Last week we took a look back at Major League Gaming Providence, the final event for North America’s largest e-sports circuit. This time, we’ll look at last week’s big event: Dreamhack Winter 2011. See ESFI World’s on-site coverage of the event here.> (more…)

Ah, so maybe we do have CS:GO beta keys after all… We’d probably better get on with playing that. (Also Tribes: Ascend, which we haven’t quite caught up with yet either.) Anyway! I am sure a few of you are already saving up for Desert Eagles, while the rest of the internet will have to make do with a few measly minutes of game footage here and there, such as that found below this post. I’ve also dropped in a comparison video which compares the Source version of CS with CS:GO. It certainly looks pretty, and I am sure Hidden Path/Valve are making a decent job of the manshoots, too. OR ARE THEY?> (more…)

Valve just released a batch of screenshots for CS:GO, so here they are. Click for full size. Some of them seem to have already been released in some capacity, but others are new to me, at least. I do like a good balaclava. (more…)

Friday saw the sudden news of a brand new, all-formats Counter-Strike game, which in PC gaming news terms is probably the equivalent of simultaneously swearing in a crowdpleasing new president and announcing a world war. The coming months will be characterised by both excitement and rage, I don’t doubt. What we don’t know is much about it, other than that it’s broadly going to be CS with new stuff. Turns out, Valve have been quietly showing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (I don’t know how long it’s going to be until I stop initially typing ‘Global Agenda’) to pro-gamers to get their thoughts on how it’s shaping up. Craig ‘Torbull’ Levine from ESEA is one of the lucky few, and he’s shared a few details on what to expect from a game Valve are claiming will fit alongside, rather than replace, CS 1.6 and CS:S.
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As rumoured this morning, there really is a new Counter-Strike coming. And it’s not some side-project: this sounds like a major sequel-come-relaunch of Counter-Strike for a new generation of manshoot fans. Valve have just solemnly and officially declared its existence to the world – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, aka CS: GO, is indeed its war-lovin’ name. It will feature new maps, modes, weapons, characters and social gaming features such as matchmaking and leaderboards, on top of assorted updates to tried and tested stuff like de_dust.

It’s due on PC and on the two fatter consoles. Which, I think, means this is Valve looking Call of Duty square in the eye and telling it to step outside.
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A thread on the Steam forums seems to confirm that rumours about a new Counter-Strike game – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – are true, with commenter “Cliffe” (who is Valve designer chap Jess Cliffe) saying “Global Offensive”. There have been a bunch of other references to it, on Twitter and so forth.

And update on the ESEA Facebook page reads “Counter-Strike: Global Offensive… More info in the morning.” So it looks like we can expect something later today.

This week in our ongoing retrospective series on games journalists’ most formative games, we very proudly welcome Eurogamer‘s god-king and operations director Tom Bramwell to the word-stage. He’s here to tell you about his long years spent with arguably one of the most definitive PC games of all time, and what for one generation of gamers was a global obsession that today’s shooters, no matter how much bigger they might be, just can’t seem to match…>

I also wanted to write this about Grand Theft Auto, and I might still do that another time if RPS will have me back. There were probably other factors, but no one game is so singularly responsible for my being a games journalist (or at least having been one) as DMA Design’s original PC game. But I’m really here today to bang on about Counter-Strike>, and I owe that game a massive debt too, because it’s thanks to Counter-Strike that I don’t play Call of Duty or Battlefield or Medal of Honor or any of that stuff on the internet nowadays for a moment longer than my job requires.
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Aw, bless. I share the below video not because it gives much away in terms of when and if we’ll see Counter-Strike 2 (though it’s certainly not a denial, which is some kind of good news at least), but because of the charming awkwardness of Gabe Newell’s reaction when asked directly in front of THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE whether Valve’s evergreen man-shooter will be sequelised any time soon…
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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…)