If you're a Half-Life (or Left 4 Dead) fan, and you haven't yet seen the recently released fan-made short film, Beyond Black Mesa, do yourself a favor.

We reached out to get some more information about how the project came together from Brian Curtin, who directed, produced, wrote, edited, acted, and art-directed the film, among other things. Making a high-quality fan-film on a shoestring budget (while working full-time) isn't an easy task, but Curtin and his cabal of film and Half-Life enthusiasts persevered to pull off one of the better bits of cinematic fan-fiction based on video games that we've seen to date. Read more »

Since the launch of Steam for the Mac and the release of Valve's back-catalog of Source-engine titles, Valve has been "working with Apple and their GPU vendors to close the performance gap with Windows." It has paid off!

The latest Mac OSX update, released yesterday for Snow Leopard implemented changes that led Valve to see, "depending on the game, video settings and the hardware.. measured frame rate improvements from 15% to 120%." Read more »

[Update: 12:41pm] Steam has updated the sale again, replacing Crysis with the Crysis: Maximum Edition for $19.99. Crysis remains $14.99 alone. Earlier, Day of Defeat was swapped with Day of Defeat: Source; however, Day of Defeat remains 75% off.

Another day, another set of titles on sale during the Perils of Summer promotion on Steam. Make sure to keep your eyes peeled and your wallets at the ready, as a few of the deals we initially reported yesterday were changed soon after they had been announced. Read more »

The Half-Life 2 Collection and EVE Online: Tyrannis represent this week's latest additions to the Steam for Mac digital distribution platform, operator Valve has announced.

The Mac editions of Valve's celebrated shooters Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One and Half-Life 2: Episode Two are now available through the digital distribution platform, while Tyrannis--the lastest update to CCP's space-faring MMO EVE Online--will hit "later today" and marks "Steam's first day-and-date release for the Mac and PC." Read more »

[Update 4:47 PM - BL] Valve has confirmed to Shacknews that this release includes Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Half-Life 2: Episode 2.

[Original Story] Gordon Freeman's epic adventure through City 17 will hit the Mac version of Steam sometime tomorrow. To tease this, Valve has released an homage trailer to the landmark 1984 Apple Macintosh commercial. Read more »

Never one to follow convention, Team Fortress 2 developer Valve Software is celebrating the class-based shooter's 119th update with a grand bonanza that will reward players with gold, siver or bronze in-game medals according to their veterancy.

'Grizzled Veterans' who began playing within the first three months after release will receive the top medal, followed by 'Soldiers of Fortune' who started within three months to a year after release, while 'Weekend Warriors' who began after then will receive bronze medals. Valve has yet to reveal when exactly players will be decorated. Read more »

The Mac OS version of Valve's digital distribution platform Steam will be released on May 12, the company confirmed today.

No other details on the launch were given--the announcement was a brief two sentences--though it will presumably debut alongside the native Mac versions of Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal and the Half-Life series originally slated to launch with the Mac client in April 2010. Read more »

After some heavy-handed hints, Valve today confirmed that it will be bringing its previously Windows-only digital distribution platform Steam to the Mac in April 2010.

Said the company: "Steam and Valve's library of games including Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal, and the Half-Life series will be available in April." Read more »

While countless mods have offered 'jailbreak' modes over the years, the new release of The Orange Box mod Jailbreak: Source presents it in a very unconventional way--pitting robots against dinosaurs. The 400MB download of Version 0.6 can be found over on FileShack.

Jailbreak revolves around capturing enemy robots/dinosaurs by killing them while fighting to break out your own imprisoned comrades, who can also try to escape through hazardous routes filled with wacky traps. Read more »

Video games have already covered hypothetical Nazis dabblings in the occult but how would World War 2 have played out were Hitler fascinated with something far, far older? Download the 438MB Half-Life 2 mod Dino D-Day from FileShack to find out.

Dino D-Day is described as a "prototype" for a planned commercial release on Steam in 2010 so it's not quite fleshed out yet but there are indeed Nazi dinosaurs to hunt. Read more »

The idea of replacing a game's sound effects with human vocal reproduction isn't entirely new, and has often been done to varying degrees of success. Enter the "All Sounds Replaced with My Voice" mod for Half-Life 2.

Noticed by the chaps over at RockPaperShotgun, the mod--created by modder Trase--replaces 1327 sound effects in Half-Life 2 with the author's vocal interpretation of the original booms and splats. It's funny, and also a little fascinating. Read more »

After announcing an agreement nearly one year ago today, Valve has updated its Orange Box games--Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2, and Portal--to support Novint's Falcon three-dimensional controller. Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike: Source and Day of Defeat will also soon receive similar updates.

The $150 Novint Falcon (shown left with optional pistol grip) was released in 2006. The three-dimensional "haptic" device is operated by a small spherical grip connected to three robotic arms. Read more »

A technically impressive recreation of Half-Life 2's City 17 marks the first entry to "Escape from City 17," a new series of webisodes that combines live-action footage with Half-Life 2 assets and other digital effects.

The series is directed by brothers David and Ian Purchase. Their website's down, but check out their YouTube page for more info.

Beloved developer Valve has released lifetime retail sales figures for some of its more popular games, including the Half-Life and Counter-Strike series, revealing that the studio has sold over 32.8 million games since the 1998 release of the first Half-Life.

Sales from Valve's digital distribution client are not factored in, with the figures only accounting for worldwide retail sales. With Half-Life 2, Valve began simultaneously releasing all of its PC games at retail and via Steam. The numbers were originally printed in the November issue of Game Informer, then republished by Gamasutra. Read more »

Back in 2004, a small team began crafting a mod that would recreate Valve's first Half-Life with the latest in graphical bells and whistles. Come 2008, it's still in development, and the Black Mesa team has produced a trailer of its work.

Powered by the Source Engine, and thus requiring a Source-powered game such as Half-Life 2 in order to run, the oft-anticipated mod is expected to arrive on PC in 2009.