Counter-Strike has changed very little over the past decade, and aside from new maps and a couple of new modes, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site] has mostly stuck to old routines. Thank goodness for modders, then, who add things such as maps which randomly select weather patterns at the start of each round. … [visit site to read more]

Well, this really isn’t the chart I’d expected to see at this point of the year. We’re in peak Silly Season, and yet last week’s 10 best-selling games on Steam form a broadly unexpected bunch.

Which is exactly what I like to see.

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We’re nearly at the end of silly season: most of the big releases are out now, with only Watch No Underscore Dogs Two really still to go. It’s been a messy one for a lot of the big companies, by all accounts. Let’s see how it shook out during Dishonored 2 launch week.

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Last week, like drinking mulled wine on a chilly November evening, I found great comfort in a Steam top ten that seemed to reflect the wide, weird and wonderful nature of modern PC gaming. After months of recurrent names, it was a bright new dawn of variety. Anything is possible.

I am a fool. … [visit site to read more]

An altogether healthier chart than we’ve had over the last few weeks, even if the usual ghosts continue to haunt it. That was a spooky halloween reference. It’s probably still Halloween in Tazmania or something. Even if it’s not, there’s definitely a hungover guy in a vomit-smeared David S. Pumpkins costume shambling down a street somewhere. … [visit site to read more]

It’s both trick and treat for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site] in the latest update. With Spookday almost upon us, Valve have unleashed the scary chickens again. This time, they’ve got cute little carved pumpkin heads as they strut and scurry around levels. Those sillies are the treat. The trick? Valve are ramping up the punishment for players convicted of griefing by a trial of their peers, going straight to permanent bans on the second offence. And then Chet Faliszek TPs your house. … [visit site to read more]

As I predicted, so it shall soon come to pass. The same game in no less than four slots in the Steam chart (comprising, as always, those games which sold best over the past week). Out, damn top-spot hoggers. … [visit site to read more]

The Man recently told Valve to stamp out online gambling which uses virtual Steam items – Counter-Strike gun skins and the like – as chips. The Washington State Gambling Commission gave Valve until October 14th, under threat of legal action, to stop these gambling sites and report back explaining their compliance with Washington State’s gambling laws and Valve have replied, er, several days late. Valve say that they’re doing all they reasonably can, short of cutting off important Steam services for everyone. … [visit site to read more]

I have a terrible confession to make. While, on a weekly basis, I protest about the oft-unchanging nature of these charts, the truth is that a new entry makes me sigh. It means I have to laboriously type out new HTML rather than just copy the links from last week. This means terrible, unspeakable suffering in a week such as this, where there actually are quite a few ‘new’ games. … [visit site to read more]

Dear old Counter-Strike level Inferno has returned to CS: Global Offensive [official site] reworked and prettied-up. Gone is the grunge of early noughties FPSs, the cloudy skies, the illogical architecture, and the lingering sense that maybe CS is set inside the world of Half-Life 2, with Inferno’s village now a scenic spot you might potter around, cooing, on your summer hols. Oh, sure, and they’ve fiddled with a lot of areas to tweak how it plays. After a stretch in beta, the new Inferno is now public in the Reserves Map Group. Even if you’re not into CS: GO, do enjoy the comparison screenshots between 2012’s Inferno and 2016’s – the progress is pleasing. … [visit site to read more]