Great news from Steam about Counter Strike Source updates coming soonL

We have one more week of releases coming to Steam before we close out 2005. Next week there will be two new player models, one for each team, released for Counter-Strike: Source. Early next year we’ll be releasing a completely rebuilt version of cs_milita. There is also a fairly high chance we’ll be releasing an update to Day of Defeat: Source next week, which will include a number of small changes.

Here is an amusing story picked up at Joystiq. Someone ran into Robin Williams while filming a movie and asked him what games he is playing right now. Robin Williams told him he likes to play Battlefield 2 as a sniper. Apparently Robin Williams has been playing first person shooters for years..

I had a chance to test out some cool Warhammer 40k Dawn of War modifications last night. The first one I recommend is Dawn of War Steel Legion. This adds a whole new race to the game. That means all new units, new buildings, and new technology. The Steel Legion is kind of like sci-fi nazis with skulls instead of swazticas. Additionally, their buildings are accurated proportioned to the units (ie: huge.)

The next mod is half scale. What it does is cuts the size of your units in half — and then doubles the number of units you can get. There is nothing cooler than dropping 7 squads of assault terminators from orbit into the middle your enemy base as your main army sweeps away all of the opposing units. The bottom line — if you want huge battles in Dawn of War, you need this mod. Also, be sure you pick up the camera zoom mod. This will allow you to zoom way out, giving you a more strategic view of the battlefield. (which make managing a massive army much easier.)

Bottom line — Dawn of War is the best real time strategy game period. Think of it as Warcraft 3, with sci-fi units, more cool upgrades, and better playability. While Warcraft was a digital knockoff of the original table top Warhammer, it looks like Blizzard is not getting the last laugh in this game.

Last night I was playing a LAN game of Need For Speed Most Wanted. I had set up my Thrustmaster Ferrari Force Feedback Racing Wheel, while my opponents were using the keyboard. This was the third or fourth night that I’ve played the game. Up until then, I had won between 40%-50% of the races — using the keyboard.

After some hastles with the Thrustmapper utility (I had this problem in NFS Most Wanted were the down button on the wheel was sending signals to the game, so I had to disable the racing wheel down button with Thrustmapper and everything worked fine) I finally got it to work. The problem was, I was losing. Not by a little bit — but by a lot. At one time I was nearly a minute and a half behind 1st place! This is pretty bad considering my previous times were never worse than 15 seconds.

The bottom line — playing Need For Speed Most Wanted with a Force Feedback steering wheel is fun until you realise how much better the keyboard is.

From CNN.com:

A federal judge ruled Friday that Illinois’ restrictions on the sale of violent and sexually explicit video games to minors are unconstitutional and barred the state from enforcing the law.State officials “have come nowhere near” demonstrating that the law passes constitutional muster, said U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kennelly.

This isn’t a first, and it won’t be a last either. Big suprise, Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was behind this — the same governor that thinks that 18 year olds are too young to get tattoos.

Why has violent crime and murder dropped in the United States over the last 15 years — during the same time that we saw Doom, Quake, and Grand Theft Auto came into existance?

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse after the news of widespread Xbox360 crashes — CivIV apparently is a little “buggy” too. Its hurting the games ratings in the user reviews. Ask any old gamer, games that crash right out of the box are nothing new (ie: Battlecruiser 3000AD) What is new is big games, with respectable names behind them, crashing like crazy.

Because iD releases the source code to their old games, someone was able to port Quake 2 from C over to Java. That means you can play the legendary frag fest in in your browser — as I’d like to call it, web Quake 2. Unfortunately, you need to download the data files to the original Quake 2, either by purchasing the full game or downloading the Quake 2 demo. And, that means no one has actually set up a website where you can play it. Kind of lame, but I’m sure someone will do it soon.

Via Steam news:

We’re currently targeting Wednesday, November 30th as the release date for the updated version of de_nuke for Counter-Strike: Source, and Argentan for Day of Defeat: Source. Nuke will be the first Counter-Strike: Source map we’ve released that includes HDR lighting, and we think the community will like the way it looks. Argentan is the first in a series of new levels we are producing for Day of Defeat: Source.

Looks like I’ll be spending a few days playing Day of Defeat and Counter-Strike next week.

While I was watching an Xbox 360 special on TV I saw some footage of Gun. The video showed some cowboy running down indians on his horse. Not very politically correct! So I decided I should investigate further. The good news is this game has also been released for PC. The bad news is, Gun is only recieving average reviews.

Gamespot gave gun a 7.4 out of 10. IGN an 8 out of 10. Gamespy a 3.5 out of 5.

Despite average reviews, its nice to finally have a break after a barrage of World War II action games (which hasn’t quite ended yet.) Is Gun the beginning of a torrent of Wild Western shooters? It could be.

Gamespot has published an exclusive Neverwinter Nights 2 preview. The screenshots are very impressive, right on par with the latest 3D engines. This role playing game is scheduled to be released in 2006. Judging by the pics this is going to be the tail end of 2006 / beginning of 2007.

Some details included in the Neverwinter Nights 2 preview are that it will use a modified version of the 3.5 edition Dungeon and Dragons rules. As expected, custom creation of levels and missions by users will also play an important role in Neverwinter Nights 2. In fact, multiplayer is supposed to support 64 players or more. Thats going to be one jammed packed dungeon hack fest!