“There’s an idea we have for a game that we’d like to work with Valve on,” said Abrams, with Newell countering with “We’re going to figure out if we can make a ‘Portal’ movie or ‘Half-Life’ movie together.”

As things stand now, the two have a relationship to gather ideas and learn from each other. Do not take this announcement as a certainty Half-Life or Portal will be turned into a movie. Many movie ideas die off before they become a reality, let alone hit production. The keynote speech can be viewed as a way to garner interest in video games becoming movies, and perhaps more specifically, seeing how the audience would welcome the idea of a Valve title becoming a motion picture.

Abrams will have his hands full. He is or will be busy working on the next Star Trek and Star Wars sagas, so don’t expect a Half Life movie any time soon directed by Abrams. Abrams’ Bad Robot production company will team up with Valve on possible ways to create a Half Life movie. Should a movie become a reality, Bad Robot will head the production of the film, most likely somebody else directing.

Perhaps this collaboration is not about creating a Half Life movie? What if, and I think this is the more likely scenario, the two are working on the next installment of Half-Life? It makes more sense to release Half-Life 3 in the near future, rather than releasing a movie about a game that was relevant 8+ years ago. Without question fan expectations are going to be huge for the next HL as each year passes. What better way to exceed such expectations by tapping into the brain of the hottest movie director/producer out there? The formula is quite simple. 1) Develop a blockbuster AAA+ video game title in the next year or two. 2) Follow up video game with a related movie using the same company who just gave us the latest Star Trek and Star War movies.

The movie and gaming industry are all about timing. If you release one before it is relevant or long after anybody cares, then it is destined to fail. J.J. Abrams and Bad Company will be eating up the spotlight when their new movies start hitting the big screen and Valve will start to become a household name, more so, when their Steambox finds its way into people’s living rooms.

Grab your popcorn and enjoy the show, because things are likely to get interesting.

No comment about this announcement has been made by Valve. They have yet to confirm or deny these rumors.

When talking about First Person Shooters, it’s hard not to include Half-Life as one of the tops of its genre. It doesn’t seem right that these rumors would even consider Valve making HL3 an RPG.

Does Half-Life 3 have what it takes to step away from FPS and become an open world RPG shooter?

How do you feel if Half Life 3 was an RPG?

Half Life fans have something to hold them over while the wait for Half Life 3. On September 14th, the highly anticipated mod Black Mesa will be officially released. This will be a free mod and cost you nothing to play. This total conversion will not require Half Life: Source to play. As long as you have a working copy of a Source Engine game on Steam, Black Mesa will cost you nothing.

It should be noted Black Mesa will be released on September 14th, however, this will only include the first 14 chapters out of 18.

Download locations will be announced as the release date approaches. It would be nice if Valve hosted this mod on Steam to distribute, otherwise expect many servers crashing as people try to host this download. Torrents are another possible way this mod will be distributed quickly.

What is Black Mesa?

Black Mesa (formerly Black Mesa: Source) is a remake of the original 1998 release of Half Life using the Source Engine. Think of it as Half Life running on Half Life 2. It is a complete remake of Half Life using the same graphic engine HL2 used. Black Mesa will reintroduce the star character Gordon Freeman, along with the original characters and environments we saw in the first.

What about Half Life: Source?

Black Mesa was founded on the idea that Half Life: Source didn’t meet the expectations of fans as a suitable Source engine port to the original Half Life. Black Mesa developers were determined to fully reconstruct the Half Life universe to maximize the Source Engine to its fullest potential. The idea is to remake the storyline used in Half Life into a polished Source Engine version with detailed models, textures, maps, soundtrack, and voice acting.

Black Mesa System Requirements

Black Mesa will require the Source SDK Base 2007 to run. Many Source games purchasable through Steam come with the Shared Resources, including the SDK, that you will need in order to run Black Mesa. To see if you can run Black Mesa, open Steam and look in the tools tab. If you see an entry titled Source SDK Base 2007, you can run Black Mesa.

If your computer can run any of the Orange Box games:

Half-Life 2: Episode 2
Team Fortress 2
Portal
It should be able to run Black Mesa. However, if your computer struggles to run those games, it may not be able to run Black Mesa very well.

Orange Box Recommended System Requirements

• Processor: 2.4 GHz
• RAM: 512 MB
• Graphics Card: DirectX 9 capable graphics card with 256 MB VRAM

(Above requirements are based on the recommended for Team Fortress 2, minimum specs probably won’t work very well with Black Mesa)

Orange Box Ideal System Requirements

• Processor: 3.4 GHz
• RAM: 1 GB (1024 MB)
• Graphics Card: Radeon X800 or Geforce 6800 or higher.

(The above specifications are based on ideal requirements for Team Fortress 2)

ValveTime has found several references to Source 2 nestled in some Source Filmmaker script files. Below is a line of code found in a SFM script file that has a check for the current game engine:

Line 1387:

Pastebin Code

Source file if SFM is installed on your hard drive:

…/SourceFilmmaker/game/sdktools/python/global/lib/site-packages/vproj/vproj.py

”’Return an str with the current engine version.
If key doesn’t doesn’t exist, assume ‘Source’, otherwise invalid — assume next-gen ‘Source 2′.”’

