In its quieter moments, the cellblock is almost soothing. Its striking chequered floors, incongruous Escher-like architecture, and concrete walls adorned with chipped paintwork and bullet holes lend the space an unlikely degree of charm. Besides the light echo of peripheral footfall and HEV suit-charging it's eerily quiet. That is, until the Rebels step out against the Combine: barrel-chested, leather-skinned and bloodthirsty—an inevitable eruption of gunfire, pulse orbs and exploding frag grenades follows.  

Since its arrival two weeks after Half-Life 2's mid-November 2004 launch, Lockdown has been one of Half-Life 2: Deathmatch's most popular 2v2 maps. Top players have came and went since, however TheRealQuAz and Maxtasy are long-serving veterans who've occupied its online multiplayer wargrounds since 2008. 

Observing in god-like spectator mode, I look on in awe as these experts exchange blows with two lesser players; dancing around the map and executing fatal maneuvers with a level of precision that's owed to years of experience. Each dash, bunnyhop and meticulously-placed gravity gun-fired grenade is measured and is the result of refined strategy—it seems fitting the monochrome floor mirrors that of a chess board. Within mere minutes the commanding duo is fifteen points to the good. 

"That was just a casual match," Quaz tells me afterwards. "The start was slow, but picked up toward the end when I got warmer."

Nowadays, casual matches are as good as it gets for HL2DM's most serious devotees. Of the 300 or so active daily players, around half are preoccupied with the game's Roleplay mode—a temperamental server which while hosting a huge map that lets players work, rent houses, commit crimes, and go to prison, isn't nearly as sophisticated—nor as fun—as it may sound. 

"You have a bank account and earn money just for being on the server, and you can buy items with that money," explains Maxtasy. "A lot of people just stay idle on the server to farm cash. That's why these servers are usually at the top of the server browser and new players to the game usually join the most populated servers and get a weird first impression of the game, sadly."

Of the remaining 150 or so folk who tend towards the game's default modes, the chances of finding players fit to challenge the likes of Maxtasy and TheRealQuaz are few and far between. Of course this wasn't always the case. 

In 2006, two years after the multiplayer's inception, HL2DM was a regular in Steam's top ten most played games, pulling in upwards of 20,000 players per day. For competitive players, Clans United was established as the game's central European community website and over a six year period hosted 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 leagues which, at its peak, spanned five divisions with eight teams in each field. A hefty waiting list was perpetually on standby, whereby new teams would only replace outfits relegated from the lowest leagues. 

The community always had some drama or scandal going on, whether it be cheating accusations, admin abuse or mismanagement.

At the same time, less significant forums such as HL2DM University were chartered, and a US ESL community ran a semi-successful 1v1 ladder. After players failed to shift Serino—no longer active but widely considered one of the best HL2DM players of all time—from the top spot after several months, though, the latter was eventually dissolved and absorbed by Clans United.         

"Division one had some of the most skilled teams and players ever seen in the game," says Quaz. "It's strange to me that HL2DM was overlooked by the wider community considering the elite level of the top pros is so impressive to watch. But although host to some of the greatest matches ever played, the league and community always had some drama or scandal going on, whether it be cheating accusations, admin abuse or mismanagement." 

In September 2010 Valve upgraded HL2DM to utilise the Orange Box version of the Source Engine—a move which disabled a well-used crouch bug that in turn vastly altered the game's bunny hop mechanic. For many players this meant relearning the game from scratch and compromised six years-worth of practice. As such, a number of teams withdrew from competitive play and by 2012 just two divisions remained. 

It was then Quaz formed his first clan with two similarly prolific players of the time, Lancelot and Bangelo, who went on to win their debut season outright without dropping a single map. Normal procedure dictated that the top team would thereafter progress to the next league—in this case from division four into division three—however a coinciding league restructure levied by the game's admins saw the introduction of a new lower division, and thus saw Quaz and his team were forced to stay put. This didn't sit well with Bangelo and after several formal protests fell on deaf ears he quit the competitive scene entirely, causing Quaz and Lancelot to carry on in a separate 2v2 league. 

In late 2012, Quaz gained admin rights to one of the remaining divisions, yet he himself was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the community due to several ongoing spats regarding team allegiance and admin disputes. Quaz describes the HL2DM scene as "stagnant" around this time and, having shared the gossip with Bangelo, passed over his admin details to allow his ex-teammate to browse the acrimony for himself. 

