A recent trailer for the S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 keyboard from Mad Catz Interactive went over and beyond to do something no one would have thought a big time company would do: troll for teh hitz. A gameplay icon briefly appears in a promo trailer for the S.T.R.I.K.E 7 keyboard and the icon is visible enough to see as none other than Half-Life 3.
For those of you who don't know or don't remember, Valve briefly trolled the gaming community by wearing a Half-Life 3 t-shirt to an event. It created all sorts of media buzz and speculation about the state of the game and whether there would be a Half-Life 2: Episode 3 or simply a Half-Life 3. This t-shirt was later followed by a series of additional troll attempts by the community, which eventually led to Valve coming clean and saying that Half-Life 3 is a no-go.
Like any rabid community deeply in love with a franchise where said love borderlines on fanatical and is actually bigger than the franchise itself, no one left Half-Life 3 alone, even going as far as starting rumors that a third game might make an appearance at this past year's E3, in which case no Half-Life showed up.
Quite naturally, things didn't end there and a lot of gamers speculated a possible appearance from Half-Life 3 at this year's GamesCom in Cologne, Germany. Well, in some regards that did ring true as Mad Catz teased/trolled Half-Life 3 in the following trailer for the S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 keyboard. Look closely at the V.E.N.O.M. monitor at the 0:23 second mark.
Trololol....it looks like there's a Half-Life 3 icon? Well, it's obviously positioned there to get people talking but at the same time it could also mean something. Exactly what? I don't know. I tend to doubt that Valve would mysteriously leak info about something as big as Half-Life through a small icon teased on a small monitor attachment for a third-party keyboard peripheral. I mean, that's a pretty big stretch, right? But then again, most of everything on display via the V.E.N.O.M. was something from Valve, including Portal and Steam. So again...it's a toss up.
Well, it's hard to tell right now because GamesCom isn't over with, but if Valve really does make an announcement then I guess we'll all be in for a bit of a surprise...sort of.
