CS:GO Beta Expands

Just a swift little update. It would appear that the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive beta is set to expand. Those looking to get in on some new Counter-Strike action may be in luck according to a tweet from the CS:GO developer twitter about an hour ago.

Killing Floor Steam Sale

Killing Floor is a pretty cool little co-op survival game and it happens to be on sale on Steam for the low, low price of £2.24 which is 85% off the usual cost. You can also buy the DLC along with the game for the slightly more expensive (and I use that term loosely) price of £3.21. The DLC is just different character skins it doesn't actually add anything to the game except you can have your guy looking different. I refuse to any DLC of that nature as that kind of stuff should just be unlockable in the game but I'm not going to get in to that rant right now.

Anyway if you haven't played the game, what a new game to waste some time or hell if you have have 3 quid spare laying about I would suggest picking it up. It's great fun especially if you play with some buddies and organise your strategy to survive, you will need one especially on the harder difficulties. You will easily get your moneys worth out of this game. I realise that's not saying much as it's £3 but my point is it's a decent game and worth the buy.

Nuclear Dawn Mapping Contest

The guys at Interwave have announced a Nuclear Dawn Mapping Contest. The contest as you may have guessed is a map building one, letting modders and map makers show off their skills and hopefully get their level included as an official map in a future update of the game. Should you happen to win this competition, not only will your level become an official Nuclear Dawn map, you will also gain 1000 US dollars, you will also receive full credit in game and on the website, as part of the Nuclear Dawn team. For any aspiring video game designer, that would be a nice addition to your CV (resume). The winner will be selected with a public vote by the Nuclear Dawn community.

The competition starts on February 18th and runs though until June 25th, with the voting taking place in the two weeks after the final submission date. To take part you have to create a post in the contest forum for your map, introducing yourself and your team, along with some details of you map. Everything you need to know is in the link above. It's good to see the Interwave guys taking an interest in their games community and getting them to help them along their way. Other developers should take a page out of these guys book and let the people who play your game help you. Prime example of this is Valve, the amount of custom maps and levels the Valve community have made is frankly ridiculous and it has helped there games stay popular after all these days, that and the fact they actually still update their games years after release. Interwave seem to be doing the same kind of thing, they have had a number of updates since it's release and are planning more.

Anyway all you modders and mappers out there, you have about 4 months to get a map finished for this. I look forward seeing what comes out of this. I can see us getting a whole bunch of new custom maps as well as a new official one as well.

Greatest Video Game Ending.

A recent fan poll at Guinness World Records has announced that Call of Duty: Black Ops has the best video game ending of all time. I can see a lot of anti CoD fans not being happy with this. I can't say as I haven't played the game and don't know how it ends. If I had to choose favourite ending of a game I would probably choose either Final Fantasy X as I was quite the fan of that game. Though it's not my favourite Final Fantasy game is does have a good ending. Anyway either that or Half-Life 2: Episode 2 purely for the massive cliff hanger ending. I'm not sure why Super Mario is quite high in the list though.

Anyway if you are interested below is the top 50 in the poll. A few of them I agree with like Portal and Heavy Rain, most of the others I have either not played, not finished or just can't remember how they ended.

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops
2. Halo: Reach
3. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
5. God of War
6. Red Dead Redemption
7. Portal
8. Metal Gear Solid 4
9. Final Fantasy VII
10. Heavy Rain
11. Super Mario Bros.
12. Pokemon Black and White
13. Halo 3
14. Halo: Combat Evolved
15. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
16. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
17. Portal 2
18. Grand Theft Auto IV
19. Mass Effect 2
20. Super Mario Galaxy 2
21. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
22. Kingdom Hearts
23. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
24. Shadow of the Colossus
25. Assassin’s Creed
26. Assassin’s Creed II
27. Metal Gear Solid
28. Sonic the Hedgehog
29. Super Mario Galaxy
30. Mass Effect
31. Kingdom Hearts II
32. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
33. Sonic Adventure 2
34. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
35. BioShock
36. Gears of War 2
37. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
38. Fallout 3
39. inFamous
40. New Super Mario Bros. Wii
41. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
42. Super Metroid
43. Half-Life 2: Episode Two
44. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II
45. Call of Duty: World at War
46. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
47. Crysis 2
48. Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time
49. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
50. Resident Evil 4

