Half Life Junkie

Kikizo have flared up an interview (3 pages long) with Doug Lombardi of VALVe Software regarding both Left 4 Dead and some small tid bits on Episode 3:

Kikizo: When are we going to start to hear about Episode Three? Because the gaps seem to be quite long based on the first couple of episodes.

Lombardi: Yeah, the next time you play as Gordon will be longer than the distance between HL2 to Ep1, and Ep1 to Ep2.

Kikizo: Won’t you announce or show anything on Episode 3 this year?

Lombardi: We may at the very end of the year.

And not available on PlayStation network, as Doug Lombardi confirmed whilst speaking with CVG:

“I’d call that today’s rumor,” a Valve spokesperson told CVG when quizzed on the subject. Today’s rumour, but tomorrow’s news, we said. “You’re smart to ask. But no,” Valve told us.

A.V. Club has struck up an interview with Mike Patton, someone who’s provided voice acting for VALVe Software (and Portal). Here’s a select bit of it:

AVC: You also had a brief appearance in Portal, the Valve game, and there’s talk about you perhaps appearing in their game Modern Warfare 2. MP: I think what they did is they took some material that I’d already recorded for Call of Duty, maybe it was vice versa. Basically that came out of the same session of work.

As announced at E3 2008. Check out the trailer at GameTrailers.

CVG has reported that VALVe have dislodged the inaugural concept art for Half-Life 2: Episode 3, which is to be shown at the “Into the Pixel” exhibit on October 3rd to 5th of this year. Check it out:

Dejecting, but it is so. Head on over to Kotaku to read up on the matter:

According to Valve’s marketing director Doug Lombardi Half-Life 2: Episode Three won’t be making an appearance at E3 this year, with the listing chalked up to a “misprint (or something).” We would assume that if Valve is showcasing anything at E3 this year, it will be Left 4 Dead which is planned for a November 4 release.

In regards to Episode Three, Portal’s sequel, etc, check it out at CVG (here’s a select excerpt):

You guys are taking your time with the Half-Life episodes, too. How’s Episode Three coming along?

Lombardi: Well, the gap between Half-Life and Half Life 2 was six years. It’s not quite four years since then and we’ve already released two follow-ups that we’re really proud of. We didn’t milk the cow, so to speak, and pump out more of the same content.

While the word ‘Episodic’ conjures up this idea of TV where episodes are aired every week, maybe that’s not the best term to use for this. I do think that we’ve hit upon something that allows us to have a more enjoyable development experience - to spend six years on the same game is kind of a death march.

We’ve hit with episodes around every 14-16 months. It won’t be another six years until you see Freeman, but it won’t be next week. I think we’re improving our ability to produce interesting new content in a more timely fashion.

Maybe it won’t be as long as Half-Life 2, but hopefully it’ll be just as good and just as innovative.

A select excerpt from Eurogamer:

“In typical Valve tradition, it won’t be Portal with different colours,” said Lombardi, dressed as a companion cube. “I think that when you hit something like that, you have two choices: you can quickly replicate it and stick it out there - do the opportunistic thing and cash in on it; or you can do the crazy thing like we did after Half-Life was so successful and go off and try and say, ‘Okay, that was revolutionary, so its successor has to be equally as revolutionary.’