Version 4.6 update adds the following features:

• They Hunger Co-op: Episode 2
• A new boss monster: The Kingpin
• Many new and improved maps
• Greatly improved HLSP and Opposing Force storyline support
• Half-Life: Uplink co-op
• Lots of powerful new mapping features
• Tons of bug fixes and changes (e.g. Shock rifle secondary fire can now charge player HEV suits)
• AI improvements
• All-new custom sounds for the Bodyguard

There is a full change-log available here.

There are download links here.

Its quite refreshing to some Half-Life 1 mod teams still active after all these years.  This mod has provided me with countless hours of fun with its Co-Op game-play, in particular the varied custom maps whether its fighting hordes of monsters, solving puzzles, or the story driven scenarios.  I will be doing a full feature of this mod soon, as this is one of my most favorite mods and would definitely be nice to see new players.

Sven Co-op 4.6 RELEASED! [Sven-Coop]

For Non Core i7 (Core 2 Duos, i5s)

Go into your motherboard bios at boot-up and find a setting called HPET.  This setting is usually under power management settings.  Set HPET to disabled.

Battlefield 3 will now run smoothly with no stutters or various glitches.

For Core i7 computers and CPU that support Hyper-Threading (i7s, etc)

Go into your motherboard bios and disable hyperthreading, usually under CPU features. Set it to disable on all cores.

It seems that you do not need to disable HPET in this case.

Battlefield 3 should now run silky smooth with little performance difference.

For AMD computers, I do not know the specifics but if you disabled similar features that are equivalent, this should fix the issues. However, it seems that most ATI cards do not have this problem as long as you are using the latest drivers.

Let us know in the comments if this worked for you!

Update: DICE have patched the stuttering problem with the December Update (Back to Karkand).  Additionally, new Nvidia drivers have been released to address the stuttering further and fix graphic corruption.

Drivers: http://www.geforce.com/Drivers

96.242.154.6:27015 – CS:S

96.242.154.6:27017 – Obsidian

Please update accordingly! Thank you

We will find a solution for this in case this happens again!

We have a dyndns address now too, so no matter what you can use this address if you want to connect.

chenzen.dyndns.org:27015 – CS:S

chenzen.dyndns.org:27017 – Obsidian

Today we’re pleased to introduce the Pet Store for World of Warcraft, a new way for players to obtain in-game pets to join them on their adventures in Azeroth…

So apparently on Wednesday of this week, WoW opened up their new online Pet Store for official business.  Players can now buy in-game pets online through the Blizzard Store (surprise, surprise).  They decided to open with two exclusive pets that can only be bought through the Pet Store; Lil’ K.T. and the Pandaren Monk.  If you’re into WoW and you have some money to blow (other than on your subscription) on a friendly companion, I suggest you check it out.

[Pet Store]

[Content via Blizzard]

You know that whole debacle about MW2 not having dedicated servers?  It just got even worse, with Infinity Ward confirming that there is a 18-player cap on the PC version online, which is is the same cap imposed on the console versions.

Seriously? This is horrible, dedicated servers and big servers are the staple of PC gaming, and Infinity Ward thinks it can set a new standard?  We’ll have to see.

Modern Warfare 2 PC Multiplayer Capped At 9v9 [Kotaku]

Two Valve universes collide, when you pre-order Left 4 Dead 2, which nets you a exclusive hat in Team Fortress 2. If that isn’t enough, the 10% off the price might be an incentive.  L4D2 will be available November 17th.

In addition, the L4D2 demo is live! In case you’re on the fence of buying it or not.

Pre-Order Giveaway Madness! [TF2 Blog]

Want to get Borderlands a little early and stay up a little late? …Basically, you now have only one excuse for not getting Borderlands tonight if you’re into the game and you’re in the US, and that is not wanting to go to GameStop and stand in line at midnight. Which is actually pretty reasonable.

So apparently Borderlands is releasing at a lot of Gamestops tonight at midnight.  I’ve actually been interested in this game recently and plan on playing the 4-player coop mode when I can get my hands on it.  Which might be unexpectedly soon.

[Contents via Joystiq]

Starting November 11th, all WoW players will be required to login using Battle.net accounts.   Makes sense as Blizzard is really trying to push the Battle.net 2.0 platform, finally getting rid of redundancy and consolidating everything into one account.

Looking at the features of Battle.net 2.0, it does look pretty awesome.

Full Story [via Joystiq]

It seems that the leaders of the L4D2 Boycott (Agent Chaos and Walking_Target) have decided that the goal of the group was accomplished and that the group no longer serves a purpose.

Agent Chaos has this to say on the matter,

The recently released Crash Course was just the start. Future updates will continue to roll in, and 4v4 matchmaking is first in line. Valve has confirmed to us that it’ll be available before the release of L4D2. Also don’t forget, we have another DLC pack confirmed for sometime in the near future and of course, there will be bug fixes. This is as good as it can get people.

