Valve announces a new public Steam beta, offering the chance to check out a bunch of new community-oriented features:

August 6, 2007 -- The largest update for Steam, a leading online platform for PC games and digital entertainment, is now open for public beta testing. The update, which will be available free of charge, introduces an expansive set of social networking and online multiplayer features to a growing PC platform serving games and digital entertainment to over 13 million accounts.

The new Steam community features are designed to connect gamers with friends and other gamers, create and join groups, and organize matches and tournaments. The initial batch of features rolled out in the beta version include: . Steam ID. Create a personal profile-complete with a photo or avatar, biographical details, favorites, and more-viewable on the Web and within the Steam client. . Friends. Add peers to a personal Friends List that shows in real-time who's online and available to chat or play a game. Accessible from within the Steam client or while playing a game, the Friends List makes it easy to invite friends to chat, play a game, or join a group. . Groups. Create and join public and private groups comprised of gamers who share a common interest, such as fans of a particular game, map or mod, or competitive teams. The Group Profile page displays information about the group, recent activities, news and announcements, and a schedule of upcoming events. Groups can quickly initiate a text or voice chat; plan a game, tournament, LAN party, or any other event; and track group gameplay statistics. . Statistics. From both a personal Steam ID or Group profile, users can view a range of gameplay statistics, such as most played games or maps and average playing time. . Chat. Initiate a chat with friends and groups using integrated instant messaging, text chat, and voice features. . Events. Schedule matches, tournaments, and in-person gatherings, such as LAN parties. Upcoming events are displayed in both a list and calendar view, and members can receive reminders that help keep everyone on schedule.

The Steam community features may be accessed within the Steam client or from within any game available in the Steam library of games - a growing collection that includes new releases and classic titles from leading publishers and independent developers around the world. Additionally, certain features, such as the user's Control Panel, Friend's List, and Groups pages may be accessed and managed using any Web browser.

This upgrade marks the largest extension to the Steam platform since its first commercial release in March 2004. In its three year history, Steam has defined the next generation online gaming platform delivering hundreds of games to millions of users with services such as Guest Passes, Automatic Updates, Free Weekends, and access to purchased games from any PC.

To explore the Steam community features, install the Steam client available at www.steampowered.com. Click the Community tab within the Steam interface to take a tour of the features and create a profile.

• Far Cry 2
  This Ubisoft FTP directory offers a new "behind the scenes" trailer for Far Cry 2, their upcoming first-person shooter. The 9.6 MB clip is available on 3D Downloads, FileFront, and Gamer's Hell.
• World in Conflict
  A new World in Conflict trailer is now available, showing off more of massive Entertainment's upcoming RTS game. From the can't make this stuff up department, word is the clip "introduces the main characters of the single player campaign through a recreation of the Magnum PI opening sequence." The download is available on 3D Downloads, FileFront, and Gamer's Hell.

• Mark Rein
  An Audience with Mark Rein Part Two on Computer and Video Games concludes their chat with the Epic veep, discussing the next "Make Something Unreal" contest, console mod and input support, PC Gears of War, DirectX 10, and more.
• N.o.t. F.E.A.R.
  Embrace Your New F.E.A.R. on IGN is a Q&A with Troy Skinner of Monolith about their continuation of the F.E.A.R. series under a new name, since they no longer have rights to that title. They discuss what will be similar to the original game as well as what will be changes. On a related note, final voting for that new title is live on the Name Your Fear Website (thanks GameSpy).
• World of Warcraft
  The World of Warcraft Interview on The MMO Gamer is a BlizzCon interview with WoW lead designer Jeffrey “Tigole” Kaplan, discussing the future of Blizzard's MMORPG. The conversation is available as an audio file and it is also transcribed for your reading pleasure.

• Mythic Wars on Hooked Gamers.
• StarCraft II on 1Up.
• Universe at War: Earth Assault on GameSpot. Designer Diary #3.
• Warhammer Online on Warhammer Alliance.

• Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising on WarCry.

• Sony Announces Availability of New 80GB Playstation 3.
• Oops, HMV admits error in MGS4 Xbox listing. Thanks Mike Martinez.
• Japan Explains Why Xbox 360s Heat Up and Crap Out.
• Track & Field Sprints to Xbox LIVE Arcade This Wednesday.
• Three New Classic Games Announced For Nintendo Wii Shop Channel.
• Incredible LEGO Guitar Hero Controller is Fully Functional. Thanks Ant and Digg.

• Rambus' board and the CEO's wife. Thanks Mike Martinez.

• Ten must-see iPhone apps. Thanks Ant.
• Microsoft Creates Special Military-Edition Zune.

• 'Lonelygirl15' protagonist gets the axe in season finale. Thanks Mike Martinez.

• California game law struck down.
• Adobe, Microsoft accused of infringing on browser-related patents. Thanks Mike Martinez.
• Microsoft becoming 'software police,' say users. Thanks Mike Martinez.

