Anyhoo, my outgoing email isn't working at the moment. So if you sent any love notes in the past couple days, I'm not being coy by not replying. I just can't. Doh. Hopefully soon!

Today's question:

If you could pick one dead game related company to make a comeback (could be a developer, a hardware maker, publisher, etc), who would you pick and why?

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Portal Preview 10:26 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (0 comments)
Game Informer tossed off a hands-on preview of Portal, which comes with HL2 Episode 2:

In Portal, you play as a new character in the Half-Life universe that is trapped in the Aperture Laboratory Facility. You learn more about what Aperture Science is by playing Episode Two than by playing Portal. However, you find out more about who you are in the Half-Life universe while you're playing Portal. "She" was all your character was referred to, and who "she" is has yet to be announced. Could your character be Alyx? Apparently "she" is not in Episode Two, according to Valve, but that could be just as much a trick as the rest of the game essentially is.

Quake Wars Diary 10:21 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (0 comments)
GameSpy popped up a new developer's diary for Quake Wars. The topic is: The Making of the Making of Quake Wars: Enemy Territory. Here's a snip of a snip:

I set to work with one major goal in mind: no matter what new features were added, no matter what changes happened under the hood (and by golly there are a lot of 'em), it still had to feel like Radiant; it had to stay a friendly home for our Radiant-bred level designers. Four years' experience with Radiant came into play as I set about gutting and rebuilding the beast from inside out. It always looked the same, which made an apparent lack of progress disheartening sometimes, but the improvements started piling up as I gained momentum. The rework ended up being quite a bit more work than planned (isn't it always?), but after several months the newly-christened "editWorld" rolled out to the level designers.

The biggest gain from the massive rewrite was the ability to tie several smaller worlds together into a larger one. Previously, if someone built, say, a quaint little shed, and wanted to place it in several places around the world they would have to copy and paste it to each location. When the time came to revise the hut (and those times come many, many times throughout a project) they would have to visit each location and update each hut separately (blech). Aren't computers supposed to automate repetitive tasks?

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. P.R. 10:18 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (3 comments)
In case you thought we were making the news up that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. went gold last week, here's the official press release:

THQ Inc. (NASDAQ: THQI) today announced S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl has reached the gold master stage of development and is now entering manufacturing. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl offers a unique combination of First-Person Shooter (FPS) and Survival-Horror action, set in open-world environment around a second apocalyptic explosion at the Chernobyl power plant. Developed exclusively for Windows PC, the game is scheduled the game is scheduled to release on March 23 in UK.

Halo 2 Vista Preview 10:15 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (4 comments)
Shacknews has a Halo 2 Vista singe player preview that's sporting some rather funky screenshots:

Visually, Hired Gun has removed the game's three levels of texture fidelity that on the Xbox resulted in the frequently criticized popping effect particularly common in cutscenes. On the PC, only the game's highest resolution textures are used. In addition, certain textures such as bodily fluid splatters have been redone at higher resolution, and shader effects have been rewritten for the game's DirectX 9 engine. However, Hired Gun has not actually recreated the game's main textures and geometry at higher resolutions or polygon counts--a time-prohibitive hypothetical effort--meaning that, particularly during close-up shots in cutscenes, Halo 2 is still clearly behind the modern PC game graphical curve. Of course, it will run at any resolution supported by the player's video card, which in itself helps the game's visuals.

MS Adds Achievement Points to Windows 02:46 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Action (10 comments)
Tired of being a PC gamer with a low gamerscore? Welp, it looks like Microsoft is going to start giving achievement points to PC games. Sorry, I mean Games for Windows. First up, is Halo 2 Vista.

Designing Achievements for "Halo 2" for Windows Vista
The Xbox version of "Halo 2" obviously predated the era of the Gamerscore, so this represents one of several compelling reasons to give "Halo 2" another spin. For the team, designing fun and significant rewards in a game that is already well-established was a bit challenging. This was accomplished with the help of the talented staff at Bungie Studios and Hired Gun, with a watchful eye on the latest trends in the gaming community. The achievements were designed with some fundamental goals in mind - keep the game fun, encourage beginners to join our "Halo 2" community, and provide a new challenge with a few tough or interesting achievements for our most dedicated fans.

C&C; 3 Screenshots 02:05 pm - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Real-Time Strategy (4 comments)
Three pimpin new screenshots of EA's Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars:

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World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.0.10 07:45 am - Elia 'Mithan' Doulia - Games: MMOG (5 comments)
Blizzard has released their World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.0.10 which is about 2.5MB's and contains numerous tweaks for WoW. Here is a list of some of the changes, but you can find the complete Patch Notes here.

General
• Some logic was fixed in the "Natural Remedies" quest so that Pathaleon the Calculator's Image will always spawn during the ritual.
• Goliathon and his shardlings can no longer be pulled to nearby areas that have guards.
• More fixes implemented in the "It's a Fel Reaver, But With Heart" quest to keep the Scrapped Fel Reaver from breaking.
• The Orb of the Blackwhelp and Hallowed Wands can no longer be used in combat, and the transformation will be canceled if the player receives damage.
• The Scrap Reaver in Netherstorm repairs reduced from 10,000 health to 8,500 health over 10 seconds.
• Battle of the Crimson Watch
  - Illidari Mind Breaker has been weakened.
  - Illidari Highlords can now be CC'ed but not Charmed.

Hardware & Tech Nuggets 02:05 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - hardware: General News (0 comments)

Audio

• Creative X-Mod - Playreaction

  Boards
  

• Asus M2N32 WS Professional nForce 590 SLI - PC Stats

  Cases
  

• GMC's middle ATX tower Media PC case - Metku Mods

  Cooling
  

• Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX - Overclockers Club
• Thermalright HR-03 Plus - Legion Hardware

  CPU
  

• Athlon 64 X2 4000+ Brisbane 65nm core overclocking - AMDZone

  Pads
  

• Ratpadz XT - XS Reviews
• SteelPad S&S; (New Improved Surface) - TechPowerUp

  Video
  

• PowerColor X1550 SCS - Bjorn3D

RPG Vault Goodness 02:01 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: Role-Playing (0 comments)

Developers at GDC - Part 2
More industry contacts' plans for the hundreds of programs and myriad unofficial activities at this week's event

Jonric's Blog
My road trip to the Game Developers Conference this week

Game Reviews 12:55 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - Games: General News (0 comments)

PC

• Jade Empire SE - Actiontrip - 80%
• Myst Online: Uru Live - PC.IGN - 7.6/10
• Supreme Commander - Game Revolution - A-

  360
  

• Dance Dance Revolution: Universe - Gaming Age - B+
• Major League Baseball 2K7 - GameSpy - 4/5
• NBA Street Homecourt - GameSpy - 4/5

  Wii
  

• Sonic and the Secret Rings - GameSpy - 3/5

  PS3
  

• Formula One Championship Edition - GameSpy - 4/5
• MotorStorm - Yahoo - 4.5/5
• Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection - PS3.IGN - 8.2/10

In Other News... 12:45 am - Robert 'Apache' Howarth - In-House: In Other News... (31 comments)
Allergies are wtf pwning me.

Today's question:

How do you feel about Valve adding mandatory ads to Counter-Strike?