The Half-Life 2 Steam offers are now ready for purchase from Valve's Steampowered website. Details and pricing were already revealed yesterday, so check it out and have your pick. Those who purchase via Steam, will receive the final version of Counter-Strike: Source immediately. Half-Life 2 and other games in the Steam offerings will be made available to purchasers upon their release.

Tomorrow at 11 am PST, the Half-Life 2 Steam offers will be ready for purchase. Those who purchase via Steam, will receive the final version of Counter-Strike: Source immediately. Half-Life 2 and other games in the Steam offerings will be made available to purchasers upon their release. Read more for details and pricing for the various offers.

In Half-Life 2, the player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed back at Black Mesa. And a lot of people people he cares about are counting on him.

Fan site Half-Life Fallout has received word from Valve's Gabe Newell the various purchase choices Half-Life 2 fans will have once the game is officially released. Apart from that the rumor has it that whether Vivendi holds back HL2 or not, Steam users will have access to Counter-Strike: Source. Read more for the puchase details ...

The third phase of the Half-Life 2 preload begins to Steam account holders today. This will allow users to download the majority of the models of Half-Life 2 in encrypted form. No purchase is required to pre-load Half-Life 2, but is required to activate the game. The moment the game is made available, those who have pre-loaded and purchased Half-Life 2 via Steam will be ready to start playing right away.

Valve's Gabe Newell has been known to trickle out little information about Half-Life 2's progress now and then on the HL2Fallout.com forums, and it seems he did again just that Friday night. After a long night of partying or not, Gabe has posted a short blurb simply stating "We're going gold monday..." Various online retailers have been changing the HL2 release date in their db's to early September over the past week, and it seems, for once, they may be right.

Update: Seems this was a fake/hacked forum post... bummer!

Half-Life 2 pre-loading begins to Steam account holders today. Over the coming days, those who have selected the pre-loading option will have encrypted Half-Life 2 files delivered to their PC. No purchase is required to pre-load HL2, but is required to activate the game. Purchase options will be released soon. Then, the moment the game is made available, those who have pre-loaded and purchased Half-Life 2 via Steam will be authenticated and ready to start playing.

More indications surfaced today, giving more credibility to the rumor that 'Half-Life 2' might be released in September. Valve's Gabe Newell has posted some interesting information on the HL2 Fallout forums : "8/11 the Cafe's turn on (tomorrow). 8/16 CZ/ATI users pre-load. 8/18 CZ/ATI turns on. 8/17 HL-2 pre-load starts (textures, audio and other stuff that doesn't change)." This indicates that big parts of the game are in the final stage and are probably going to get pre-loaded to gradually build up to the full release.

In Half-Life 2 the player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed back at Black Mesa. And a lot of people people he cares about are counting on him. Read more for somenew screens ...

Valve's Gabe Newell has been spotted on the Half-Life 2 Fallout forum dropping by to post some info about who they signed to do the voice overs in HL2, available language versions and the size of the game. Half-Life 2 is about 3.5 GB uncompressed and about 2 GB compressed. This doesn't include CS:Source, HL-1:Source, DoD:Source, the SDK, or whatever (thanks Shacknews) Read more for list of the voice actors ...

Arrests have been made in several countries related to the break-in to Valve's network, theft of the Half-Life 2 source code, and release of the source code on the Internet. Read more for some additional details ...

At this years E3 Expo, there will be not one – but TWO – Half-Life 2 theatres to get a look at two different demonstrations with ALL-NEW content. Head over to South Hall and stop by the Vivendi Universal Games Booth #1200 and get your Half-Life 2 Access Pass to check out the demo and NOT have to wait in line – the access pass will get you into the demo at a pre-reserved time. After checking out the demo at the VUG booth, then head over to the ATI Booth #1608 - also in South Hall - for another ALL NEW Half-Life 2 demo.

In Half-Life 2 the player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed back at Black Mesa. And a lot of people people he cares about are counting on him (thanks Jeux-France). Read more for somenew screens ...

Noticed on VPRO that Polygon Magazine has a quote from Valve's Gabe Newell that Half-Life might be delayed until 2005. "We've already spent millions into this project, and we're willing to spend as much as we need to make this the best first person experience ever. If that means delaying the game to 2005, we'll do it without any hesitation. If it means sinking another $20 million into the project, we can do it. Rest assured, if we delay the game, it'll be only to blow your socks off even more when it finally releases."

Over on Slashdot they have a mention of a weblog on recent developments regarding the Half-Life 2 source code theft from last year. Apparently there is progress made by the FBI who have raided a San Francisco resident's home in relation to the leaking/theft of Valve's upcoming hit product. The article shows a scanned FBI search warrant. Go check it out!

