russian helicopter has been reduced
Gameplay - Advanced Spotting scope works better
Gameplay - Knifing people in the back works again (we backed out the change that we had done for Server R11)

Server Browser - Servers are sorted into 3 categories: Normal, Modified, Hardcore depending on their settings
Server Browser – Added support for retrieving update progress
Server Browser - Now refreshes information
Server Browser - Join queue system when attempting to join a full server
Server Browser - all settings are automatically saved between sessions
Server Browser - Pings are sent via an alternate mechanism, which should work for non-Administrator users as well

Client - Fixed DX9 issue, which likely caused graphics glitches and perhaps crashes
Client - Fixed some crashes
Client - Toggle/hold crouch is user controllable
Client - Toggle/hold zoom is user controllable
Client - Vsync bugfixed for DX10/DX11
Client - Rewritten how settings are written to disk; this should reduce/eliminate the spawn lag
Client - Fixed bug where a player could join a server before the stats has been downloaded causing faulty stats in "EOR- unlock progression"-screen
Client - New chat system allows chatting when dead (but not during end of round) and keeps a 100 lines log
Client - Improved Play Now functionality
Client - Removed K/D ratio and Skill Level filters in the leaderboards
Client - Any points you get while being dead will be added to your score
Client - Reduced negative mouse acceleration
Client - More informative disconnection/kick reasons

Manual, for server administrators: http://static.cdn.ea.com/dice/u/f/bf...inistrator.zip

Through infinity, and beyond

The Infinity Ward saga, by the numbers [UPDATED]:

500,000,000 – the total sales, in USD, that Modern Warfare 2 made the day it went on sale.

1 – the number of video games that have outsold Modern Warfare 2, all-time (that's Wii Sports).

6 – the number of years that have passed between the release of the original Call of Duty and Modern Warfare 2.

112 – the number of days that passed between the launch of Modern Warfare 2, and the firings of Jason West and Vince Zampella.

2 – the number of days that passed between the firing of West and Zampella, and their announcement that they were suing Activision.

36 – the number of days it took for Activision to countersue West and Zampella.

41 – the number of days that passed between the firing of Jason West and Vince Zampella, and the announcement of the formation of "Respawn Entertainment."

34 – the number of employees that have left Infinity Ward since March 2, 2010.

25 – the  number of ex-IW employees that have officially joined Respawn Entertainment.

28,000,000 – in dollars, the total amount that Activision has paid in bonuses to Infinity Ward employees to-date.

54,000,000 – in dollars, the total amount of bonuses that Activision is withholding, pending litigation.

38 – the number of current and former IW employees (not West and Zampella) that are suing Activision for their bonus money.

10 – the number of years that Activision will have exclusive publishing rights to Bungie's next franchise (not Halo), as part of a recently-announced deal