HL2's Alyx as Playable Character, MMOG Updates, Women in Games Survey

A good week for MMOG gamers, as Star Wars Galaxies Patch 13.0 goes into effect, revamping the Galactic Civil War and making way for the Combat Upgrade. World of Warcraft players, likewise, should be happy to learn about future game developments in upcoming patches. There are a lot of folks in that last category, as Blizzard stated this week that they've sold more than 800,000 copies of WoW, making Warcraft the largest U.S. based MMOG. If you're interested in learning more about MMOG stats, SirBruce's mmogchart.com has recently been updated with new information. Speaking of learning, registration will begin soon for the academically inclined Games+Learning+Society conference to be held in Madison, Wisconsin. If the concept intrigues you there are only 200 passes to go around, so you'd best sign up early. Gamespot's weekly Rumor Control article certainly intrigues, and this week states that Half-Life 2's Alyx is likely to be a playable character in an upcoming expansion to the hit game. A female protagonist would be a nice change of pace. Women in games in general are a good thing, and GameGirlAdvance has a lengthy survey for women gamers and women in the games industry to fill out.

Comments

Valve says they don't have plans for that...

[game kid]

...and judging from Half-Life 2's late, heavily-delayed release, even if they had plans it would take quite a while. I'm not holding my breath.

Welcome back Quickies!

[brejc8]

I think it's great to have a few quickies rather than one full thing (no phun intended).
It is much nicer to browse through 20 little interesting and concise nit bits than one big story.

bah

[nomadic]

A female protagonist would be a nice change of pace.

What are you talking about? Games frequently have female protagonists these days.

Re:bah

[Yosho]

Games frequently have female protagonists these days.

But when are we going to have one who's not a scantily clad, walking set of breasts?

Re:bah

[Anonymous Coward]

The majority of females leads will not be scantily clad walking sets of breasts when the majority of male leads aren't muscle bound walking death machines, that's when.

A new game?

[JorDan Clock]

According to the British edition of PC Gamer magazine, Valve's Doug Lombardi is quoted as saying, "At the moment we're working on a game where you play as Alyx and her well-known robot dog."

Perhaps they're working on a completely different game, such as that side-scrolling game based on Half-Life. Codename: Gordon wasn't it?

No one says it has to be part of a Half-Life 2 expansion.

Look at the past to see the future?

[bigbigbison]

If we look at the first HL expansion packs, we had one featuring a soldier and one featuring Barney. Even though the original Blue Shift expansion pack started life as headed for the Dreamcast, I would think that a Barney expansion pack would make sense for HL2. While an Alyx one would make sense with how she is used in the game, might there be a chance that there would be an expansion pack that follows the spirit of Opposing Force and features a soldier?