Like a man dancing to Belle & Sebastian, last week’s best-selling Steam games saw some shaking at the top but not a lot of movement below. IS YOUR FAVOURITE GAME HERE AND WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT YOU AS A PERSON IF IT’S NOT? … [visit site to read more]
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:
In August, sixteen teams will compete for what is likely to be the biggest prize pool in the history of competitive gaming. While the majority of these teams will fight for their spot through a series of regional qualifiers, six of the best have now received their direct invite and, for the first time, the returning champions aren't among them.
OG, Team Liquid, Newbee, LGD Gaming, MVP Phoenix and Natus Vincere are the official invitees, with 2015 winners Evil Geniuses conspicuous by their absence. They've been relegated to the open qualifier, along with Team Secret, due to an eleventh-hour roster switch that fell outside of Valve's fixed transfer window. Breaking the rules means that they've got the longest possible road ahead of them in order to defend their title.
The spread of invitees demonstrates how dynamic and competitive the international Dota 2 scene is, particularly compared to other esports. OG is an independent squad that is less than a year old, handily earning their spot with two separate Major victories and another first-place finish at ESL One over the weekend. The new Team Liquid follow hot on their heels with a run of high-profile second place finishes and a win at Epicenter. Theirs is a similar story to OG a new team with veteran experience at its heart.
Newbee are one of two prior International champions to be invited, but this is a very different squad to the one that rolled over the competition at TI4. The new Newbee showcases some of the best talent in the Chinese scene, and they enjoyed an extraordinary undefeated run earlier in the year that was only curtailed when they encountered OG a team that has proved to be their foil more than once.
The new Na'Vi are the other former champions to get an invite to TI6, although only two members of that winning 2011 lineup remain Dendi and Artstyle (and Artstyle was absent for the bulk of the team's most famous performances.) Na'Vi have emerged from a few long years of scene-wide roster instability as the surprise hope of CIS Dota, placing consistently well at LAN more so than some of their better-regarded rivals.
Korea's MVP Phoenix and China's LGD are more questionable inclusions, but this reddit thread offers some sensible explanations. LGD's invite follows a recent trend of Valve inviting the top four from any official LAN to the next official LAN. MVP Phoenix, like Na'Vi, have a consistently strong record on LAN, which seems to factor heavily into Valve's selection process.
Teams without a direct invite will have to compete through four sets of regional qualifiers, with the majority of each region's best teams being invited to these instead: see the official site for the full list. Each regional qualifier has two open spots which will be filled through a run of open qualifiers taking place later this week. You can find more details about these here. It's well worth taking part particularly if you're in Europe or the Americas, where you've got a greater-than-zero chance of facing Team Secret or EG. And getting stomped by them.
Ooh – the direct invitees for The International 2016 (that’s the massive annual Dota 2 [official site] tournament with the eye-watering prize pool) have been announced. There’s also a bunch of information on how the qualifiers work so YOU, dear reader, could theoretically be in the running to scoop part of that $12.4m. Well. $12.4m so far….
Two-time Major winners OG are obviously going straight to Seattle, while star squad Secret and last year’s winners Evil Geniuses will need to work their way through the open qualifiers. That’s thanks to some roster swap action which means both violated Valve’s roster lock conditions.
Read on for the full list of direct invitees as well as who’s going to be duking it out in the regionals so far:
The latest update to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive includes the first in a series of planned improvements to the game's audio. The Negev, M249, and Mag7 have all had their sound effects punched up, and the smoke grenade sound has been changed to make it more distinct as well. But there's also an entirely new effect that's been added, a ratcheting sound signaling that the current magazine is just about empty. And that, according to Kotaku, has made some hardcore players awfully unhappy.
The complaints arise from the fact that, with this sound cue, it's no longer necessary to keep track of the number of bullets your enemy has fired in order to know when it's safe to stick your head out; instead, you can just wait until you hear the tell-tale click. That lowers the skill ceiling of the game, as this Reddit thread puts it, because you no longer require experience or familiarity with in-game firearms to know when your enemy has run dry: You just need to listen.
