Gaming News

Valve have released a fix to a few player model issues, including the following:

"Fixed model scale problem resulting in under-sized players"

I wasn't aware DF-EvilGoblin has started playing CS :)

Read the full change list here.

EA have reported an issue with the v1.01 patch that was released last week. They are recommending people reinstall the game in order to revert to a pre-patch version.

Further details of the problem, and the promise of a hotfix can be found on the BF2 Community Update page.

Valve have issued an update to Steam and CS: Source, which will be applied next time you start the game. The highlights of the release are the conversion of the popular map cs_assault to the Source engine, and the updating of the Terrorist player model. They have also added a bunch of new animations to the characters in terms of weapon handling and reloading. There are numerous bug fixes included aswell.

See the full changelist over at Steam News.

EA have released a patch for Battlefield 2 to address a number of minor bugs. Read the full list of issues in the version info file.

You can download the patch from EA Games.

DF-Lynx is holding a 1-night LAN today, the main focus of which will be Battlefield 2. Most of the Friday night regulars have now bought the game, so network issues and mincing aside, it should be a good evening.

Update
The BF2 evening was a great success :) The server was Bob's game server, configured for LAN play. There were 5 local players and 2 remote. There were initial connection problems, but this was quickly traced to incorrect port mappings in the firewall. We noticed little, if any lag throughout the evening, despite the fact that we had Skype running the whole time.

There's a post on our Forums with a bunch of hints and suggestions for getting BF2 working as well as can be expected. Have a read and feel free to post any comments or questions.

Hopefully there'll be a game on this Friday - more to follow on that later.

The much-awaited Battlefield 2 launched today, and first impressions are awesome. No doubt the odd Friday night session will be dedicated to it over the coming weeks :)

Ubisoft have released a movie of in-game action from the third game in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon series. The movie is fantastic and well worth a look. It is just over 15MB and can be downloaded from Ubisoft.

Ghost Recon 3 is due to be released this November, and will initially be available on the new XBox 360 console.

An old favourite CS map is set to make a return to CS: Source in the near future. CS_Assault is the one where the CTs have to rescue the hostages from inside the shipping warehouse. It's a relatively small map, but very tactical given the limited number of entrances to the warehouse.

You can view a couple of screenshots on the PC Zone site.

There have been two major updates to CS: Source over the last couple of weeks. The highlights of the updates are as follows:

• New maps de_inferno and de_port
• Players must now target another player for at least a half second before the player ID text hint shows up
• Map-specific configs, eg to allow different numbers of bots per map
• Grates/chain link fences no longer affect bullets
• Bots no longer attack enemies that are very far away unless they have a sniper rifle, or the enemies are shooting at them. Instead, they track the enemy and move to a better attack position

The full list of changes can be found in these two articles on the Valve news site:

Counter-Strike: Source and Source Engine Updates 13/05/2005
Counter-Strike: Source and Source Engine Updates 19/05/2005

There's another CS night tomorrow. Meet in MSN or Skype as usual at around 8pm. The server will likely be one from the Game Servers page which have proved reliable in the past.

Valve have released an update to CS: Source to fix the incorrect names that can appear in the scoreboard. We did spot this bug on Friday, resulting in much confusion for poor Bobbly :)

Yesterday saw another good CS night. We tried another couple of servers, because our usual servers hadn't been updated with the latest Steam patches. They have been added to our Server List page.

The FastFrag server was a bit laggy, but the Jolt server was pretty solid. The 4-way Skype conference will not have helped matters.

Trebz was the resident paparazzi this time. You can see a selection of his photos on our Photo Gallery. Some good ones, although the traditional one of Wij lobbing the V's appears to be missing.

Following on from Dabs' recent announcement that they are pulling out of TradeDoubler, Screwfix have today announced the same move. As of 30th April 2005, sales generated from this site will no longer earn commission.

If anyone was planning to buy anything from Screwfix, then please do so before 30th April.

The Screwfix scheme has been valuable for us as most of the network infrastructure for Bob's cellar was bought through it.

The proposed games list for next week's LAN is available on our forums.

Update - the list was lost during the hack.

We're holding another CS: Source evening on Friday. Server as yet undecided - the Game Server page will be updated on the night to show the one we're using.

Those of you who didn't play last week will have quite a big Steam and CS update to catch up on, so prolly best to get updated before the game.

Valve released a Steam and CS: Source update yesterday. The majority of the changes are for Counter-Strike, including a new map called cs_compound, and the return of the old classic de_train. There also seem to have been a lot of updates to the bot code.

View the full change list at steampowered.com.

DF-Lynx has announced that the first LAN in his new basement gaming arena will take place this Easter. Festivities will commence on Thursday 24th March and run through til the Sunday.

Further news on game selection to follow, although it's looking doubtful that Battlefield 2 will be out in time.

There will be another CS: Source game this Friday. Meet in MSN or Skype at around 8pm.