There is further code references inside another Python script for Source Filmmaker:

Line 49:
_CONTENT = None
def content():
”’
returns a Path instance representing the %VCONTENT% path – path construction this way is super easy:
somePropPath = content() / ‘ep3/models/characters/alyx/maya/alyx_model.ma’
”’
…

Line 76:
_TOOLS = None
def tools( engine=’Source 2′ ):
…

The Pastebin for the entire SFM python file. If you have SFM installed you can see for yourself.

…/SourceFilmmaker/game/sdktools/python/global/lib/site-packages/filesystem/valve.py

Are you still not satisfied? Valve posted on their website We don’t like to brag, but Source is considered the most flexible, comprehensive, and powerful game development environment out there. And it’s about to get even better.

Valve themselves says “it’s about to get even better.” about the Source engine. And why not? Source engine has been around since 2004 and that is an amazing life span for a game engine. Even if Valve doesn’t officially rename it Source 2, they definitely have their developers coding for something new.

Valve business development chief Jason Holtman told Eurogamer that Valve loves the Valve Time tag line. Holtman described Valve Time as “charming” and “kind of a compliment”. “We like it,” he continued.

“Valve Time is interesting,” Holtman said. “To my mind, an interesting thing about being on the inside of Valve and working there quite a while is, what we’re always concerned with is doing what’s right for the customer; doing what’s right for the product. And people get an idea of Valve Time because they’re very used to how maybe other people work and bring things out. Other people have much more formalised schedules. They have dates they have like lines in the sand because of their structures.”

“When we get up to that, we may fully say at an E3 or a GDC, here’s a game coming out and here’s when we think it is. And then it doesn’t come out for a year. Or it doesn’t come out in the fall, it comes out in the spring. Hence we get tagged with Valve Time.”

So how did ‘Valve Time’ come about? Who started using the phrase and why? The concept seems to apply most to Half-Life 3, or Half-Life 2: Episode 3, whichever is slated to release next. It has been five years since Episode 2 and fans are waiting for their trilogy promised six years ago.

Do you remember how it took Half Life 2 six years to develop? I sure don’t. What I remember most is stepping off the train and being amazed by the vast new world that had risen from the ashes of Black Mesa. I remember rescuing Eli and how I had to stay off the sand. I remember cruising in my dune buggy trying to perform suicidal jumps. I remember the Citadel and the G-Man standing above reminding me of the present forces beyond my control.

The point being, when Half-Life 3 does come out, we will eventually forget how long we had to wait and instead be talking about the game and how it took us places beyond belief. How the situations we were put in came about and how we over came them. We will get out thrill. We will get what we ask for. For now, we must sync our watches to Valve Time and wait.

Current generation consoles are approaching their end of life cycle and next generation consoles are around the corner. It makes logical sense that Half-Life 3 would be the next-gen title to take full advantage of the next Xbox and Playstation hardware. If Half-Life 3 does receive a new or major Source Engine overhaul, then I would bet it would also take advantage of the next-generation consoles rather than be built for what is out there today. PC gaming is much more powerful than what today’s consoles can handle. I don’t see the reason to develop a game that will quickly be obsolete by the time the Xbox 720 hits the stores. Instead, waiting for the new console specs to be finalized so game developers like Valve can develop towards that platform makes more sense. If we expect Half Life 3 to be the next ground breaking game we saw in Half Life 2, then releasing before the new Xbox and PlayStation 4 makes no sense. Why would Valve wait so long to release a game on hardware that will soon hit its expireation date?

The Xbox 720 is speculated to launch in November 2013. If this rumor holds true, then a 2013 E3 announcement about Half-Life 3 being released across platforms seems more likely. As each year passes the chances of a new Half Life only grow. 2012 doesn’t look to be the year, but hopefully in the next year or two we will hear big news.

Mark my words, “We will see Half-Life 3, Left 4 Dead 3, and Portal 3 released on the next generation consoles.” – Gordon Freeman, HalfLife3fans.com

I thought to consider myself to fall in the “I don’t care, I just want to see another Half Life release.” group, but I think I would rather see a complete brand new game. If it hasn’t been so long (years) since Episode 2, I would be pushing more for Episode 3. I bought into Valve’s idea of episodic gaming and welcomed playing new short content. It was an interesting concept and HL 2 was the hot new game with the perfect story in place to pull it off. But here we are, years after HL2 with no signs of a new HL in the pipeline. I think releasing EP 3 would be a slap in the face to us fans. Almost like, throwing us a bone or giving us table scraps to hold us over. It’s a risky move, because if Episode 3 is released and falls short of expectations, it will certainly leave a sour taste in people’s mouth for any future Half Life releases. EP 3 will have immensely high expectations and if it doesn’t deliver what fans expect/want, then how likely are they to purchase a full retail standalone in the form of Half Life 3? I think Valve would be better off skipping Episode 3 and going straight to HL 3.

When you talk about Half Life 3 are you referring to the next full featured stand alone game, or any future release including Episode 3? What do you want to see, Episode 3 or Half Life 3?