But that's maybe not as straightforward as it sounds. It's not as though a flashing neon sign will appear on your screen when the sound is triggered, and you'll need to be quite close to your enemy to actually hear it, as YouTuber Dinoswarleaf demonstrates. So it may be of limited value to begin with, and as one Redditor points out, most players aren't actually out there counting bullets in the middle of a digital firefight.
It reminds me a bit of the famous ping sound made by clips ejecting from the Second World War-era M1 Garand rifle: Legend has it that the noise was a deadly defect that signaled an empty weapon, but the reality is that it could very rarely be heard, and had no real value even when it was.
Whether or not it actually makes a significant change to the skill ceiling, the reaction to the sound has been intense, and has led to calls for a CS:GO public test realm, so Valve can give these ideas a trial run before granting them to/inflicting them on the full player base. Valve hasn't yet commented on the complaints and the sound effect remains. Give it a listen in the short video clip below.
There's loads happening all over the world of esports this weekend, so let's get right to it. From Hearthstone in Asia to Heroes of the Storm, CS:GO, Smite and more in Sweden and Overwatch and League in North America, there should be high-quality play to watch wherever you are.
Hearthstone: Spring Championships Asia-Pacific
Hearthstone's next regional championship concludes tomorrow, with games beginning at 09:00 PDT/18:00 CEST. This will determine which of the best players in the Asia-Pacific region will represent Hearthstone at the World Championship in November. You'll find the livestream at http://www.twitch.tv/playhearthstone.
Heroes of the Storm: Summer Global Championship
The world's best Heroes of the Storm players clash in Sweden with a $150,000 grand prize to fight for. Group play has been going on for a while, but continues on Saturday and Sunday starting at 03:00 PDT/12:00 CEST. Find the livestream at http://twitch.tv/blizzheroes.
Dota 2: ESL One Frankfurt 2016
Group play began today for this, one of the last premier Dota 2 events before the International in August. You can catch games starting at 01:30 PDT/10:30 CEST on Saturday and Sunday, and you'll find the livestream at http://www.twitch.tv/esl_dota2.
CSGO: DreamHack Summer 2016
The cream of the CSGO scene returns to Sweden for the next three days. Group play begins on Saturday at 06:00 PDT/15:00 CEST on Saturday, and continues at 03:00 PDT/12:00 CEST on Sunday and 01:30 PDT/10:30 CEST on Monday. Find the livestream at dreamhack.tv.
Overwatch: ONOG Operation Breakout
$15,000 on the line for the best Overwatch players in North America. Games begin at 17:00 PDT/01:00 CEST on Saturday night (Sunday morning in Europe) and you'll find the livestream at https://www.twitch.tv/onenationofgamers.
Rocket League: Open Qualifier 2, Week 2
Rocket Leagues latest round of open qualifiers takes place in NA and EU over the weekend. As with last week, these won't be officially streamed. Keep an eye on Twitch, however, to see if any players choose to stream their matches. You can find out more at https://www.rocketleagueesports.com/.
League of Legends: NA LCS
Another week of drama in the North American League of Legends scene. There's a full day of play on Saturday starting at 12:00 PDT/21:00 CEST with a slightly shorter day to follow on Sunday. Find more details and the livestream at www.lolesports.com.
Smite: Masters at Dreamhack Summer 2016
This is the climax of Smite's spring split, a $450,000+ tournament featuring the world's best players. You won't find higher-profile Smite than this outside of Worlds in January. Play begins at 02:30 PDT/11:30 CEST on Saturday and continues at 08:30 PDT/17:30 CEST on Sunday, with the finals taking place on Monday. Find the livestream at http://www.twitch.tv/smitegame.
I’ve just finished Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, a first-person parkour game about Faith Connors and a scrappy band of outlaw runners and hackers who deliver secret packages under the noses of an oppressive corporate government. By rights you should root for these underdogs. If only they weren’t all dicks.
I am genuinely surprised by which game sold best on Steam last week (previous weeks here, btw). PC gaming remains beautifully unpredictable, doesn’t it?