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With the fall release of Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal growing ever closer (check out the new trailer), Valve is finally beginning to release some information about what actually happens in Episode 2 and some information about Episode 3's progress. From the Episode 2 preview: "Looking down the mountainside reveals a scene that immediately demonstrates one of the key elements of Episode Two: expansiveness. Far off in the distance is the semi-destroyed Combine headquarters, with mighty plumes of smoke rising into the sky amidst a shattered cityscape. Arcing up towards the sky from the imposing edifice is brilliant white stream of energy, meeting the cloud layer in a turbulent maelstrom--a 'portal storm,' Alyx notes."

Mr_Congeniality writes "The much-anticipated trailer for the next chapter in the Grand Theft Auto series has been released. Rockstar's servers, including the one that hosts Rockstar's homepage, was completely overloaded with traffic last night as a result. Users desperately flocking to other websites like GTANet and GTA4.net, but even these websites were overloaded by the interest level. If these sites are still slow, try GameTrailers or GameVideos as an alternative. For analysis of the video, CVG has ten things you may have missed, while 1up's editors offer their opinions on what they saw."

1up has the news that Castlevania is coming to the PSP for the first time. Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles will bring not one but two games from the classic side-scroller series to the portable console. The pack will include the title Rondo of Blood, which is a brand-new release for the United States, as well as the much beloved Symphony of the Night. The network is featuring an extensive preview from Jeremy Parish, as well as video and screenshots of this sure-to-be-bestseller PSP title.

Kotaku has a writeup on what it's like to battle the Colossus in the latest demo for God of War 2. The epic boss battle that sets the stage for the game recalls the incredible Hydra sequence at the start of the first God of War title. One can only hope that the designers plan to kick off every GoW game with an intense fight scene. Kotaku's Brian Crecente on what it is like to face the beast: "There's much rolling about and trying to dodge giant-sweepy arms, and of course dispatching of normal-sized bad guys. Finally, you can hump it over to a nearby ballista which you can use to first attack the big statue guy and then to launch yourself on to him. Once you mount the statue, the battle turns into timed button pushes which do some amazing bits of damage and really flexes the graphics muscles of the Playstation 2. My favorite bit here was the eye-gouging. You gotta love that." To see the game in action, GameVideos can accomodate you in a three part series of moving pictures.

Kotaku has a writeup on what it's like to battle the Colossus in the latest demo for God of War 2. The epic boss battle that sets the stage for the game recalls the incredible Hydra sequence at the start of the first God of War title. One can only hope that the designers plan to kick off every GoW game with an intense fight scene. Kotaku's Brian Crecente on what it is like to face the beast: "There's much rolling about and trying to dodge giant-sweepy arms, and of course dispatching of normal-sized bad guys. Finally, you can hump it over to a nearby ballista which you can use to first attack the big statue guy and then to launch yourself on to him. Once you mount the statue, the battle turns into timed button pushes which do some amazing bits of damage and really flexes the graphics muscles of the Playstation 2. My favorite bit here was the eye-gouging. You gotta love that." To see the game in action, GameVideos can accomodate you in a three part series of moving pictures.

Kotaku has a writeup on what it's like to battle the Colossus in the latest demo for God of War 2. The epic boss battle that sets the stage for the game recalls the incredible Hydra sequence at the start of the first God of War title. One can only hope that the designers plan to kick off every GoW game with an intense fight scene. Kotaku's Brian Crecente on what it is like to face the beast: "There's much rolling about and trying to dodge giant-sweepy arms, and of course dispatching of normal-sized bad guys. Finally, you can hump it over to a nearby ballista which you can use to first attack the big statue guy and then to launch yourself on to him. Once you mount the statue, the battle turns into timed button pushes which do some amazing bits of damage and really flexes the graphics muscles of the Playstation 2. My favorite bit here was the eye-gouging. You gotta love that." To see the game in action, GameVideos can accomodate you in a three part series of moving pictures.

The folks at 'The 1up Show' had the chance to interview David Jaffe, the well-known designer behind God of War. They discuss his upcoming project for the PS3, Calling All Cars, the future of the God of War series, as well as the ever-increasing price of making games. From the article: "A lot of games recently it's cell phone, PC, DS, PSP, if you look at EA they blanket it -- it's everywhere. As a gamer, I kind of miss the 'you can only get it on this system.' There's kind of an excitement that was about that back up until recently. With this new hardware, though, that idea is seems to be going away. Is it really all going to come down to first party now? Or it ultimately going to come to one system? 'Cause 10 years from now there's going to be one system because there's so much more third party software than first party software from any hardware manufacturer. It may not be feasible to make it the war of the first party or the war of the exclusives." The entire interview is viewable online.