A message from Gabe Newell

If you read the news section of Steam or follow Valve on Facebook, you may have already come across this. It's an update from Gabe about the database hack a few months back and this is what he said:

"Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users:

We continue our investigation of last year's intrusion with the help of outside security experts. In my last note about this, I described how intruders had accessed our Steam database but we found no evidence that the intruders took information from that database. That is still the case.

Recently we learned that it is probable that the intruders obtained a copy of a backup file with information about Steam transactions between 2004 and 2008. This backup file contained user names, email addresses, encrypted billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. It did not include Steam passwords.

We do not have any evidence that the encrypted credit card numbers or billing addresses have been compromised. However as I said in November it's a good idea to watch your credit card activity and statements. And of course keeping Steam Guard on is a good idea as well.

We are still investigating and working with law enforcement authorities. Some state laws require a more formal notice of this incident so some of you will get that notice, but we wanted to update everyone with this new information now.

Gabe"

The Valentines Bundle

Indie Royale are at it again. Giving you a bunch of indie game for next to nothing. The minimum at the moment is round about £2.80 but as all is subject to change. The games included in this one are:

• Zeno Clash
• Hoard
• Lume
• Soulcaster
• Soul Caster II
  

The Soulcaster games are currently not available on Steam but are available on Desura. You have just under 5 days left to get in on this bundle of cheapness and I as usual will be getting this in the very near future. 5 games for 3 quid, how can you say no? Whoever came up with this idea is a genious (I know I spelt genius wrong but it annoys a friend of mine,. Hello Jamie if your reading this). Since this concept started there are so many games I have played which I would have normally not bothered with. 

Blizzard Vs Valve over DotA trademark

Vs

It would seem that Blizzard are appealing against Valve and there attempt to tradement DotA 2. I can see why as the original DotA game was a mod for Warcraft 3 and has had the Blizzard name behind it over all these years. However it is just that a mod, a fan made game and we all know Valve are famous for taking mods and making them full fledged games with the likes of your Counter Strike, Team Fortress and Day of Defeat. However I'm sick of frivolous lawsuits popping up every which way.

I still think every quarrel in the gaming industry should be solved by playing games. Notch mentioned about playing Quake to determine the outcome of the whole "Scrolls" thing with Bethesda a few months back. Shit like that should be the way forward. Best of Valve vs the best of Blizzard in a winner takes all DotA tournament. If Blizzard win Valve changes the name. If Valve wins they get to keep it.

You could take this principle in to other mediums as well. Take the music industry for instance, the amount of people that bitch and whine about how "this band stole my riff" or "that band is using the same chord progression as my song" bull shit (I'm looking at you Joe Satriani, yup as much as I dislike coldplay, them using as tune similar to one of your riffs is hardly worth a law suit, there are more examples but I can't think right now). Anyway crap like that could be easily sorted that out with a guitar battle.

Anyway I'm getting slightly off topic but if you want to have a read through of the appeal you can here. From the law side of things I would probably be on Blizzards side as the name has always been associated with them and they have accepted the mod as one of there own. I can't see it going anywhere as it was a fan built project and not actually owned by Blizzard.

From a gamers perspective however, I couldn't honestly give a shit what the game is called so long as it's a decent game. So my message to all those throwing lawsuits about in the gaming industry is fuck off and get back to developing video games. At the end of the day Valve could just easily change the name and this could all be over saving people a lot of time and money. The game would still be exactly the same except they'd have to think of a new name and logo. But as I said before I honestly couldn't give a crap about the name, it doesn't matter.