A protest against Valve for its lack of information on Valve's "lack of information" regarding Half-Life 2: Episode 3 seems to have missed its mark slightly. The protest - which had the support of 30,00 players who pledged that they would play Half-Life 2 on Steam over the weekend - saw only half of those players playing over the weekend. They increased the usual amount of players playing Half-Life 2 by about 10,000.

Mod hosting site ModDB has succumbed to pressure from outside sources and has removed the Half-Life 2 mod, School Shooter: North American Tour 2012, from its database. In an open letter to its community, ModDB founder Scott "INtense!" Reismanis said that the site pulled the mod down after "getting quite a bit of mainstream press due to the controversial nature of the content." He went on to say that he got a lot of threatening mail from various sources and the authors of that mail believed that ModDB were the mod's creators.

The Half-Life 2 mod was created by mod group Checkerboarded Studios. The group was obviously pushing the enevelope when it came to its mod. "You are free to do whatever you want. As long as it involves shooting people," reads part of the mod's description.

We have to write a story about Jack Thompson today. The anti-video game firebrand and former Florida attorney fired off a letter to Valve Software threatening to do something (we're not sure what he is threatening to do because he hasn't indicated the consequences in his letter to Valve's CEO) if the company doesn't do something about the Half-Life 2 mod, "School Shooter: North American Tour 2012."

Before we get into what Valve can actually do about a mod it has nothing to do with, here is Thompson's letter:

Checkerboarded Studios is testing the boundaries of good taste and free speech with a new game modification for Half-Life 2 where the goal is partake in a school shooting called School Shooter: North American Tour 2012 (thanks Andrew Eisen). The Escapist caught up with mod maker known only as "Pawnstick," who attempted to explain the motivation of creating such a mod.

The gist of his comments on the game are not about how shocking, horrible, or in bad taste a mod such as his is, but about how there haven't been any exciting games representing school shootings. He calls Super Columbine Massacre "fucking boring." His inspiration for the mod came from Bully: Source, which he says tries to "educate the player" and calls "almost always fucking garbage."

Here is what he had to say about media coverage of Columbine:

Gizmodo reports that the Office of Naval Research has funded a team at the University of California San Diego to begin developing what amounts to a power suit similar to that worn by Gordon Freeman, protagonist of Valve's uber-popular Half-Life series:

The system will monitor a few biomarkers for deviations from safe levels, at which point it will automatically medicate its wearer...

 

...the military applications are what's exciting about this. Take a current soldier's body armor, night vision goggles and communications equipment, throw in an automatic medical treatment unit and voila! You've basically got Gordon Freeman's HEV suit. There is no indication that the suit will make the satisfying "uhhuummuhhuummuhhuumm" sound like Mr. Freeman's, but there's no indication that it won't, either.

USC grad student John Brennan dropped GamePolitics a line to show us this amazing Half-Life 2 machinima featuring John McCain, Barack Obama, and an authentic HL2 head crab.

By way of explanation, John writes:

I'm an MFA student @ USC's interactive media program.  My thesis project is a series of modifications to Half-Life 2 that will operate in the same space as political cartoons.  I'm playing with format right now, but so far it is Modding and Machinima as self expression and political commentary:)

I have a process for quickly getting 'news-makers' (providing enough photography) into Half-Life 2, access to MoCap data, and some good people helping out.

I'm just launching my first piece now, but it is sizable enough that I'd like to bring it to your attention.  It includes McCain, Obama, a debate stage, and is just in time for the vote.