Gaming News

The Easter 2011 BobLAN is now well under way. Keep up with events as ever on our BobLAN page, which includes links to the forums and Twitter, and features a live webcam to allow you to experience the sights, sounds (but not the smells) as the weekend progresses.

The much-awaited sequel to Portal went on general release this week. Portal 2 returns you to Aperture Laboratories, although time has passed and the test chambers are in a state of decay compared to the first game.

Expect more of the same superb puzzle solving, with some new elements included. Add in a co-op 2 player mode and this should give plenty of gameplay. Maybe a chance of some co-op at the LAN...

Steam have released updates to the Steam Client, the Orange Box version of the Source engine, and a major update to TF2. You can read the full details of all these updates on the following Steam News pages:

OB Engine and TF2 Updates
OB Engine and TF2 Updates part 2
Steam Client Updates

These are pretty big updates, so all LAN attendees should try to update before they come.

Valve have implemented a new scheme to prevent unauthorised account usage and account takeovers. Steam Guard works via a whitelist of PCs that you want to allow logons on. To add a new PC, you need to try to logon, which will trigger a verification code being emailed to your address. Only the email account holder can then complete the auth process, and allow logon on the new PC.

Read the full announcement on the Steam News site.

Finally, if you have any problems, you can also read the Steam Guard Support pages.

The Easter gaming weekend has been announced - Thu 21st - Sun 24th April 2011.

Keep up with events via BobLAN page.

Valve announced on Monday that Portal 2 is now available for preorder, with a launch date on all major platforms of April 18th. They've got a lot to live up to, given the quality of the original :)

Read the full announcement on Steam News.

Yet another cracking LAN weekend at Bob's Tardis was had by all. Most of the regulars made it along, and it was good to see some new faces - Bynar and DBoy from MooseKnuckle (who we play L4D2 against) and Al's friend Dee.

Similarly with the gaming - plenty of CS GunGame, L4D2 and Rockband. We also tried some new games - Blur and F1 2010 in the racing genre, and Frontlines - Fuel of War in the tactical FPS genre. The latter was a great game in principle, although it was let down by a major stuttering issue that affected most players at some point. Hopefully it'll have been patched and be a bit more polished next time. Still, you can't complain when you only pay £1.49 for it :)

The food was as per usual - great breakfasts, Asda curries, Kamran curries and pizza from Midnight Express. In a break with tradition, following their recent zero star hygiene rating, we dropped TinTin as our preferred rinky supplier and instead went to the new local Wing Lee. Great decision. For once, we got everything we ordered (even Pup) although none of it was labelled.

So a big thankyou to Bob once again, and a reminder to those who attended to pay up asap. The last thing we need is for BobLAN to take on any more bad debts :)

DFC played their first game of the new Sacrifice campaign last night. It brings together the characters from the original L4D with the map first seen in The Passing in L4D2. The campaign is pretty short, but the final part is tricky until you work out exactly what you have to do.

No doubt it'll feature at the LAN in 3 weeks time :)

l4d.com are hosting some movies based on the game. Some good ones in there, including a very short trailer for the official movie.

View them at l4d.com.

DF-Lynx has published the date for the next LAN weekend - it'll run from Thursday 4th November through to Sunday 7th. There hasn't been that much in the way of new games since Easter, although the recent Steam games Alien Swarm and Dogfighter look fun.

As usual, keep up with events at our BobLAN page.