Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

Remember that time Valve made a cover version of another developer’s game?

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Every Monday, Brendan heads to the frontlines of early access and writes about his heroic battles there. This week, he repeatedly fires upon his own team in multiplayer shooter Day of Infamy.>

In an age of Overwatches and hyper-CoDs it s easy to forget that every first-person shooter was once set inside a single trench of World War II. Returning to this battlefield might seem like a terrible idea to some who ve served their time in the hellish artillery bombardments of yesteryear. But I never played Day of Defeat, the Half-Life mod upon which this new WWII outing is based. So fumbling with grenades in the mud and snow of the Western front is something I was happy to do. I even tried my hand at commanding the other men. Which obviously resulted in everyone being disintegrated into thousands of tiny pieces.

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Valve seemingly have little interest in making a new Day of Defeat but they are at least letting someone else have a crack. Now on Steam Early Access is Day of Infamy [official site], a World War 2 multiplayer FPS heavily inspired by Day of Defeat – and made with Valve’s blessings and support. Infamy is the work of New World Interactive, the folks who made modern military FPS Insurgency. They’re trying to pick up where Day of Defeat left off, basically. Here, have a gander:

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Day of Infamy [official site], the Insurgency mod unashamedly based on Valve’s WW2 FPS Day of Defeat, is becoming a standalone commercial game – with Valve’s blessing. Insurgency devs New World Interactive started Day of Infamy as a free mod made with the help of community members, releasing the first version earlier this year. Now they’re expanding it into a full and proper standalone game on the Source Engine, and with Valve’s support they’re even making a few levels based on ones from Day of Defeat. It’ll start on Steam Early Access next month. Here’s the announcement trailer:

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Modern-day military FPS Insurgency [official site] now has a World War 2 military FPS lurking inside it, like a matryoshka doll made from bullets. Insurgency developers New World Interactive built the foundations of mod Day of Infamy themselves but have opened it up to players to expand it. Yes, obviously it is inspired by Day of Defeat. Infamy required a beta client when it first launched in mid-January, but as of a few days ago it’s compatible with the game’s main branch for everyone to easily play.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every weekday of the year, perhaps for all time.>

Not the original mod. Not Global Offensive or Condition Zero. I’m talking about Counter-Strike: Source, the remake that brought terrorists and counter-terrorists to the Half-Life 2 engine – and for some reason, was never fully embraced by the audience.

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American media conglomerate Turner Broadcasting and talent agency WME/IMG plans to show 20 live Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site] events on US television next year as part of a league series after brokering a successful deal with Valve.

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Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

Not Global Offensive. Not Source. I’m talking the original Counter-Strike. The Half-Life mod; the game that was more popular than its online competitors combined; the game that in many ways pioneered both games as services and games as playable alphas; the game that spawned two follow-ups but which even right now, as I’m writing this, has 20,211 concurrent players through Steam.

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Early Access games are here to stay, but is that cause for concern or celebration? We gathered to discuss whether early access benefits developers or players in its current state, and how we’d make it better. Along the way, we discussed the best alpha examples, paying for unfinished games, our love of regularly updated mods, Minecraft and the untapped potential of digital stores.>

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In Pop Flash, a series of insights into Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site], Emily Richardson looks past the amazing clutches and crushing defeats to understand the culture and meta of Valve s everlasting competitive FPS.>

This week, I ll be discussing abuse and toxic behaviour in the CS:GO community. Before we get to it, let me reiterate that I am madly in love with Counter-Strike. It s simply one of the best team games out there. This piece, however, is meant to highlight one important issue that I think we can overcome.

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