Gaming News

An update to CS:GO yesterday introduced a bunch of weapon and gameplay changes. Full details can be found at Steam News, but here are a few highlights:

• Added Silenced M4A1.


• Added Silenced USP.


• When a player reloads their weapon, they now drop a magazine that persists in the world.


• Machine gun belts now visually match the ammo count in the viewmodel when firing and reloading.


• Added holdable action key +lookatweapon that allows players to visually inspect their first person weapon while in-game. This has been bound to the F key by default (if that key was previously unbound). [Guessing this is in response to being able to buy customised weapons via the new Arms Deal section of Steam Workshop]


• Players now automatically crouch while planting bombs.

Here's a quick reminder for everyone coming along to the MiniBob on Friday - please update your local Steam installations before you set off!

Bob is holding a mini LAN party for just one night, on Friday 26th July. Please let Bob know if you are coming.

Note that it's vital that everyone updates their local Steam/Origin game files before they come, due to recent changes in the Virgin Media traffic shaping policy. It would only take a couple of people updating TF2 and CS:GO to push us over the new threshold.

The board game evening at Bob's was a thoroughly enjoyable event. Despite there being only four players, we had plenty of fun.

The games we played were:

• Alien Frontiers
• Carcassonne
• Love Letter
• King of Tokyo

No doubt some of these will be making an appearance alongside Ticket to Ride at the next BobLAN :)

As always, big thanks to Bob, and also to Dan for bringing along a selection of games to try!

Tonight sees the inaugural BobBoard - a board games event at Bob's. This follows a successful pilot scheme at the last BobLAN, where Trebz brought along some games, and we had a go at Ticket to Ride. If all goes well, this could become a regular fixture.

More to follow after the event.

Last month, Valve released an update to CounterStrike : Global Offensive which saw the return of one of the original CS maps - cs_militia. This is a hostage rescue map where you can go overground or through tunnels to reach the hostages. Whilst retaining much of the layout of the original, it has been improved to give more attack points for both sides.

In terms of the hostage rescue itself, that has change considerably. One CT can no longer lead all the hostages out in one go - they have to be picked up and carried individually (although rescuing one hostage adds time to the clock). It does make it more realistic, and adds to the tension at the end of the round. Should be a winner at the next LAN :)

Further information can be found on PC Gamer and Steam News

No dates have been announced for this year's BobLANs. However we do know that the traditional Easter weekend will not be the weekend again due to family commitments. More to follow when Bob picks a date.

We received the sad news on Sunday that the Mani Admin plugin for the Source engine games will be closing down. We have been using Mani for years to add features to the BobLAN CounterStrike, Day of Defeat and Halflife 2 DM servers. I'd only just got it working with CS:GO too :( Mani has been a great addition to the CS community since the start, and it will be missed.

There is an alternative, which I will look into - that is eXtensible Admin for Eventscripts. We've already got Eventscripts in use, and according to the documentation, XA supports Mani config files.

The LAN party dates have been confirmed - setup (including Asda curry) starts next Thursday evening, and runs through until Sunday early afternoon. Follow the game discussions on the Forums.

Our LAN party host DFC-Lynx has pencilled in the weekend of 9th-11th November 2012 for the next event. The dates are only provisional, but most of the regulars have confirmed their availability.

The BobLAN page has been setup, as has the Forums Topic covering the weekend. Feel free to post game suggestions.

Ubisoft have revealed the recommended PC spec required to play the third game in the FarCry series. As per usual, the specs are demanding if you want to run the game in its full glory - they recommend an i7-2600K coupled with a high end DX11 graphics card for best effect.

Read the full specs on Shacknews.

Still on the subject of FarCry 3, Ubi have also announced that the game will only go online to activate once for single player usage (as opposed to FarCry 2, which required always-on internet access). Multiplayer sessions will check DRM at each launch, but that's nothing out of the ordinary these days.

An article on Shacknews reports that the new Wii U will be able to transfer content from your old Wii, including Miis, WiiWare, and Virtual Console games without having to repurchase paid-for DLC.

The only stipulation is that both systems need to be connected to the internet at the same time - not a problem for wireless connection these days.

I happened across Jace's personal page this evening, and on it are a few nostalgic gems of MCW and BW times...

• BarrysWorld - look towards the bottom of the page for various links to BW content


• MCW League - a snapshot of season 8 where DFC played in Division 3

Them were the days...

Specialist retailer Game today announced its plans for the Game and GameStation brands following their exit from Administration. They are consolidating to a single brand, namely Game. The 122 remaining GameStation stores will be rebranded over the coming weeks.

Coupled with the rebranding is a relaunch of the popular Reward scheme, which will include the best bits of both brands. It will have the 2x preorder bonus from Game, and the achievements and points on trade-ins from GameStation.

You can read more on this via the industry news sites:

• CVG
• MCV

UK retailers have announced the release date of the next generation Nintendo console - the Wii U - as 30th November 2012. The basic model is to be priced at around £250 and the premium model will be around £300. Various bundle deals will be on offer, including games for a marginally reduced overall price.

Whilst this will no doubt be popular with Nintendo fans, it'll be interesting to see if Xbox and PS gamers will hold on until their respective next gen consoles appear next year.

In readiness for this autumn's LAN party action, the popular BobLAN page has been ported to the mobile format.

Point your devices, as it were, at the Mobile BobLAN page to see the LAN details and schedule as it unfolds.

The DFC main site and forums were temporarily offline earlier today due to a server outage. They have been moved to a new server, running the latest versions of PHP and MySQL. No data was lost as a result of the outage.

Shacknews reported on the technology that's being developed for the sequel to Company of Heroes - the RTS game which made a couple of appearances at BobLAN a few years ago. The game stays with the WWII theme, but this time on the eastern front, where the Russians hold back the Germans.

The technology in question is ColdTech - designed to bring the realism of the snow and ice to life, and make it an integral part of the game. For example it's no longer a good idea to try to drive your tank over an iced lake or river, as that ice can be broken by the enemy.

You can read the full article on Shacknews. Also, there are plenty of Company of Heroes 2 screenshots and videos on Shacknews too.

Following on from the recent 30th anniversary of the ZX Spectrum, we now have the 20th anniversary of Wolfenstein 3D - generally regarded as the FPS that sparked the revolution in gaming in the early 90's. It marked the beginning of iD's dominance for many years, with massive titles such as Doom, Quake, Hexen, Heretic etc and the many versions of each one.

To celebrate the landmark, Steam are offering Wolfenstein for a whopping 74p. You can also get the full iD software pack at a 50% discount at the Steam Store. (offer ends at 18:00 BST today)

The Sinclair ZX Spectrum hit the ripe old age of 30 this week. For those that owned the 8-bit computer, there's nothing like reminiscing about the great games that were available back then. Indeed, many rival today's games in terms of ideas and gameplay, if not graphics.

Foxy posted this link to a list of Spectrum classics on the Facebook - well worth a read :)