Gamasutra is reporting on the events of the 2006 Machinima Festival, which was held early this month in Queens, New York. The event featured panels, seminars, and Q&A sessions talking about how to make movies with games, talking with the people who do it, and offering tips on how to do it better. Gamasutra also offers up the list of this year's Machinima award winners, as well as interviews with 'This Spartan Life' co-creator Matt Burke and 'Trash Talk' creator Matt Dominianni. From the article: "Chris Burke, the second speaker [on the panel] is the creator of 'This Spartan Life,' the popular talk show that takes place inside an Xbox Live Halo 2 game. Burke screened a PSA on net neutrality using Halo machinima. When the piece was made, net neutrality was the most Googled item of the week; TSL was able to attract a huge audience. Burke also noted that the TSL episode on gun control spawned hotly debated message threads on their forum, and was glad to know that 15 year TSL old fans were debating gun control, and more specifically, was happy to find that TSL exposes world and non-gamer issues to a traditional gamer audience." If you haven't seen them yet, make sure and check out award winners "Male Restroom Etiquette" (Best Writing), "The Fixer" (Best Series), and "The Adventures of Bill & John: Danger Attacks at Dawn" (Multi-award Winner).

Gamasutra is reporting on the events of the 2006 Machinima Festival, which was held early this month in Queens, New York. The event featured panels, seminars, and Q&A sessions talking about how to make movies with games, talking with the people who do it, and offering tips on how to do it better. Gamasutra also offers up the list of this year's Machinima award winners, as well as interviews with 'This Spartan Life' co-creator Matt Burke and 'Trash Talk' creator Matt Dominianni. From the article: "Chris Burke, the second speaker [on the panel] is the creator of 'This Spartan Life,' the popular talk show that takes place inside an Xbox Live Halo 2 game. Burke screened a PSA on net neutrality using Halo machinima. When the piece was made, net neutrality was the most Googled item of the week; TSL was able to attract a huge audience. Burke also noted that the TSL episode on gun control spawned hotly debated message threads on their forum, and was glad to know that 15 year TSL old fans were debating gun control, and more specifically, was happy to find that TSL exposes world and non-gamer issues to a traditional gamer audience." If you haven't seen them yet, make sure and check out award winners "Male Restroom Etiquette" (Best Writing), "The Fixer" (Best Series), and "The Adventures of Bill & John: Danger Attacks at Dawn" (Multi-award Winner).

Gamasutra is reporting on the events of the 2006 Machinima Festival, which was held early this month in Queens, New York. The event featured panels, seminars, and Q&A sessions talking about how to make movies with games, talking with the people who do it, and offering tips on how to do it better. Gamasutra also offers up the list of this year's Machinima award winners, as well as interviews with 'This Spartan Life' co-creator Matt Burke and 'Trash Talk' creator Matt Dominianni. From the article: "Chris Burke, the second speaker [on the panel] is the creator of 'This Spartan Life,' the popular talk show that takes place inside an Xbox Live Halo 2 game. Burke screened a PSA on net neutrality using Halo machinima. When the piece was made, net neutrality was the most Googled item of the week; TSL was able to attract a huge audience. Burke also noted that the TSL episode on gun control spawned hotly debated message threads on their forum, and was glad to know that 15 year TSL old fans were debating gun control, and more specifically, was happy to find that TSL exposes world and non-gamer issues to a traditional gamer audience." If you haven't seen them yet, make sure and check out award winners "Male Restroom Etiquette" (Best Writing), "The Fixer" (Best Series), and "The Adventures of Bill & John: Danger Attacks at Dawn" (Multi-award Winner).

An anonymous reader writes "Speaking at the Games Convention Developer Conference in Leipzig, Peter Molyneux gave attendees a sense of what he believes the future of combat in games will be like, some of which he is trying to get his team to include in Fable 2. He also showed videos of some prototypes based on his concepts. Later in his presentation, he responded to a user's question about Nintendo's Wii, saying that he's not sold on motion-sensing controllers."

Valve's got a new game in the works, and it's quite the mind-bender. Portal is a puzzle/FPS hybrid that will utilize holes in space to do the impossible. From the Ars Technica post: "That video makes my brain hurt in all the right ways. The set up and voice-over are both hilarious, and at first it seemed rudimentary to me. Then everything goes crazy and you start to realize just how much you can do with this technology. I'm looking forward to seeing fan-made videos hit the 'Net with all the insane stunts and tricks you can pull off. This seems to be one of those games that you'll have as much fun playing with the game as you do simply playing through it." This is a title definitely worth checking out for yourself.