The group is filled with trolls and spammers saying that they sold out to Valve.  Valve recently flown them to their HQs to preview Left 4 Dead 2 and talka bout concerns for the boycott.

L4D2 Boycotters End Boycott!! [via Hotbloodgaming]

Killing Floor Free DLC and Free Weekend Plans [via Bluesnews]

Yesterday a Chinese site had revealed what was apparently the last two campaigns in Left 4 Dead 2, those were “Hard Rain” and “Dead Center”.  This has now been confirmed by Xbox360Achievements.org who has the juicy details about new and otherwise rumored futures, like a defibrillator to revive teammates.  Check out the rest over at their site.

Full Story [via JoyStiq]

This game has a lot of hype behind it, with the promise of billions of randomly generated weapons, massive environment with dynamic missions, and of course drop-in Co-Op play with many people.

OS: Windows XP/Vista
Processor: 2.4 Ghz or equivalent processor
Memory: 1GB System RAM (2GB recommended with Vista)
Graphics: 256mb video ram or better (GeForce 8 series or higher/Radeon R8xx series)
Hard Drive: 8 GB or more free space
Sound: Windows compatible sound card

Full Story [Shacknews]

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mutm-xm2akc

PC Digital Download Charts For The Week Ending September 26

Steam

1. Aion Collector’s Edition
2. Aion
3. Fallen Earth
4. Batman: Arkham Asylum
5. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin
6. Left 4 Dead
7. Resident Evil 5
8. Counter-Strike
9. Star Wars Jedi Knight Collection
10. Red Faction: Guerrilla

Direct2Drive

1. Aion Collector’s Edition
2. Aion
3. Fallen Earth
4. Neverwinter Nights 2
5. Assassin’s Creed Director’s Cut
6. Titan Quest Bundle
7. Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir
8. Champions Online
9. BioShock
10. Star Wars: KOTOR

[via Shacknews]

Currently 3 out of the 8 new characters are confirmed whom are Deejay, T.Hawk, and Juri.

Owners of Street Fighter IV will also receive a bonus when they buy Super Street Fighter IV.

Full Story [ShackNews]

In addition to the new campaign, several new survival maps were added along with a few fixes.

• A new campaign, “Crash Course”, is now available for play in Campaign, Versus and Survival modes
• In Versus mode, all weapons, pills, health packs, molotovs, pipe bombs and other items will now be identical for the second round of a chapter
• Matchmaking has had several improvements to make finding and joining games even faster
• Ten all new “Crash Course” achievements have been added

Valve has also decided to sell Left 4 Dead 50% off until October 2nd, thats only $14.99.

Press Release [L4D Crash Course Blog]

* The game contains violence that is high in impact and is therefore unsuitable for persons aged under 18 to play.

* It notes that this violence is “inflicted upon ‘the Infected’ who are living humans infected with a rabies-like virus that causes them to act violently”.

* The report singles out the use of melee weapons as those that “inflict the most damage” and cause “copious amounts of blood spray and splatter (sic), decapitations and limb dismemberment.. or even cause intestines to spill from the wounds”.

* In conclusion, the Board finds that the “interactive nature of the game increases the overall impact of the frequent and intense depictions of violence. This coupled with the graphic depictions of blood and gore combine to create a playing impact which is high.”

* Interestingly, the report also reveals that it wasn’t a unanimous decision and that “a minority of the Board is of the opinion that the violence is strong in playing impact and therefore warrants an MA15+ classification” instead. However, the majority voted to refuse classification.

Kotaku Australia has contacted EA for comment and they have yet to respond.

Full Story [Kotaku]

Remember the full refund promised by a Wolfenstein developer if the game sold more than Madden? Well you can forget about that, NPD Group has released sales for Wolfenstein and revealed the game sold poorly.

Combined sales of Xbox, PS3 and PC and you get a total of 106,000 units.  Even with Wolfenstein’s relatively favorable reviews, those sales are complete crap and not looking good for Raven (which has also laid off people recently), and Activision.

Full Story [GameSpot]

Not anymore, since Valve is now catching on to players who decide to do this.  They are removing all the items that were achieved through illegitimate means and giving everyone else who didn’t cheat a free hat!

If you still decide to use external applications, then Valve will take all your items away.

TF2 Blog [Valve]

Red Faction: Guerrilla due for PC on September 15th will have the ‘Demons of the Badlands’ DLC included, console pre-order bonus and a total of 8 new maps (2 exclusive to PC) from the forthcoming DLC.

Seems like this time around the PC version is getting good treatment, not to mention with a price tag of 39.99, this is a solid deal.

Full Story [Shacknews]

But enough of my thoughts – what do you think?