"I gave the admin forum password to my teammate Bangelo with no malicious intent, just so he could have a chance to troll around on the private admin forums," Quaz explains. "Somehow he managed to delete the entire database of the site, much of which had not been backed up. Only an incomplete series of hall of fame pictures survived. This is pretty much how Clans United went down. I guess I owe it to the community to tell the whole story as they deserve to know and might not already."

From the outside looking in, it's difficult to view Bangelo's actions as anything but intentional. "To be honest, I don't remember all the details," Quaz adds. "I'm not sure exactly what happened internally but it had mixed reactions from the community—some people were obviously annoyed, including me, that much of the history of the game was lost. Others praised Bangelo for deleting Clans United as many players resented the management and felt its time had finally come. People just didn't care as much, despite Clans United being a cornerstone of Half-Life 2: Deathmatch for many great years, which is how it should be remembered." 

In the wake of Clans United, the Old School Community was formed in 2013 which aimed to replicate and replace its predecessor. It's still live today however the same level of interest has never been achieved, and the OSC in its most modern guise instead caters for whichever 'top' players can be bothered stopping by. With other Valve franchises still hugely popular—not least Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2—one might wonder why HL2DM has failed to garner the same long-term support. 

Maxtasy describes his multiplayer of choice as "Valve's forgotten child", while Quaz points to the perceived steep learning curve of hitting top rank in HL2DM coupled with the advent of esports as possible reasons it got left behind—this and the fact Valve makes a killing from CS:GO's skin economy.  

But I of course cross my fingers and hope for the best. My dream would really be a HL3DM game with huge support and a competitive aspect.

While both players have tried to invest time in the likes of Counter-Strike and TF2, unique weapons such as the Gravity Gun and how it's used in combat—"small nuances like lobbing frag grenades and catching them with the Gravity Gun can take years to master," says Maxtasy—combined with its skill-based movement and fast-action rounds have continually drawn them back to HL2DM. 

So how does the HL2DM community move forward—can it? In light of Gabe Newell's Reddit Ask Me Anything last week, could the possibility of Half-Life 3 mark the return of Deathmatch? After all, the original Half-Life shipped with its own iteration of the Deathmatch multiplayer—perhaps a third series instalment of Gordon Freeman's otherworldly adventures is what this community needs to get it back on track.

"It looks to me that Valve is indeed working on a new game in the Half-Life or Portal franchise, but also I got the feeling their new game will be highly influenced by new technologies like Virtual Reality," says Maxtasy. "I fear the new game will be in VR, but I also doubt this will bring a new Deathmatch game. [Valve] already have their 'cash-cow multiplayer games' such as Dota 2 in the strategy genre, and CSGO in their FPS genre. But I of course cross my fingers and hope for the best. My dream would really be a HL3DM game with huge support and a competitive aspect."

Although slightly more confident, Quaz echoes a similar sentiment: "We will see it some day sooner or later I am sure, whether or not it will be called HL3DM is up in the air. However, I feel (and I hope I'm wrong) that it will be nothing like HL2DM. Considering the direction that FPS games in esports are going right now, it won't be anything like the classic arena shooter with skill-based movement. I hope I am very wrong and valve are saving HL3DM to be the revival of the arena shooter. But that may be wishful thinking from me."

In its current state, Quaz reckons the HL2DM community is done for. New players can never hope to reach high levels as there aren't enough top players to learn from. "The best thing in my view would be for Valve to create a brand new multiplayer FPS with a similar mechanic and aesthetic as HL2DM. Essentially a HL2DM reboot with a better competitive engine. I know that this would open up a world of unimagined possibilities. Whether they would be interested in that is anyone's guess. I would love to be involved if there ever was something of that sort."

Like the demise of any community, it's sad to see something once so active fade. But with Half-Life 2: Deathmatch it seems so many variables have worked against it for some time. It's trapped by the advent and ever-growing popularity of esports, and trapped by the Half-Life brand itself and the fact Half-Life 3 might never happen. It's almost ironic that HL2DM's most iconic map is set in a prison. Its most skilled players continue to battle on its dimly-lit concourse, every twitch trick-shot a callback to the game's energetic heday.

