There’s been so much talk lately about Portal 2 and the Steam platform coming to the Mac.

And before there was the announcement of a new map for Left 4 Dead 2.

And there’s a constant stream of substantial updates to Team Fortress 2.

But Half-Life 2 Episode Three has just kind of vanished…  Which is kind of strange, because Half-Life is really what put Valve on the map.

Granted, it took them forever to roll out Team Fortress 2…  And that turned out to be a kickass game…  But we’re not talking about a stand-alone title here – this is supposed to be Episode Three, not Half-Life 3.

Slashdot | Valve Confirms Mac Versions of Steam, Valve Games

Valve will release a version of its Steam digital distribution service for Mac next month, along with Mac-native versions of its own games, the company confirmed today after days of hints — and owners of Valve games will have access to both platform versions. The Source engine, which Valve uses to develop all its internal titles and also licenses to third-party developers, will incorporate OpenGL in addition to DirectX, to allow Mac support for all Source developers. … ‘We are treating the Mac as a tier-1 platform, so all of our future games will release simultaneously on Windows, Mac, and the Xbox 360,’ said Cook. ‘Updates for the Mac will be available simultaneously with the Windows updates.’

Very, very nice.

I’ve always like the Steam platform.  Felt that it struck a nice balance between protecting publisher’s content and preserving the rights of the players.  So I’m happy to see them expanding their horizons.

This will be terrific for Mac gamers.

Yes, it’ll be nice to see Mac versions of some solid Valve titles…  But it’ll also be great for all the small game developers for the Mac, who don’t have a good marketplace or distribution platform for their software.  I can easily see folks like Ambrosia making good use of Steam.

I especially like the statement that Macs are going to be treated as a tier-1 platform…  Simultaneous release for both the Mac and the PC.  None of that waiting around for months to get a port or a patch.

And I love the fact that you’ll be able to use your Valve games on either a Mac or a PC, without having to re-purchase them.  In an age where publishers are rendering a game useless after a half-dozen installs, it’s truly refreshing to see someone let you use your game on two entirely different platforms.

Very cool stuff.

AvP Galaxy | First DLC Pack Out Soon

Two new Multiplayer maps for six different online modes (Deathmatch, Predator Hunt, Infestation, Species Deathmatch, Mixed Species Deathmatch and Domination):

Two new Survivor maps in which up to four Marines battle to stay alive against increasing swarms of Aliens

The “Swarm Map Pack” will be available on 18 March for €5.99/ £4.79/ 560 Microsoft Points.

Not sure what to think about this.

I guess I’d be happier to see a patch for some of the remaining issues than some DLC.  But I realize the DLC folks probably aren’t the same folks who write patches…  And, from the sound of things, there probably isn’t much coding involved in this DLC pack.

Which is the next problem…  They’re just releasing the 4 special edition maps as DLC.  This seems kind of crappy to me.  Makes the special edition less special.  And $5 for just four maps?

Meh.

I certainly want to see Sega make money off the game.  I’d like them to be successful and make more games like it.  But I’m just not very impressed.

As you play through Dragon Age there are various specializations you can unlock.  These are refinements of the three basic classes.  Rather than just be some generic warrior, you can be a champion, or a templar, or a berserker.

Some of those specializations take a good amount of time and effort to unlock…  Which means that you won’t generally get them until towards the end of the game, making them rather useless.  In order to combat this, a specialization isn’t unlocked just for that one character – they’re unlocked on your computer in general.  So you can roll up a new character and use those specializations from the start.

A side-affect of this is that you can game the system a bit…  You can save your game, purchase a specialization book for 15 gold, and then go back to your previous save.  You’ve still got the specialization unlocked, but you also have your money back.

This is handy for the specializations you can buy with gold, because it saves you some money…  But it’s insanely helpful for the specializations that require you to take dramatic action.

Over the weekend, I was given the opportunity to unlock the reaver specialization.

This requires you to do a very bad thing.  I won’t say much more than this, as my wife reads this blog, and I don’t want to be gutted with a rusty fish knife…

But, before I did the very bad thing I saved my game, because I didn’t want to live with the consequences of my actions.

At the time my party consisted of Wynne, Leliana, Alister, and myself…  When I did the very bad thing both Wynne and Leliana were horrified.  So horrified, in fact, that they drew their weapons and attacked me.

Frankly, I’m surprised Alister stayed by my side…  I can only assume that he’s required for some event or cinematic later in the game.

Well, I fought back…  And killed both Leliana and Wynne…

They did not get up after the battle.  Which makes sense, because they’re enemies.  It’d be a pretty annoying game if your enemies kept getting back up after you killed them.

But that’s kind of the point.

The fact that they didn’t get back up after the battle was a clearer indication of their rebellion than their shouted words and drawn swords.  Whatever magical protection allowed my party members to get back up after being felled in battle no longer applied to them.  They were now, officially, badguys.

Seeing them lying there after the fight was truly odd.  Especially when their bodies started sparkling.  And when I looted them, I was able to remove all the gear I had equipped them with.  It was so strange to see a character go from a trusted member of my party to an enemy – no different than all the swarms of darkspawn I’ve killed.

That, more than anything else, conveyed the awfulness of my actions.

More than the horrified looks on their faces…  More than their shouted objections…  More than the monsters appearing to punish me for my transgressions…  More than the dramatic cinematic sequences…

The fact that those two characters had changed from being party members to just another enemy to kill spoke volumes.

Slashdot | Ubisoft’s Authentication Servers Go Down

With Ubisoft’s fantastically awful new DRM you must be online and logged in to their servers to play the games you buy. Not only was this DRM broken the very first day it was released, but now their authentication servers have failed so absolutely that no-one who legally bought their games can play them. ‘At around 8am GMT, people began to complain in the Assassin’s Creed 2 forum that they couldn’t access the Ubisoft servers and were unable to play their games.’ One can only hope that this utter failure will help to stem the tide of bad DRM.

There’s some debate over whether this was simply poor design and implementation on Ubisoft’s part…  Or if it’s a DDoS…

But, to a large degree, that doesn’t much matter.  The servers are down and people can’t play.

Well, paying customers can’t play…  The pirates can.