• TSA: New Policies for Lighters, Game Consoles, and Breast Milk. Thanks Shacknews. New regulations require X-Ray screening of full-size video game consoles and DVD players from carry-on luggage.
• Mozilla: 10-day patch guarantee 'not our policy'.

• Daikatana to bless GameTap on September 6th…
• Installing Urban Terror on Linux. Thanks ASLayerAODsk…

We got the sad news today that Jaroslaw Krzysztof Marcin Wolski, A.K.A. Jerry "PoliSh" Wolski died suddenly last night. Jerry was a stalwart member of the DOOM/QUAKE community, who maintained websites, helped create seminal machinima movies, organized leagues and tournaments, and was one of the folks who helped put together the original QuakeCon in 1996. In spite of all that old school credibility, PoliSh was only 32 (Saturday would have been his 33rd birthday), far to young to go, much less of what was an apparent heart attack. I had the chance to spend some time with Jerry on a few occasions and always found him to be a warm, fun-loving character. To offer an overused phrase that is quite appropriate, he will be missed, as the world needs more of his ilk. Our heartfelt sympathies to his young widow and his other family and friends. There's a forum post about this on the AHLPoker Forums where more details may end up surfacing.

Sad Links!	Thanks Ant and Mike Martinez.
Play:	City Smasher. Thanks Jason.
Links of the Evening:	Counter Counterfeit Commission. The Incapacitating Flashlight. Thanks Neutronbeam. Manlyweb.com. Thanks Enahs.
Science!:	Duct Tape Kicks Cryotheraphy’s Butt in Curing Wart.
Media:	Foot in Your Ass Compilation.

EA and NAMCO BANDAI announce the release date for Hellgate: London, Flagship Studios' debut action/RPG, as October 31 in North America and November 2 in Europe:

EA AND NAMCO BANDAI GAMES ANNOUNCE NOVEMBER 2nd RELEASE DATE FOR HELLGATE: LONDON The Next Benchmark in Action Role Playing Games will Start Lighting Up PCs this Halloween Chertsey, UK. – August 6, 2007 – Get ready to hack, slash, and shoot your way through a demon-infested London this Halloween! Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) and NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc. today announced that Hellgate™: London, the premier title from Flagship Studios, will start hitting retail stores in North America on October 31, 2007 and in Europe on November 2, 2007 for the PC. Hellgate: London represents the next leap in the evolution of the action RPG genre, combining the depth and addictive gameplay of traditional RPGs with the visceral action of first-person shooters.

“We wanted to hit the sweet-spot for release in terms of the development schedule and delivering the highest-quality game to our players,” said Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios. “Halloween was the perfect fit as it ensures that Hellgate: London will have an appropriate amount of beta testing, while also being an incredibly fun time to unleash the game.”

One of the most anticipated PC games and RPGs of the year, Hellgate: London offers infinite re-playability with dynamically generated levels, items, enemies and events. The player creates a heroic character, completes quests, and battles through an innumerable amount of demons to advance through a deep, rich story-driven campaign. A robust, flexible skill and spell system, highly customizable appearances, and a massive variety of randomly generated equipment allow each player to create his or her own unique hero.

While some may prefer to slay demons solo, players will also be able to take the fight online*, teaming up with friends to save London in a secure, client-server environment and playing through the entire story-driven campaign for free. For those players who want to extend their Hellgate: London experience, Flagship is offering an optional subscription service which will give players access to huge amounts of content on an ongoing basis in the form of quests, character classes, demons, items, etc. More details about Hellgate: London’s online options are coming soon.

The game has not yet been rated by the ESRB, PEGI or BBFC. Visit www.esrb.org, www.pegionline.eu or www.bbfc.co.uk for updated rating information. For more information about Hellgate: London, log onto www.electronicarts.co.uk or the game’s official website at www.hellgatelondon.com.

* Internet connection required.

Slashdot points out a thread on the Halflife2.net Forums suggesting that the recent release of older id Software games over Steam (story) may be a violation of the GNU GPL (thanks Ant). At issue is the inclusion of what may be a modified version of the DOSBox x86 emulator without attribution. Since this discussion started, relevant text files have been added to this Steam distribution, indicating efforts were already undertaken to address this over the weekend. A subsequent post by one of the DOSBox authors tries to quell the ire some are expressing over this. It should be pointed out that the second part of the comment is a bit off-base, since id has already made the free GPL releases of DOOM (story), Quake (story), Quake II (story), and Quake III Arena (story):

Can you people just calm down already. It's been like what 1 or 2 days after this thing has been released and people are already bitching about legal action or damage payments. It's not like we're losing money or whatever, it's euhm free software. There's lot's of open source programs being used for commercial ends. Sure it's nice to be mentioned somewhere but even then there's no obligation to do so. GPL violations can easily be sorted out in time if they just add or remove the necessary files.

