There’s an argument that the media shouldn’t given any air to known enfant terribles – that by giving more profile to someone who spouts wild and dangerous innacuracies you only serve to further their cause. It’s not one I believe, though – that would mean someone like disgraced game-haranguing UK politician Keith Vaz would essentially get away with ritually blaming the evil that men can do on videogames. No; any chance to reveal the flaws in his bewildering bluster and blame should be taken.

In this case, he’s accused Counter-Strike of inspiring a series of tragic shootings which occurred in Malmo, Sweden. A case local police have said appears to be part of a year-long campaign of violence against immigrants to the area. Keith has other ideas. (more…)

Attention, fans of repeatedly shooting men in slightly different-coloured outfits. The controversy-tastic beta update to Counter-Strike: Source (the one with the -gasp!- achievements, -aiee!- stats and – shock! – a killcam) has now gone on general release. As in, if you own Counter-Strike: Source, you’re getting it whether you want it or not. Not tried the update yet, but going on the community response to the beta, it’s going to be messy.

You’ll also be able to kill people on Macs, who can buy the thing for their glowing fruit-emblazoned personal computers as of today. Yes, the hardest-dying of PC gamers can exact bloody revenge on those OSX upstarts. It’s going to be messy.

To celebrate, the game’s been discounted by some 66% – which equates to just £4.76 in UK groats. A few top-of-the-head thoughts on Mac gaming below… (more…)

The quiet giant that is Counter-Strike: Source doesn’t get talked about outside of its playerbase all that much these days -we’ve got our newfangled Team Fortresses and Modern Warfares instead – but it is nonetheless massive, has always been massive, and always will be massive. This is only going to make it more massive, I suspect. Valve have unexpectedly chucked out a pretty major update for it, cannily carrying a ‘beta’ tag. It is fatted with several of the digi-trinkets we tend to expect from modern shooters, which may put to bed calls for a full Counter-Strike 2.0 for a while. Or equally it might be exacerbate them, in a strange inverse of the Left 4 Dead 2 response. The internet’s famous Fear Of Change will doubtless play its part in the response to this too. Regardless, this is the exciting tale of the exciting tape: Achievements! Avatars! Death cam! Lifetime stats! Domination/revenge system! Some sort of graphical jiggery-pokery! (more…)