Games industry news, gossip, and more at Playthrough » Valve

Escape from City 17 brings Half-Life to the streaming screen

Playthrough — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 09:42:43 +0000

With game-based movies being as big a disappointment as we expected, we’re extremely glad to see it being done right! With a hint of Battlestar Galactica, the commercial and film production super-team, The Purchase Brothers have taken their love for Half-Life, compiled a brilliant cast, along with respectable special effects, to create a guerrilla style production of Half-Life 2, titled “The Escape from City 17″.

The first two episodes were a gamble, made with a budget of around $500 (!!!), no crew, not very much time, no script and lots of post-processing effects and tricks. And all of this seems to be done with Valve’s approval, flying the brothers out to Seattle to meet and remaining in communication since.

The Escape from City 17 Part 1

German teen shoots and injures classmates then kills self, games and internet made him do it

Playthrough — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 22:25:16 +0000

There’s currently a firestorm brewing in Germany (and Austria) in regards to the recent school shooting involving a disgruntled student who recently shot up his school, injuring several classmates before killing himself. School tragedies like this are always an unfortunate incident and seem to always be followed by sensationalist reactions from press and politicians alike. Currently, the German and Austrian press are going all out, placing much of the blame on video games and the internet. You see, the shooter was a huge fan of Counter-Strike and also posted videos and his suicide note on the internet. Thus, the media have a perfect pair of scapegoats for which to cover up most adult’s inability to relate to their kids in any way shape or form.

Psychonauts gets all Steamy

Playthrough — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 20:54:31 +0000

The best game many of you have never played is now that much easier to buy and enjoy. Psychonauts, the legendary action platformer from game design guru Tim Schafer is now available via direct download via Valve’s Steam download service. Fast, cheap and with little effort on your part, you can get an amazing amazing game straight to your computer for only $19.95.