Eurogamer Said: Valve has said it will definitely be making more Portal, confirming plans to add significantly more than just "a bunch of new puzzles".

Speaking to Eurogamer, spokesperson Doug Lombardi said it was less a matter of if and more a matter of what and when.

"There'll be more Portal, for sure. But the details of that, to be honest, we're still working out," he said.

"The only smart thing we did for Portal was to hire those seven kids and give them the support they needed to make the game."

Unsurprisingly Valve is reluctant to be rushed by a release schedule. It's adopting the same policy for Half-Life 2 finale Episode Three.

"Gordon is our number one guy," said Lombardi. "In Episode One I think we left people with some big questions. After Episode Two people saw it was going somewhere.

"With Episode Three we want to live up to the promise of where we are taking things to; there's a lot of work being done to make sure we deliver on that promise."

He added, "Exact details on what's next for Gordon are a way off; probably months not weeks."
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Valve's Portal and 2K Boston/Australia's BioShock lead the nominees for the eighth annual Game Developers Choice Awards with five nominations each, including the coveted Game of the Year title, organizers have announced.

The Game of the Year category also includes Infinity Ward's Call of Duty 4, which follows with four nominations and, with both games receiving two nominations each, Harmonix's Rock Band and Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy.
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18th Jan, 2008 [Warning: Like our Portal article from December, this piece features some pretty heady discourse, and also benefits from a visit from Mr. Narrative Theory. If that stuff makes you run screaming, then feel free to run screaming. Also, if you haven't completed Half-Life 2, leave now. This contains some inhuman spoilers.] Half-Life 2 is widely and rightly regarded as a modern classic. In terms of both gameplay and artistry there have been few, if any, games in the FPS genre which ...
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Jin Saotome's two latest creations are action figures based on Half-Life's Gordon Freeman (from the Half-Life series) and the 8-bit Bionic Commando. He built these two using G.I. Joe Sigma Six figures, but the results look almost worthy of retail. Freeman and the Commando even come with their signature crowbar and grappling arm, respectively. They are now up for auction on eBay via the Gaming Today link below (news.filefront.com).

Jin Saotome's website features additional custom action figures from other video games: Solid Snake (from Metal Gear Solid), Ryu (from Ninja Gaiden), and Helghast Soldier (from Killzone 2). They are currently not for sale.

The pictures of the figures are attached below.
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CVG is reporting Valve has revealed tweaks in the pipeline for Team Fortress 2 classes in the wake of news that the developer plans "a large scale modification" to the core of the game.

According to Valve's Robin Walker, the Pyro is set to receive an important boost and the developer's tinkering with the Solider too.

"We are indeed investigating Soldier changes, and one of the changes we're trying out is focused on making Soldiers a little more careful firing their rockets at point blank targets. As for the Pyro scoring, we have a minor tweak coming down the pipe. He's going to get a small amount of points for every enemy he ignites."

Earlier this week Valve promised that a "significant gameplay tweak" for the Medic class is on the way too, and that all the game's classes will eventually receive similar treatment.
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Kotaku writes:

"2007 has been a crazy awesome year for gamers. While during years gone by we've all fallen prey to too much hype and not enough...what's that word again...fun, the most unexpected part of 2007 was that it lived up to our unreasonably high expectations.

So hit the jump for our Frankenreview, victory lap 2007 edition. We pulled reviewers' top rated games* from Game Rankings to relive some of our best moments from the year.

Note, on repeat games, we picked the higher ranking platform".
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As if The Orange Box weren't already the best value in gaming, those who have yet to make the $50 plunge can get an even better deal through Valve's Steam service. For a mere $75 gamers can purchase Orange Box and 19 additional titles.

If you already have The Orange Box then you can still get some more Half-Life goodness by downloading the game's main tune, "Still Alive" by Jonathan Coultan at Amazon.com. The entire album is discounted by about $2, available at Amazon for $7.99.
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Kotaku's Brian Crecente writes:

"Our first-ever Game of the Year awards was a pretty straight forward deal. I asked all of the writers to submit a list of three games for each category and the three that showed up most in each category made it as a finalist. Once we had the list of finalists I asked each writer to go through and order the finalists and then tallied the vote. The one with the most points was named Game of the Year, the runner-up was named Not Quite Game of the Year. The game with the most votes for Worst Game of the Year received that dubious honor."

Super Mario Galaxy won Kotaku's Overall Game of the Year award. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune came as second, it won the Not Quite Game of the Year award. (Kotaku posted the overall results as a separate post, see the link at the Alternative Sources below for more details.)
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Picking the Destructoid Game of the Year was no easy task, as evidenced by the overwhelmingly varied community response to yesterday's list of nominees. It seemed like each one of the five finalists garnered an equal amount of support: "Pick Mass Effect!" "Super Mario Galaxy is easily the best!" "COD4 FTW!" "BioShock, hands down!" "No competition. The Orange Box!"

And the winner is...
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Dec. 26, 2007 - John Gaudiosi is a national journalist who has been covering the video game business for more than a decade. In addition to blogging for WRAL.com, he also writes about gaming for Wired Magazine, The Washington Post, Xbox.com and Yahoo! Games. Here are his picks for the best games of 2007:

¿ Mass Effect
¿ Halo 3
¿ BioShock
¿ Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
¿ Unreal Tournament 3
¿ Rock Band
¿ The Orange Box
¿ Call of Duty 4: Modern Combat
¿ Super Mario Galaxy
¿ Metroid Prime 3: Corruption

Notes: In addition to his credentials already listed above, John Gaudiosi is a senior editor for Variety's Video Business and regularly writes about videogames for Electronic Gaming Monthly, GameDaily, GamePro Magazine, Kotaku, MCV, Prima Games, Business 2.0 Magazine, CBS, Chicago Sun-Times, ESPN, Home Media Magazine, NBC, Reuters, and The Hollywood Reporter. He also works on video game programming for networks like The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, Starz Entertainment and VH1.
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