The ESL One Cologne 2014 CS:GO championship went down as the most-watched Counter-Strike event in history, with over 400,000 combined viewers watching live in-game or through the ESL stream over the weekend. There were plenty of memorable frags, clutches, and comebacks during the 16-team, four-day event, the best of which I ve collected here.

Every ace (one player notching five kills) from the tournament


The final moments of the last in the three-match series between Cloud9 and NiP


LDLC s apEX notches a 3K on a terrific eco round


Dignitas dupreeh walks through smoke and is rewarded for a moment


A disgusting jump-USP headshot at the end of this clip


Semphis with an amazing stealth retake on de_dust2 s bombsite B


One of our favorite matches of the tournament, an incredible double-OT comeback


The moment of victory for Swedish team Ninjas In Pajamas

Source is certainly showing some wrinkles in comparison to, say, UE4, but CS:GO remains the premier competitive shooter on PC today. Even after a decade half of history with the franchise, we still love the look and feel of its classic maps and their modern iterations: Mirage's A bombsite, Inferno's "banana" path, or Dust 2's dim tunnel.

Firing up CS:GO on LPC, I decided not to go with a triple-wide monitor setup, so I arranged our three 27" monitors in portrait configuration. This gave us a combined resolution of 4320x2560 or 25 percent/3 million more pixels than we'd get at 4K.

.@wesleyfenlon has fired up Next Car Game on our ludicrous 3x27" portrait setup. https://t.co/JYOJGYvSdr— Evan Lahti (@ELahti) May 9, 2014




Click each preview image to view the uncropped, uncompressed PNG.

Have you played every single game in your Steam library? No? Neither have I and that accomplishment is apparently just a small sand grain in the over 288 million games in Steam collections that have never felt a press of the Play button. That's a surprising figure from a new report by Ars Technica researching the most active and popular games on Steam straight from the recorded statistics of some of the platform's 75-million-strong community.

Ars' method for its number flood involves sampling registered games and their played hours via profiles and their unique Steam IDs. With the help of a server for computational muscle, Ars randomly polled more than 100,000 profiles daily for two months to pull together an idea of which games see the most time on everyone's monitors. In other words, your Backlog of Shame (don't deny it, everyone has one) probably took part in some SCIENCE at some point. Exciting.

Some caveats exist, though. The data Ars looked at for its research only extends back to 2009, when Steam brought in its "hours played" tracking system. Owned and played/unplayed games are thus slightly skewed to not account for older releases from the early noughties, and any length of time spent in offline mode wouldn't get picked up by Steam either. Still, Ars claims its results deliver a good picture of Steam gaming trends for the past five years albeit with some imperfections.

Predictably, Valve's personal products stack high on the list in terms of ownership and most played hours. Dota 2 takes the crown with an estimated 26 million players who ganked faces at some point in the MOBA, but free-to-play FPS Team Fortress 2 follows closely behind with a little over 20 million users. Counter-Strike: Source rounds out the top three with nearly 9 million players, but it's also collecting dust in over 3 million libraries.

As for non-Valve games, Skyrim wins in activity, barely edging out Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with 5.7 million estimated active owners. Civilization V kept 5.4 million players hooked for Just One More Turn, and Garry's Mod boasts 4.6 million budding physics artists.

Want to know what the most unplayed Steam game is? It's Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, the Source tech demo given free to pretty much everyone on Steam who bought or fired up Half-Life 2. It hasn't been touched by an approximate 10.7 million players. I guess that old fisherman is feeling pretty lonely right now.

My favorite stat is the total of played hours divided by game mode, more specifically the separate multiplayer clients of the Steam versions of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops. The single-player campaigns for each respective title sits modestly within the mid-20-hour range, but the multiplayer side balloons well into the hundreds of hours. It's a pretty obvious indicator of where the biggest chunk of popularity resides in FPS gaming, but it's not like you wouldn't get weird looks for claiming you play Call of Duty for the story anyway.

See more of Ars' results in both number and pretty orange graph form in its report.

