Gaming News

The second BobLAN of 2016 is just kicking off. Head over to the BobLAN page for details and a live video feed!

A new version of the Merlin firmware for Asus routers was released at the weekend. New features include a stats page for QoS and charts added to various traffic monitor pages. Also included are a number of bug fixes and updates to current standards.

Read the full changelog if you are an Asus router user.

The latest game in the Call of Duty franchise - Infinite Warfare - is released today. This follows hot on the heels of FIFA 17, Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 in the standard pre-Christmas releases of the AAA franchises.

Up next is Dishonored 2 followed by the sequel to WatchDogs the following week - plenty to keep even the most avid gamer occupied for a few weeks at least!

For the Asus router users in the clan, a new Merlin firmware was released a couple of weeks ago which can be flashed from recent stock Asus firmware. So far so good, and the config and scripting options make it a lot more flexible than the stock firmware. No need to factory reset either - all settings are preserved. It was a very smooth experience, which makes a refreshing change these days!

Details, changelog and download links can be found on Merlin's Site

The dates for the second BobLAN of 2016 have been announced. The LAN will take place from Thursday 24th until Sunday 27th November. The LAN Party page and Forums Topic are up and available - what do we fancy playing this time?!

Reminder to all that the first full BobLAN of 2016 starts with the usual setup and curry evening tomorrow. With any luck, we might even get a game or two in as well :)

The dates for the first BobLAN of 2016 have been announced. The LAN will take place from Thursday 28th until Sunday 1st May. The usual LAN Party page and Forums Topic are up and available for use, so get those game suggestions coming in!

For all Fallout 4 fans out there, you may be interested to hear that the 1.3 patch was made available yesterday. The patch contains numerous bug fixes, both to gameplay and to quests. There are also a few changes to workshop crafting, eg running a wire from a generator to an object will no longer cost you any copper.

See the Fallout Wikia for the full list.

Doom, the game that started it all, is coming back next year. The new version, created by id Software, is currently under development. A few in-game videos are doing the rounds, and the game is available for preorder now on Steam.

More details to follow as and when they become available...

There goes another top weekend of gaming, food, beer etc. As always, huge thanks to DFC-Lynx (aka Bob) for hosting the event in such an organised manner. Retirement is obviously having its benefits :)

It was great to see everyone there this weekend, especially Foxy, Brad and Jason who had travelled a long way to make the event.

So what about the gaming? The big hit this time was newcomer Rocket League - a 4v4 football game where you each drive a car to knock the ball around. We ran a mini league, which proved to be incredibly tense towards the end. We also played quite a bit of CS:GO, BF3 and GRID. QuakeWorld made a brief appearance, but there was no room this time for TF2, Day of Defeat or HalfLife2 DM.

Trebz brought along his usual selection of board and card games, and we took time out to watch the shambles that was England playing rugby against the Aussies.

I am hoping to get a copy of the final Rocket League spreadsheet, which will go up on the BobLAN 2015.2 page, along with the completed schedule.

Here's a reminder to all that BobLAN 2015.2 starts this Thursday. Please ensure that you have installed all Windows updates, Steam/Origin updates etc before you come. This is to avoid hobbling Bob's broadband on the night.

Let the gaming commence...

Bethesda have been busy in the runup to the November release of Fallout 4...

The Fallout 4 Season Pass will include ALL DLC that will ever be released for Fallout 4. Most game season passes cover just one or two items of DLC, so this is great news for those planning to go beyond the estimated 300 hours of gameplay offered in the standard game. Read more about this on Shacknews

In addition, a series of videos are being released covering the benefits of each of the S.P.E.C.I.A.L attributes. Again, Shacknews has links to these videos. They are well worth watching, as they are done with the wonderful artistic style that goes with anything to do with Fallout.

For a bit more background trivia on the Fallout series, have a watch of this Top 10 Facts video - some interesting stuff in there!

Virgin Media is doubling the speed of most of its broadband packages again this year. The upgrade begins on 1st October 2015, and should be completed for all customers much quicker than previous upgrades. Here are a couple of articles about the upgrade:

• ISP Review
• USwitch

Will this happen in time for BobLAN?!

The dates for the second BobLAN of 2015 have been announced. The LAN will take place from Thursday 1st until Sunday 4th October. The usual LAN Party page and Forums Topic are up and available for use, so get those game suggestions coming in!

Valve have announced Steam Link and Steam Controller will be launching globally on November 15th (but available a month early to those who preorder)

Steam Link works with the new Controller to allow you to play games hosted on a PC elsewhere in the house but displayed on your main TV. The PC does all the grunt work, with Steam Link just streaming the video and audio from the PC. PC users would probably prefer a keyboard and mouse, but anything that promotes PC gaming has to be a good thing, right?!

More info and a Steam Link demo can be viewed at Steam News

Fans of Bethesda's Fallout series will be happy to hear that Fallout 4 has finally been announced. The game will be available on Xbox One, PS4 and PC, although no dates have been mentioned at this stage.

A short video shows some of the scenery you are likely to encounter in the game.

The next DLC for Goat Simulator will be a Zombie mod inspired by DayZ. The DLC is priced at $4.99 on Steam - further details and videos can be found on ShackNews.

It was announced yesterday that the next iteration in the Call of Duty franchise will be released later this year. Developed by Treyarch, Black Ops 3 will be available on 6th November 2015.

Black Ops 3 will consist of three game modes: Campaign, Multiplayer and Zombies. The Campaign can be played single player, or with up to 4 players as a co-op campaign. Zombies will likely require you to kill zombies at some point, and Multiplayer speaks for itself.

More details to follow nearer the time.

What a great weekend, and quite a changing of the guard when it comes to the games we play. This time, we played very little CS:GO or L4D2. Instead, the bulk of the gaming time went to newcomers Titanfall and GRID Autosport. Titanfall was particularly impressive because most of us paid nothing for it - we took advantage of Origin's Game Time offer, where you could play the game free of charge for 48 hours - perfect for a BobLAN!

Unfortunately, Game Time proved less successful for Battlefield 4, so we stuck to BF3 which we played last time round. It was quite good once everyone had got the hang of deploying with squad-mates already in the field (rather than walking miles, only to get shot again)

For a full list of the games played, have a look at the LAN Party page for this weekend.

Finally, huge thanks to our host once again - it's as much fun now as it was ten years ago! The next LAN has been penciled in for 1st-4th October 2015.

In a bid to clamp down on spamming and phishing via Steam accounts, Valve have revealed plans to limit account functionality until at least $5 has either been spent on the Steam Store, or added to the Steam Wallet. Limitations include being unable to invite friends.

Read more on Steam News and Shacknews