Valve has three big 'surprises' for us, is experimenting with biometrics

PC Gamer UK's recent trip to Valvejust keeps delivering bigger and better slices of mystery. According to Gabe Newell, Valve has "three pretty big surprises in the next 12 months." More surprises? Is the cancelled E3 surprise one of them? Is it Half-Life 3? Tell us Gabe!

Newell revealed,"I'm just laughing because... people will be shocked again." Dammit Gabe.

Above: Fictional?

Newell says that Valve's experiments have yielded "surprising side-effects," and that they may be able to implement the technology in "non-clunky, non-stupid ways" in the near future. Why would your skin galvanic response be important data for a game to have? Lots of reasons! Newell explained:

"If you're in a competitive situation and you see someone's heart rate go up, it's way more rewarding than we would have thought. And if you see somebody in a co-op game sweating, people tend to respond to that way more than we would have thought."

The idea that you could sense your friend's anxiety level as he's being crushed under a zombie dog pile is kind of awesome. We imaginethat severalsensors could be directly built into controllers, where your palm grips them. Is biometric sensing the new rumble? The new motion control?

There's more inthe latest issue of PC Gamer UK,so you should probably buy that, or so the chip Valve implanted in my spine tells me.

Sep 1, 2010