On a different note you could of course wonder why ID is still milking their age old dos games, might give the fans something for free after all this time. But okay that's their right to do so.

This Loki Forum Post points out a new patch for Loki, updating Cyanide's action/RPG to version 1.0.6.0. The download is mirrored on ActionTrip, Gamer's Hell, Strategy Informer, and The Patches Scrolls.

• Crysis
  A new countdown trailer for Crysis helps mark the time until the release of Crytek's upcoming first-person shooter, currently slated for November 16 (story). The clip is available on 3D Downloads, ActionTrip, and Gamer's Hell.
• Hellgate: London
  A new Hellgate: London trailer is now available, showing off cooperative play in Flagship's upcoming action/RPG. The clip can be found on 3D Downloads and Gamer's Hell.

A redesign to The Buka Entertainment Website has the goal of making navigating the site and finding information on Buka's various upcoming projects. Word is: "Buka.com was fully redesigned and modernized in order to meet higher corporate standards of the company that grows intensively and builds up the strong image. The site is business-oriented and focused on providing the partners and the press with the comprehensive and easy-to-get information about Buka’s business activities."

The Mercenaries 2 Q&A on Play.TM hears from Scott Warner about Pandemic's upcoming combat simulation sequel. Topics include the game's setting, navigating over and through water, co-op, improvements over the original game, and more.

• Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars on AtomicGamer.
• StarCraft 2 on GameReplays.org.

• The lowdown skinny from Quakecon '07 on Sphinx's Sanitarium.

• Xbox repair process leaves gamers in a fix. Thanks MaxxTotal.
• PS3 2007 Upcoming Releases.

• AMD's Opteron hits 3.2GHz. Thanks Mike Martinez.
• Samsung to boost chip production after disruption.
• The future of AA? Edge detect anti-aliasing on the Radeon HD 2900 XT.
• ‘Fake Steve’ Blogger Comes Clean (registration required). Thanks Mike Martinez.
• Newspaper outs ‘Fake Steve Jobs’. Jury still out on how real the real one is.
• Old Issues of Playboy and Rolling Stone Will Be Available on DVDs (registration required). Thanks Mike Martinez. "Gonna buy five copies for my mother."

• Doom and Quake maker id Software confirms it has people ‘looking at’ iPhone.
• More Mac love from Nokia as it updates Multimedia Transfer software.

• Donate to the Academic Film Institute and save a rare movie. Thanks Ant.

• Judge greenlights RIAA to dig into man's past, employer.
• GayGamer Target of Hate Crime. Thanks Mike Martinez.

• SeaMonkey version 1.1.4 is now available. Thanks Ant.

• Colin McRae: DiRT on Boomtown.
• Sword of the New World: Granado Espada on 2404.
• Total Pro Golf 2 on Out of Eight.

• Corsair VX450W PSU on HEXUS.net.
• Garmin nüvi 200W Sat-Nav GPS on TrustedReviews.
• Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H Motherboard on Overclockers Club.
• Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 CPU Overclocking on 3dGameMan.
• Logitech Alto Laptop Keyboard Dock on The Tech Zone.
• QNAP TS-109 Pro Turbo Station NAS on TrustedReviews.
• Revoltec Zirconium RT-101 ATX Case on MADSHRIMPS.
• SOYO FM-SY-SLIM20GB 20GB 1.8 SlimEx Platinum Exterbna Hard Drive on Benchmark Reviews.
• Super Talent 2GB 200x USB Flash Drive on Virtual-Hideout.
• XtremeMac ExtremeHD HDMI Switcher on Futurelooks.

• BBC is expected to return to the videogames industry…
• Power Render is offering $100 licensing of their 3D engine to a limited number of developers…
• A Win-Win Scenario 'Game School' Aims to Engage and Educate. Thanks Mike Martinez…
• Tribal Trouble version 1.10 is now available, updating this cross-platform RTS game…
• Dethroning the king of 'Donkey Kong'. Thanks Mike Martinez…

I am one of those baseball fans who answers questions about my fandom with the pretty standard comment that after all these years of watching games, you can still see something you never have before. Sure enough, in yesterday's Yankees game two homeruns hit into the right field bleachers were caught by the same fan! This is apparently not the first time this has happened, so I'd love to see the odds against that happening. It has to be up there with being hit more than once by lightning or winning multiple lottery jackpots.

R.I.P.: Singer/songwriter Hazlewood dies.

Lucky Links!	Thanks Ant and Mike Martinez.
Link of the Morning:	WebSE - System 7 Simulation. Thanks Digg.
Stories:	Pencil removed from woman's head after 55 years. Monkey unlocks pen, escapes. Blind man arrested for driving car.
Image:	Old Quake player.
Media:	Its a good life. Next: Pic-a-nic baskets! Humans vs. slides. Ever see someone ride a skateboard balanced on 2 fingers? Not the same old grind.