OK, irrespective of whether you’re a PC gamer or console fanatic, this is amazing news.

Valve are offering their entire back catalogue of games, comprising 22 titles ranging from Half Life 1 and 2, to Counter-Strike Source to Team Fortress 2, as well as Portal and Day of Defeat, and everything in-between, all for only $99.99! This saves you 134 dollars! And 82 cents!

Oh, and what’s the best part of the deal? What they’re calling the Valve: Complete Pack includes their latest game releasing this week, Left 4 Dead! This would either make a great gift for yourself this holiday period, or a great gift for someone else (that happens to have an excellent broadband ‘net connection).

Go peruse the entire list of games in the pack over here.

Over on Gamasutra, you can read a cool little interview with indie developers, 2D Boy, which consists of Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel.

Their latest (and first) game to be released is the wonderful World of Goo, a physics-based game in which you build towers and structures using balls of goo, with the aim of reaching an exit point. Be sure to check out a trailer for World of Goo as well as make a point of visiting 2D Boy’s site.

The game is available on WiiWare as well as a multitude of PC online stores (Steam, Direct2Drive etc.). Spread the word and support developers of awe-inspiring indie games! Oh, and also go get the demo for World of Goo, up now on Filefront. At only 33 MB, it’s a no-brainer!

World of Goo’s premise seems simple enough; build a bridge or tower to reach the end of a level. With goo. Lots of goo. The thing is, there is a lot more to World of Goo than meets the eye, such as the awesomely stylised art, the colourful characters and peculiar situations you’ll find yourself in.

Maybe just watch the launch trailer below to get a better idea of just what World of Goo is all about, developed by indie developers, 2D Boy.

Fantastic! World of Goo releases today on PC (Steam, Direct2Drive, Greenhouse, Beanstalk Games) and WiiWare, but you can buy it right now through 2D Boy’s website.

According to a report in The Inquirer, the all-knowing, all-encompassing internet search giant, Google, is to buy Half-Life developer, Valve.

There have been increased rumblings on the ‘net regarding Google’s plans to enter the games market, with efforts such as their virtual world social network, Lively. Google would be interested in Valve, however, not only because they are a fantastic developer, but more likely is that they want to take advantage of Valve’s Steam, a service that streams games and game updates, as well as providing a central point of authentication for purchased software and online game servers.

Most of the large game publishers and developers have signed on to distribute their games through Steam as well, making the service extremely influential. With a current active subscriber-base of 15 million users, Steam could be even more powerful and prolific in the hands of Google.

If true, the news could be as big as the Activision/Vivendi merger or EA’s Bioware/Pandemic buyout last year. Also, if true, it’s expected that an announcement will be made during the course of the Austin Game Developer’s Conference, running through this week

Source: The Inquirier

UPDATE: In the first comment made by Valve regarding the supposed acquisition, Valve’s marketing director, Doug Lombardi, said that the rumour is just that - 100% rumour. Back to your lives, citizens…

You will notice this is a console gaming blog and news site (hopefully that much is obvious). Well, it so happens that we were all big PC gamers in the day. Before the advent of the PlayStation, console gaming in sunny South Africa was limited to buying pirate consoles called Family Computer and to get a new game you visited your local Chinese “importer” down some alley in central Durban. These carts typically came with moon-text (since we had no idea what that stuff really was) or hilariously translated Engrish.

So, if you gamed here before ‘96 you were a PC gamer or a true-blue pirate. Most likely you were both.

That all changed for me - consoles are my platform of choice these days. But, I can’t ignore the fact that Steam has these wonderful little puzzle games that just about any PC can play. The latest is Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords, and it’s a time-blackhole. At only $20 it’s a very, very good deal. My previous affair was with Geometry Wars, available for the giveaway price of $4.

Anyhow, Valve has just announced that Steam has reached a total of 15 million users, and that their revenue from the digital download service grew by 158% over the Christmas shopping season last year compared with the previous year.

That’s impressive. I mean, it’s bigger than World of Warcraft and Xbox Live. I thought PC gaming was supposed to be dead?