Earlier today VU Games president of international operations, told Reuters the source code theft would result in a four month delay (Valve, though, has not confirmed that delay), pushing Half-Life 2 back to April 2004 (story). Now CNN reports following:

When hackers broke into the computing system of Valve Software, they stole more than just the source code to Half-Life 2. They also stole enough game maps and other components to put together a playable build of the game. Today, five days after the first leak, they have released that build.

Today's release of a playable version of the game brings Vivendi's comments from earlier today into question. Ramboz told Reuters "a third of the source code was stolen". However, with the stolen game now out, it's possible a more complete version of the source code was taken...

VU Games president of international operations Christophe Ramboz has been quoted on saying that "A third of the source code was stolen. It's serious because it forces us to delay the launch of the game by at least four months, that is to April 2004. Just the time to rewrite parts of the game." While previously Vivendi US had said it was delayed until the holiday season, with the recent source code leaked (and earlier this morning there are rumours of an actual BETA game leak) things probably got delayed further. To be continued!

Shacknews got some more details on the recent Half-Life 2 source leak from Gabe Newell (thanks Blues). Here is a clip:

1) We've taken our network connection down to pretty much a minimum. We're still finding machines internally that have been compromised.

2) The suite of tools that the attacker was using included the modified version of RemotelyAnywhere (basically a Remote Desktop-style remote admin tool), Haxker Defender (a process, registry key and file hiding tool), the key logger, and various networking utilities that allowed them to transfer files (compressors, NetCat, and FTP). We also are pretty sure they were sniffing our network to gather passwords and other information. Haxker Defender includes a file system driver that allows an attacker to have stuff on your machine that is invisible, unless you do something like mount the drive under another OS that has NTFS support.

We have determined one way of detecting some infected machines, which is using a connection viewer to detect connections to anomalous hosts external to our network.

We still don't know their entry method.

By now everybody heard about the leaked source code for Half-Life 2. While at first it was not certain these files were actually legit, it has now been confirmed by Valve's own Gabe Newell and he issued the following statement about it (thanks VE3D). Read more for the full deal ...

Shacknews has gotten word from Valve's Doug Lombardi that the long rumoured delay of Half-Life 2. Doug's reply states" The previously announced September 30th release date for Half-Life 2 is being pushed back. We are currently targeting a holiday release, but do not have a specific "in-store" date to share at this time. We will release that information as soon as we have confirmed a new date." Not really a big surprise, especially with the flimsy Steam service, but still a rather big disappointment.

Ensuring that the long-awaited sequel to one of the industry's most groundbreaking games will not only live up to five years of anticipation, but will also give gaming enthusiasts a reason to fasten their seatbelts in front of their PCs, Microsoft DirectX 9.0 will bring scientist Gordon Freeman and his creeping, shooting alien nemeses back to life - with the vibrant graphics and enhanced gameplay needed for a truly immersive experience - with the release of "Half-Life 2" by Valve Corp.

Developer Valve has revealed that it plans to offer a $9.99 monthly subscription system to purchasers of Half-Life 2, as well as releasing three separate versions of the game - which has now seemingly slipped to November. (thanks Gamesindustry.biz)

In an email, later confirmed as authentic, posted to forums on Half-Life2.net, and a later follow-up on the forum thread, Valve boss Gabe Newell confirmed that the company intends to offer an optional subscription which will grant members free additional content for Half-Life 2, delivered over the Steam digital distribution system.

Valve unleashed the seventh Half-Life 2 video via Valve's Steam distribution program. The new Barricade trailer runs a little over 2 minutes and showing off more gameplay footage from this upcoming FPS. Read more for download links ....

Ok, somebody needs to make up their mind and stop toying with all the HL2 fans out there. After a rumoured delay about a week ago, and then rather dismissed as a "miscommunication", our Nordic colleague's over at Gamereactor now have "confirmed" word from Vivendi Norway that HL2 is indeed being delayed. Now whether this is actually true, or maybe only for the European/Nordic version is not certain, but more details will most likely be available during the upcoming ECTS. Read the full article over at Gamereactor.

Valve, creators of Half-Life, the world's largest PC action gaming franchise, will team up with Vivendi Universal Games UK (VUG UK) at ECTS in London to present Half-Life 2 for the first time in Europe. In development for the past five years, Half-Life 2 was first unveiled in May 2003 at the E3 games convention in Los Angeles, where it received 12 Game of Show accolades and E3's Overall Game of Show award.