Lets start out with a bit of Half-Life 2 this morning! Sogamed is sporting an interview with Yahn from Valve Software asking a good number of questions about the demo recording and other questions related to spectating in Half-Life 2 (and of course CS: Source)

I think the high level commands are pretty similar. The playback fidelity of the HL2/Source demos is much smoother now. We have a couple of new tools, one is a VCR/DVD like Play/FF/Rewind UI element that lets you pause a demo. We made it so you can 'fly around' in a paused demo, which is really handy for getting exact screenshots. You just pause the action and fly around. Demos now can have an associated 'metadata' file (.vdm - Valve demo metadata) which can do things like screenfades, titling, issue console commands, change fov or playback rate etc. There’s a built-in GUI for playing with that stuff.

Also, a new Half-Life 2 trailer has made it way out onto the internet over the weekend that many of you will want to check out. Although the areas shown in the trailer arent anything new it does manage to give a good feeling of what it may be like to play the game.

Oh and on top of that, Maarten put together some videos and screenshots of the latest Counter-Strike: Source beta.