Gaming News

A recent update to Counter-Strike 2 adds additional crates to the CT spawn ramp in Dust2, making it possible to jump up without the need for a boost - this saves around 4 seconds compared to walking round.

Also, we finally have CS2 servers in the UK, meaning better pings and more chance of English speakers in the game!

Watch this video from 3kliksphilip for all the details.

In a surprising move, Valve have issued a huge update to Team Fortress 2. The update brings new maps, cosmetic changes, bug fixes and changes to map rotation. Included in the new maps are ten community maps.

Read the full article on PCGamesN

Swagg gives us a preview of some of the features of this year's Call of Duty game - Black Ops 6. It will merge many of the features of the previous Black Ops games with the more recent MW2/MW3 games, including its own flavour of Warzone. Will there be a DMZ tho? That's the big question!

Watch the full video on Swagg's Youtube channel.

The group stages of the Intel Extreme Masters in Dallas are now complete, with the playoff and grand final over the coming weekend. You can see the draw on HLTV and follow the action live on Twitch.

Bethesda have applied a major update to Fallout 4, many many years after the last one. The new update gives you a new quest, new weapons, power armour and skins. The update was followed a few days later by another update fixing a few bugs that were introduced.

Interest in the Fallout series has been reignited following the superb TV series on Amazon Prime that aired recently, bumping it right back up the game play charts in recent weeks.

You can read the full patch notes here and view the general Bethesda Fallout 4 News here.

Another BobLAN comes to an end, and this one was rather special with it being the host's 60th birthday event. As always, great company, food, facilities and above all the hospitality shown by Bob and Lynda - amazing as usual!!!

We didn't play too much in the way of new games - Helldivers 2 and The Finals being the only newcomers (although we had played The Finals a couple of times during the year). Everyone seemed to enjoy them, so definitely ones to play again. We had the usual mix of Battlefield 1, CS2, Call of Duty, Wreckfest, Grid, Codenames and Rockband. We did give PUBG a go on a private server, but after playing the newer FPS games, PUBG feels sluggish and somehow just wrong. There is talk of them switching to the Unreal 5 engine which should really help, but maybe one to drop from the roster. You can see the full list of games played on the dedicated BobLAN 2024.1 page.

One of the highlights of the LAN for a few of us was the mini hackathon in our bid to get HLStats working on CS2. I am pleased to announce that we did it eventually. Maybe not in time for it to see much use this time, but definitely promising for future events.

Massive thanks again to Bob and Lynda for all that you do - it means so much to us all. The next LAN starts on 14th November 2024 - counting down already...

BobLAN 2024.1 officially starts today. Keep track of the schedule on Discord or on our dedicated BobLAN page. Let the gaming commence...

That's right, BobLAN 2024.1 starts on Thursday of this week. Get those games installed or updated and make any last-minute non-breaking changes!

A couple of major updates hit PUBG recently. One that affects all platforms is destructible world. Not that you can destroy everything, like you can in some Battlefield games. It's more things like using grenades to make craters to take cover in - could be useful. A video from JackFrags shows it in action.

The other is cross-platform play, however this only applies to consoles - PC is not included. Likely because they don't want keyboard/mouse and controller players in the same game. Call of Duty manages it quite well, although aim assist does give controller players a slight advantage.

Over 6 months after ending updates for DMZ as a game mode in Call of Duty, it actually received a patch yesterday. The change is to disable the disguise, as it has been used as an exploit vector. Not the greatest of changes, but it is interesting that they chose to fix this glitch whilst leaving many worse glitches unpatched.

DMZ is still a very popular game mode, with youtubers such as Phixate, On1c and Sthorm Operator producing regular content. The developers have already said that the MW3 Zombies mode will stop receiving new content, and the general feel for the new Rebirth Island map is lukewarm at best. Of all the game modes, DMZ has the best longevity due to the mix of playing styles and friendliness/toxicity you will meet, and the fact that each game is unique. Long may it continue!

Intel Extreme Masters in Chengdu is running throughout all this week. We have the first set of Group stage finals today, followed by the playoff and grand final over the weekend. You can see the draw on HLTV and follow the action live on Twitch.

Season 3 of Modern Warfare 3 launched today, along with the usual bugs and patches.

There are way too many changes to list here, so head over to the patch notes for the full details.

It is just 4 weeks until the first BobLAN of 2024 - can all those attending please update Bob's spreadsheet?

Here's an incredible stream from ON1C where he managed to get nearly all the players in a DMZ game to work together and form a single huge squad - definitely watch until the end ... The LARGEST DMZ Platoon Ever Formed

This year's Intel Extreme Masters event in Katowice, Poland, is in full swing. The group stages started over the weekend and continue during the week. The finals at the Spodek Arena take place next weekend, concluding with the grand final on Sunday 11th February.

Catch the action over on the ESLCS Twitch stream and follow the fixture list on HLTV.org

Videos are starting to pop up detailing the contents of Modern Warfare 3 Season 1 Reloaded. One of the most intriguing additions is the inclusion of several DMZ features in Battle Royale - Exfils, Missions and the Weapons Case. Hopefully this is included in the free content of the game.

As always, there will be more game modes, tweaks to existing maps and new weapons.

For more details, watch PretigeIsKey on Youtube

Activision are running a free weekend for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 this weekend, giving all those sensible enough not to preorder it the chance to kill some zombies. Personally I will likely stick to DMZ but will definitely give it a try for free this weekend!

There have been a couple of sizeable CS2 updates this week - read the release notes over on Steam

Another superb BobLAN comes to an end and sadly, we must all return to normal life :( We didn't play any new games this time (unless you count CS2) but we did maximise our gaming time quite well. We had some good, close CS2 matches between the two rooms - not quite the same without stats but still fun. Hopefully by the next LAN they will have sorted things like Arms Race, Demolition and the plugins that we need to make it our own.

We revisited Team Fortress 2 and PUBG this LAN, and both went down well. That said, PUBG looks really clunky after playing things like MW2 this past year. Battlefield 1 and 2042 worked very well - we didn't play these enough in my opinion.

As for driving, it was the usual Wreckfest and GRID - both firm favourites for drivers and non-drivers alike.

Food was top-notch as ever, as was the company and banter. A massive thank you to Bob and Lynda for hosting us all once again - truly appreciated by all.

Counting down to the next BobLAN in May 2024...

We're well into day 2 of BobLAN 2023.2 and plenty of different games have been played. A mix of FPS with Call of Duty, CS2 and Battlefield 1 plus driving with Wreckfest. Further updated to follow...