Apparently the band really needs a music video for the song, or at least that’s what it sounds like — from now until midnight on July 15, Valve is running a contest to determine the best music video for the song.

To enter, upload your version of the music video to YouTube and tag it with “PORTAL2NATIONALEXILE.” Sounds like a weird movie title.

The winner will receive a prize package containing an autographed guitar as well as a collection of Portal 2 merchandise.

For reference, here’s the song, if you haven’t heard it yet.

The update also adds Steam Achievements, stats and engine updates. The stats let you know how many kills you’ve got, how many times you’ve been on the unfortunate other end of a bullet and your accuracy on each kind of weapon. As far as the Achievements go, Valve’s added over 140 of them, so good luck ever getting 100%.

Other Steam features have also been added, including avatar pictures, domination icons and a Death Cam that shows just who killed you, so you know who to take out next.

The best part of all this is that the title is now on sale for just under seven bucks. So, if you don’t have what Valve calls “the #1 online action game in the world,” now’s a good time to pick it up. (Especially if you’re a Mac user with fond memories of the original Counter-Strike. Who may or may not have written this article.)

Not to mention that Valve went ahead and made it official before GDC just fifteen minutes ago:

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike, and Half-Life) and leading technologies (such as Steam, Source), today announced Portal 2 for shipment this coming holiday season.

More interestingness: On Valve’s website, a bunch of the letters in the news release are oddly underlined. Time for more puzzles, guys? Not surprising, since that’s what most of this week has been about.

I expect that cracked within an hour. You’ve proven you can.

Now, are we going to see this at GDC? Keep your fingers crossed.

EDIT: You exceed my expectations, Internets. Underlined letters = username/password for the BBS that Steam users discovered. drattmann/h0nee. Thanks to Steam Forum users for the below images.

Alright, then.

Apparently (totally not a spoiler alert!), if you take the radio from the very first room and put it on the first big red button, the red light turns green and it starts spitting morse code out at you. However, that’s just radio number one of 26. So, time to replay the game, I guess? Except perhaps not (unless you reaaaaally want that achievement).

Some busy beavers have already gotten into the game’s audio files, only to find a bunch of stuff with “Dinosaur” added to the beginning of the file. By the end of this, we’ve got over ten minutes of Morse code to decipher.

So, can you help? A good place to start would be here.

It wouldn’t be completely surprising if the Morse code related to Portal 2, since they’ve been working on that for a while.

Supreme Commander 2 is obviously the sequel to the original Supreme Commander game. Both the retail and electronic versions of Supreme Commander 2 for the PC will be powered by Steamworks, providing gamers with auto-updating, Steam Achievements, Steam support for in-game DLC, and more.

The SC2 demo is currently available, and the game is available for pre-purchase. The PC title will be released worldwide the week of March 1st in both physical and electronic forms. (An Xbox 360 version is slated for release on March 16.) More information about Supreme Commander 2 can be found at www.supremecommander2.com. For information about Steam, visit www.steampowered.com.

This year’s panel included gaming greats such as Ben Cousins (EA DICE), Harvey Smith (Arkane), Raph Koster (Metaplace), John Vechey (PopCap), Ray Muzyka (BioWare), and Clint Hocking (Ubisoft). Newell was selected for the award for his work in co-creating the PC download service Steam, as well as helping to make some of the best games of the past decade (think everything included in The Orange Box) possible.

Over 3,000 of the industry’s top developers will be present at the awards ceremony, which will honor Newell, recipients of other special awards, and the top games of 2009.

Newell co-founded Valve in 1996 after leaving megacorporation Microsoft, and was instrumental in the creation of the groundbreaking PC FPS Half-Life. This title brought actual narrative and story to the first-person shooter genre unlike anything that came before it, and has inspired thousands of games (and spawned its own fantastic sequels) in the decade since its release. Valve is one of the few companies (maybe the only company?) that openly embrace the modding community, and legions of gamers continue to play these titles just for the modding capabilities alone. (Search YouTube for “Garry’s Mod” and see what I’m talking about.)

Valve has only gotten better with age, and titles like Portal and Left 4 Dead have done nothing but bring much-deserved critical acclaim to their doorstep.

Congratulations, Gabe. GamingAngels salutes you and wishes you the best in the years to come — it’s in our best interests for you to keep doing excellent work, after all!

“The Passing” is set to take place in Georgia and is scheduled to be released in early 2010 for download on PC and Xbox 360. No price point has been given as of yet.