I've not much sympathy for "things were better in the old days" reminiscing. For instance, those who prefer the twitch action of 'old-school' shooters still have valid options for their acrobatic rocket-spam. Far better then, are those retro-pastiche projects that filter the philosophy of nostalgia through something entirely more ridiculous. Take Half-Life 2: Deathmatch mod Jaykin' Bacon 3. As you'll see in this trailer, its Instagib mode will let you play a flying Solid Snake shooting his deadly electrified finger gun.



There's no hint of a release date yet for the Jaykin' Bacon Source sequel, so while we wait for the mod team to provide further instructions, you can check out their official site. Alternatively, head over to ModDB to see how the creators have incorporated Perfect Dark Zero into their mythology.

Opportunities for misdirection maneuvers are less common in multiplayer shooters, so I'm compelled to highlight this absurdly creative flashbang feint I spotted on the ESEA YouTube channel from last weekend's ESEA S13 LAN in Dallas.

The setup: two teams whittle each other down to a one-on-one scenario around bomb site A on de_dust2. Watch how Swag (Team Dynamic) handles KennyS (VERYGAMES) after the bomb plant.

Valve has sent out a patch for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that focuses on tweaking Hostage Rescue rules for stronger balance and to entice players away from the long-favored Bomb Defusal. Most notably, CTs have now adopted the tactical doctrine of draping hostages across their shoulders like a squishy scarf, and only a single rescue is needed to secure a win for the good guys.

You'll need to interact with a hostage for a lengthy four seconds to get him to hop on for a ride, and a new "rescue kit" shortens pickup time to a single second by presumably wowing hostages with attractively padded and comfortable-looking shoulder guards to rest on. Taking a note of influence from community-made maps such as cs_motel, hostage spawns are now randomized per match.

Valve is also continuing to stock GO's maps with updated versions of classic Counter-Strike levels, with cs_militia being the latest addition. It's structured similarly to cs_assault, where Ts benefit from an entrenched interior location to bunker in while CTs attempt rescue through multiple points of entry.

Defusing bombs got a small but significant change as well: turning too far away from a bomb while defusing it will cancel the process, a jump in risk and exposure for CTs trying for the win while Ts yet linger to guard the bomb. They could sure use one of those hostage-capes for extra protection.

Oh, and the rumored Support Pass for a community map rotation on official servers isn't happening. Valve even pokes fun at earlier reports of the pass with a new data string, "CSGO_Ticket_CommunitySeasonOneSpring2013_Leak," and its single-word description: "lol." Oh, Valve. Don't ever change.

See the rest of the patch notes over on Steam.

The CS community took out their knives and eagerly sprinted forward to the hundreds of user-made maps filling Global Offensive's Workshop since last month. We've got a nice stack of them running on our own server, and Valve is evidently looking to copy that setup on its own servers. Data-divers of reddit have found mention of a "Support Pass" in the next patch for players to purchase and access a pool of community maps soon to join the official server rotation.

A list of new data strings found in the patch mentions a "Community Support Pass Season One" to "grant access to Season One's featured community maps on official servers." The proceeds are distributed evenly to map contributors in what's likely an incentive to encourage an increasingly large selection of maps to feature.

The data doesn't mention a price, but Valve has a similar system in place with Team Fortress 2's co-op Mann vs. Machine mode, where players access multi-map sessions by purchasing $0.99 tickets. Assuming GO's passes carry a similar cost, it should result in a relatively simple way to jump into high-quality custom battles for little effort. The patch is expected to hit this week, so we'll have a clearer understanding of Valve's plans soon enough.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has a lot of custom maps. Seriously, browse its Steam Workshop page and see for yourself. We've talked about some of our favorites (all of which appear in our CS:GO sessions on our server), but a classic map layout we've yet to see a worthy update for is de_rats' bomb-defusal play in an oversized kitchen. DJ PC820 and TastySlopsicle's de_dolls_csgo is perhaps the best spiritual iteration we've spotted yet.

Instead of a kitchen, de_dolls_csgo takes us into a heavily pink bedroom which I assume is the property of a little girl, but the power of pink is genderless. Just like in rats, the jumbo furniture provides multiple nooks and alcoves for plinking across the map, including a doll house with furniture and a duct passage for moving around without exposing yourself to the AWPer's paradise of the main bedroom floor.

The map supports both classic and deathmatch play as well as bots for offline practice. You can easily download it by hitting the green "subscribe" button on its Workshop page.