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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VR almost certainly needs a killer app if it’s to spread beyond monied game-fans. Facebook have probably got something up their sleeves for that there Oculus Rift, but as for the Vive, I do wonder if Garry Newman’s talk of a VR-focused follow-up to his monster-selling Garry’s Mod [official site] could be the mega-toy it needs.

… [visit site to read more]

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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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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What are the best Steam Summer Sale deals? Each day for the duration of the sale, we’ll be offering our picks – based on price, what we like, and what we think more people should play. Read on for the five best deals from day 10 of the sale.>

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Say kid, how do you fancy being a YouTube sensation, a real livestream Liberace? “B-but where would I even start?” you ask, eyes wide with hope. A new Humble Weekly Sale offers almost everything you need to become an Internet megastar, minus the hardware and a dreadful persona.

Curated by ‘PewDiePie’ (he has YouTube’s most-subscribed channel, don’t you know?) the bundle packs a few games the exhausting manbaby personality has wailed obscenities over, including Surgeon Simulator 2013, Garry’s Mod, and State of Decay.

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Over the years of the existence of Garry’s Mod, it’s been a fun game to try to admiringly calculate just how rich it’s made creator Garry Newman. Since he’s been especially open with sales figures, and since the game is selling double the number of copies with each passing year, it means that currently he has most of the money that exists. And as the sales continue to increase exponentially, he’ll soon have infinity money, at which point money will be declared Over, and we’ll have to start again with some new system, where finances are based on emotional exchanges or something. So bearing all this in mind, with his disclosure to GI.biz that in one month Rust has already made 40% of GMod’s lifetime profits, be prepared for a worldwide financial collapse. Oh, wait, hang on… 55% now.

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Are you tired of sales? Did Black Friday and Cyborg Monday beat your wallet to a penniless pulp? Well, TOO BAD. Games will continue going on sale from now until the end of time, and somewhere in between, you will cast off your mortal coil poor and probably alone. I apologize. That was too much. Sales just get me super amped up> about mortality, is all. Anyway, the Humble Jumbo Bundle is composed of six games and tons of DLC. Standouts include Natural Selection 2, Sanctum 2, and Orcs Must Die! 2. Details below.

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Last week, Garry Newman tweeted a sales chart that backed up what we already knew: that his game Garry’s Mod is extremely successful and that its sales have not slowed down since its release back in 2006. The extra detail was a little surprising though. July 2013 was the game’s best month ever in terms of copies sold, the number of copies sold doubles each year, and it has sold 3.5 million in total since launch.

Even accounting for Steam sales, those are remarkable numbers. I emailed Garry to ask him how this has happened, and also why, and also how, and what? Fwuh? (more…)

If gathering friends to play Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator is a bit cumbersome, and if you find FTL a bit lonely, then I’ve found the perfect game for you. Final Frontier is the result of a nasty transporter accident between the pair, where the Heisenberg compensators decoupled and they arrived on the SS GMOD screaming and inside out. The sick bay did its best, but all it could do is stabilise the life signs. To be honest, the gristly lump that was spat out looks pretty amazing. (more…)