I can only hope, along with many other Left 4 Dead fans that we could see some 4 on 4 co-op with our favorite foursome from the first installment. I’m sure I’m not the only one who misses “grabbin’ pills!”

For only $15.95, you have your choice of a 10-pack of either Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, or Team Fortress. If you enjoyed her adorable zombie-themed Valentines, these are even better. It’s ideal for the lazy gamer who wants to tell everyone they love to have a happy holiday season. I’ll be picking up a set or two…

Head on over to the Valve Store and support creativity!

BUY

**This review may contain some spoilers**

As the Left 4 Dead series hits its first birthday, Left 4 Dead 2 shows that it has answered the cries of “this could’ve been an expansion!” with a resounding “YOU’RE WRONG!”

I think Valve may be staffed entirely by wizards. There is some kind of sorcery going on at that company, because every product they release is an improvement on something great that’s come before it. That being said, Left 4 Dead 2 is a really great game. Some of you may remember the drama that followed the annoucement of a sequel so soon after the original’s release; there was a silly petition circling the internet claiming Valve was abandoning fans of the first game in order to make a quick buck, and that anything planned for the sequel should be released as DLC instead. I have yet to see any follow-up apology letters.

If you melee him, his nose will honk.

Granted, if Valve had released the exact same game with different characters for $60 a year later, there would be cause for complaint. However, this is a company owned an operated by magical genius pixies who give you something great… PLUS 18 more things you didn’t even know you wanted but end up really liking. Seriously, they crammed as much as they could into this game, and for once it feels like you’re getting $60 worth of product. I realize that I may be coming across sounding more like Billy Mays selling you a game than an editor reviewing one, but golly do you get a lot for what you paid for.

Left 4 Dead 2 features  5 gameplay modes — Campaign, Versus, Survival, Scavenge, and Realism — as well as 5 Campaign chapters (up from 4), and several new Special Infected (Lady Boomer, Spitter, Jockey, Charger, walkin’ around Witch). On top of all that you can count Left 4 Dead 2 as a game that FINALLY uses the Avatar Awards system. It’s gratifying to get Achievements, sure, but showing off your new Depeche Mode shirt is kind of a lot better. Also, if you get every Achievement you are rewarded with a Tank icon. Cool, cool, cool.

Coach is great.

All bonus goodies aside, the core game is engaging enough to lock you to your controller for days. The settings are interesting and different, and they’re exploited for maximum creepiness. For example, the last campaign involves getting to the end of an area for two chapters, and then backtracking for two more. What makes that not at all as lame as it sounds, is that on the way back you’re caught in a tropical storm. At night. And this is Witch country. Ack.

Overall, the characters are pretty fantastic, considering how endearing the first crew was. While I miss hearing Bill’s “PILLS HERE!”, one of the new characters, Ellis, has the greatest stories ever told as dialogue in a videogame. He rambles on about the dumbest stuff that he thinks is cool, but in an adorable way. Considering I generally avoid people in real life who like to talk about nothing (for a long time), I’m surprised that I found Ellis so lovable. Though a little levity and nonsense in a game about a population of people trying to maul you never hurt anyone.

The Jockey is the Head Crab of Left 4 Dead 2.

I suppose I’m obligated to list the things that were unfortunate about the game, but I’m kind of struggling to think of any at the moment. Hopefully they made 2 significantly harder than 1, and that I’m not just bad at killing things now, but it seems as though they’ve ramped up the difficulty. First of all, the Spitter is just so crappy — when you’re stuck in her acid puke, your health drains FAST. I should clarify that adding her into the game isn’t the crappy part, it’s how damaging she is that is frustrating. I’m also still not sure how I feel about melee weapons. I would prefer being able to choose which two weapons I want to be carrying around, instead of one obligatory main weapon, and then the choice of melee or pistols. The machete and katana are pretty great, though.

Side note : Girls in games only ever wear pink, apparently.

Many gamers have complained about the Left 4 Dead 2 lag on the Xbox 360 version. For our game night, many of us couldn’t even play together, the lag was so bad.

Looks like Valve is working on the problem. On their official blog, Valve states that they have done a massive 360 server update.

“We have upgraded our network infrastructure to better accommodate the huge response to L4D2. 360 players will now have lag-free servers. We’ve also added more dedicated servers.

We will continue to monitor the situation and add resources as needed.

Thank you for your patience. Now quit reading this, get out there and kill some zombies!”

Can’t think of a better thing to do over the holidays!