There are not many hours left so if you haven’t seen it yet this is almost a steal. The full Rockstar Games Collection is 50% off this weekend at just $29.99 U.S. You can get it via the Valve download service Steam which means while you don’t get a big box to put on your shelf there is the bonus of getting the games just as fast as your net connection. It’s quite a perk all this digital downloading from Steam as it even patches the games when required automatically so those who haven’t taken a look at the service should do so. The collection includes the GTA’s, Max Payne’s and Manhunt among others.

Be aware though this offer is doubtful to be available to those outside the US so bad luck for most of the world. It’s very unfair for those of US who are outside the US but on occasion we do get offers that our American counterparts don’t so there is some balance in the world.

Holy shit, did anything even remotely think of this? The Inquirer reports a breaking that Google may be buying Valve any second. And why this seemingly random move? Google most probably wants to acquire Steam, Valve’s trusty and super-successful content distribution service. So is Google taking it’s first step in the video game industry by bridging the Internet and video games?

There is no doubt that Steam is the greatest, most effective and most awesome content distribution ever. It looks like Google is interested in distributing content around. Owning Steam would definitely be profitable for Google, but it would only enforce peoples’ opinions that Google is turning into a Microsoft-ish monopoly with their webby hands over everything related to the Internet.

I personally think that the acquisition will still give Valve some space, a bit like the Activision-Blizzard merger, I’m thinking. But Google will definitely want Steam for itself. I just hope they don’t change the default theme to their boring white-blue nonsense, that just sucks.

The game that came out about this time last year and it’s upcoming expansion have been announced as available soon on Valve’s download service. Steam is popular, seriously so for anyone who has been into the Half-Life or Counter Strike titles for the last few years with other companies begging to be added to the buy and download service. Some of the best games ever made can be found on the service and it feels quite fitting that Crysis will be on there also as a graphical benchmark.

There is however one part of Crysis’ inclusion which won’t make it blend in with the other games on the service. There is a very slim chance of any patches being added to the game so it won’t be updated almost daily like Team Fortress 2. In some ways it’s a good thing as it will not mean constant downloads for those on bandwidth limits like the European users and a few in the US.

There’s papercraft, and then there’s awesome papercraft. 4chan user (yes, 4CHAN USER) chamoo232 made a truly remarkable papercraft version of the fun mechanical contraption from Half-Life 2 that kicks ass: D0g.

Just look at the goddamn attention to detail. D0g looks exactly as he did in the Source engine. chamoo232 took 50 hours out of two weeks to finish this project. I know that I sure as hell can’t do that in 50 hours. This guy’s got talent.

It’s also a great break form the norm to create a papercraft version of a character as visually complex as D0g. I mean, everyone else is doing the goddamn Weighted Companion Cube from Portal. The guy is a full 12″ tall, and is currently occupied by a paper rollermine. It looks pretty awesome as well, but nowhere near as awesome as that D0g!

Check out more photos over here at the 4chan board. Don’t worry, this isn’t /b/, so it’s perfectly safe. For now. Meanwhile, here’s the image in the preview above:

Another of Valve’s usual Team Fortress 2 auto updates has become active. While most of the little bug fixes are not really news worthy this version sorts out one issue and it’s a big one. It fixes a big that prevented accurate Arena mode user statistics from being uploaded.

If this means that user scores were not uploaded for future record and achievement unlockables then that is a serious issue worthy of note. Considering how many hours it takes or the fluke occurrences that happen to make an achievement and a weapon unlockable it could take months to regain what should already be yours.

It’s a good thing Valve run their own patching service via Steam as by normal means in almost any other game but MMO’s it could take months for enough glitch fixes to come around to make a standalone patch a worthwhile thing to publicise and update with on the companies end. For Team Fortress 2 users the next time you go onto Steam the download will begin automatically and take just a jiffy.