Set in a modern day survival-horror universe, the co-operative gameplay of Left 4 Dead casts four "Survivors" in an epic struggle against hordes of swarming zombies and terrifying "Boss Infected" mutants. Valve has released a server-side fix on all dedicated Left 4 Dead X360 servers to halt the cheating behavior reported by the community. A title update for those playing on user-hosted servers and/or via system link will be released in the coming days.

Valve is always looks around to see what people want in their next game, and so far it has mainly been done by watching people play, how they react, what they like or dislike. But according to a recent interview with Valve co-founder Gabe Newell the Half-Life developer wants to go further by measuring brain activity using "new technologies where we can wire players up with EEGs and actually have direct exposure to their physical reactions to the games," so "know for sure of something is actually frightening the player--their heart rate is going up ... appropriate parts of their brains are being activated"

Valve is running a special promotion offering its entire back catalog of titles for $99. The Valve Complete Pack not only includes classics like Half-Life (and expansions), Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2 (and its episodes), Portal, but also the upcoming zombie shooter Left 4 Dead, and for the more casual gamers Valve also throws in Peggle Extreme.

Valve announced the roll out of Steam Cloud, a set of services for Steam that stores application data online (keyboard, mouse, and gamepad configurations, as well as multiplayer settings such as spraypaint images) and allows user experiences to be consistent from any PC.

Ever since Valve released The Orange Box, the PC edition has received numerous updates, especially the Team Fortress 2 portion, and a cumulative update is planned for the X360 version. In a recent interview, Valve's Gabe Newell revealed that it has no plans to issue these updates for the PS3 version since it was not done internally, and EA is not working on anything. Newell also reiterated that there is no PS3 version of its zombie shooter L4D in the works simply because "We don't have the bandwidth," which means they do not have the manpower for it.

Last week, Dutch police's Team High Tech Crime arrested 20-year-old MaddoxX in Maastricht, charging him with hacking into a Valve file server and stealing credit card information from Steam Cyber Cafe users, as well as an Activision server where he downloaded and leaked an early version of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. MaddoxX first came into the news when he publicly posted credit card numbers and account balances after he had contacted Valve about their network vulnerabilities.

Valve announced that its digital delivery service Steam is getting a big upgrade in the near future. Currently it allows you to access your games from any computer but with Steam Cloud you will also be able to store & retrieve game data such as save games, keyboard configurations, game settings, and eventually even screens and movies, unlimited & free. Steam Cloud will first come to the Half-Life titles, CounterStrike, Team Fortress 2, as well as the upcoming Left 4 Dead, and eventually become part of Steamworks. Other features will be driver updates, calendar, system spec checker, events, localized pricing, etc..

Steamworks is a complete suite of publishing and development tools that offers PC game developers and publishers free access to the game features such as product key authentication, copy protection, auto-updating, social networking matchmaking, anti-cheat technology, and more.

Last month, Valve's marketing director Doug Lombardi mentioned that apart from new Team Fortress 2 maps, there would also be more Portal to come, but the "details were still being worked out." While no new information was revealed, Portal's lead designer Kimberly Swift gave further confirmation by saying, "I believe Doug Lombardi, who is our lead marketing director at Valve, has announced Portal 2" during an interview with G4TV. Rejoice!

Team Fortress 2 is a class-based, multiplayer team warfare game, delivering new game types, a signature art style, persistent player statistics, etc... As promised, Valve has released a Free automatic update for TF2 via Steam. The release includes the introduction of "Badlands," a new map that pushes control-point gameplay onto vertical landscapes, and various fixes & tweaks.

Valve today announced that its digital delivery platform Steam has surpassed 15 million accounts and realized year-over-year sales growth of 158% through the holiday season.

Valve, known for Half-Life, Counter-Strike and its digital delivery system Steam, announces that Steamworks, a complete suite of publishing and development tools - ranging from copy protection to social networking services to server browsing - is now available free of charge to developers and publishers worldwide.

Valve announced is has acquired Orange County-based Turtle Rock Studios, the development house behind Left 4 Dead.

Steam's latest hardware survey shows more gamers play on NVIDIA GeForce hardware than any other graphics platform, so in an effort to further show its support Valve is offering all NVIDIA gamers a free copy of its special edition Portal: First Slice.

Today Valve introduces the ability to purchase any game on Steam and send it as a gift to anyone in the world. To send a gift, customers simply select one of the games on Steam and then indicate that the purchase is a gift at checkout. Within minutes, an e-card is delivered directly to the recipient's inbox. If the recipient is new to Steam, they'll receive everything they need to get started.

Valve has released an updated Source SDK through Steam with content and tools to create custom games for Half-Life 2: Ep. Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2, as well as continued use for other Source engine-based games, such as Half-Life 2: Ep. One and Counter-Strike: Source.

TF2 is a class-based, multiplayer team warfare game, delivering new game types, a signature art style powered by Valve’s next generation animation technology, persistent player statistics, and more. On Oct. 19 from 3-7 PM PDT (6-10 PM EDT), Xbox LIVE Gold subscribers will have the chance to take on Valve.

After running a public beta version for several months Valve has launched the official Steam Community, an expansive set of social networking and online multiplayer features, as it prepares for the launch of the Team Fortress 2 beta, which is scheduled to begin on Monday, September 17, 2007.

Valve announced it has rolled out the public beta for its largest Steam update yet. The update, which will be available free of charge, introduces an expansive set of social networking and online multiplayer features to its digital delivery platform.

Valve announced plans to deliver Half-Life 2: Lost Coast and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch to all owners of ATI Radeon graphics cards. Steam will automatically confirm the presence of ATI Radeon hardware and then enable immediate access to full versions of the games free of charge.

Eidos Interactive and Valve announce the availability of an additional seven games via Steam. The latest wave includes games from the Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Thief series of games. Plus catch the Eidos Action Gang, a limited-time collection featuring Just Cause, Snowblind, and Rogue Trooper together for just $59.95.

Hinted at a few days ago, Eidos Interactive and Valve today announced an agreement to deliver dozens of new and best-selling PC titles via Steam.

Valve announced that it is overhauling its Steam digital delivery service next week, adding new features such as Guest Passes, Background Client Updating, and a completely updated user interface, and more.

Valve announced that later this week it will start the closed beta for Guest Passes, a new feature that will allow owners of certain Steam-enabled games (purchased either via Steam or at retail) to send a friend limited-time trials for those games. Although the feature will be listed in the menu, it will not be active, but when this closed beta concludes, Valve will extend the Steam Guest Pass Beta to Day of Defeat: Source owners.

Good news for gamers without credit cards: Steam now offers support for PayPal as an alternate payment method. Every title available via Steam, including the recently released Medieval II and Dark Messiah, may be purchased with PayPal or any of the existing payment methods.