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4PMRFkx07g

Steam’s Top Ten (by Revenue) (8/23 – 8/29)

1. Left 4 Dead / Valve
2. Aion Collector’s Edition (pre-order) / NCsoft
3. THQ Collector Pack
4. Counter-Strike: Source / Valve
5. Killing Floor / Tripwire
6. Team Fortress 2 / Valve
7. The Orange Box / Valve
8. Fallout Collection (F1, F2, Fallout Tactics)
9. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare / Infinity Ward
10. Valve Complete Pack / Valve

Direct2Drive’s Top Ten (8/23 – 8/29)

1. Champions Online (pre-order) / Cryptic
2. Fallen Earth (pre-order) / Fallen Earth, Icarus Studios
3. Aion Collector’s Edition (pre-order) / NCSoft
4. Rise of Flight / neoqb
5. Fallout 3 / Bethesda Softworks
6. Hearts of Iron III / Paradox Interactive
7. Civilization 4: The Complete Edition / Firaxis
8. Call of Duty: World at War / Treyarch
9. The Sims 3 / The Sims Studio
10. The Witcher: Enhanced Edition – Director’s Cut / CD Projekt RED

Just imagine epic battles in space.

For now enjoy these public screenshots!

So apparently at the Game Crazy convention, there was some gameplay video taken and leaked onto youtube.  So here it is!

Quality of the video isn’t the greatest, but you can tell that this game looks great already.

[Contents via VGChartz]

The highly anticipated release of Warsow 0.5 is released.  A little background information for those who don’t know what this fast-paced action game is.  Btw, It is free!

Set in a futuristic cartoon-like world where rocketlauncher-wielding pigs and lasergun-carrying cyberpunks roam the streets, Warsow is a completely free fast-paced first-person shooter (FPS) for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Speed and movement, that’s what Warsow is all about. Like a true cyberathlete you jump, dash, dodge and walljump your way through the game. Grab those power-ups before your enemy does, plant the bomb before anyone sees you, and steal the enemy’s flag before anyone knows what’s going on!

A handful of popular gametypes come shipped with Warsow, like Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch, Clan Arena, Instagib and Duel. Warsow invites you to add to this list, by creating your own custom gametypes with the brand new gametype scripting system!

Essentially its a fast-paced shooter with inspiration from Quake 3 pro mods and such.  Aimed for the elite crowd with precise timing and accuracy, Warsow brings a lot of the old-school tricks (strafe jumping, double jumping, bunny hopping), but features its own unique set of moves such as walljump, dash, dodge, ramp slide and double dash jump.

What I especially like from this game is the cel-shaded aesthetic, it just looks right, not too cartoony but a little more on the serious side.  In a way it kind of reminds me of Borderlands.  Check out the official Warsow 0.5 trailer below.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtJKrIngTIs

[Warsow]

Following the critical acclaim of the new Batman game (yes finally!), it has been given the record of the ’Most Critically Acclaimed Superhero Game Ever’.

It’s kind of odd to me that such a record exists but you know, Guinness World Records seem to have records for everything nowadays.

I myself can’t wait for the PC version of the game to release, I hate how the PC versions are always delayed.  I have played the game on PS3 however, and it’s definitely one of the best looking games this summer.  The game-play is enticing and feels very fluid.

Last week’s weekly sales for PC games via Steam and Direct3D were published.  It was a winner for MMOs, specifically Aion and Champions Online. Aion is getting great reviews from outlets and I myself cannot wait to get my hands on it when it hits stores next month.

Steam’s Top Ten (by Revenue) (8/16 – 8/22)

1. Left 4 Dead / Valve
2. Aion Collector’s Edition (pre-order) / NCsoft
3. Counter-Strike: Source / Valve
4. Killing Floor / Tripwire
5. Team Fortress 2 / Valve
6. Fallout Collection (F1, F2, Fallout Tactics)
7. The Orange Box / Valve
8. Hearts Of Iron III / Paradox Interactive
9. Valve Complete Pack / Valve
10. Osmos / Hemisphere Games

Direct2Drive’s Top Ten (8/16 – 8/22)

1. Champions Online (pre-order) / Cryptic
2. Fallen Earth (pre-order) / Fallen Earth, Icarus Studios
3. Aion Collector’s Edition (pre-order) / NCSoft
4. Rise of Flight / neoqb
5. Civilization 4: The Complete Edition / Firaxis
6. The Sims 3 / The Sims Studio
7. Fallout 3 / Bethesda Softworks
8. Hearts of Iron III with Sprite Packs Bundle / Paradox Interactive
9. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare / Infinity Ward
10. Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete Bundle / Obsidian

[Shacknews]

The monk uses a staff, as well as bare-handed attacks.  From the gameplay footage I saw from blizzcon, it seems that he will be using quick swings and jabs as his main method of fighting – often with very explosive and fiery results.  Anyway, this new class looks pretty sweet.  I’m eagerly awaiting for more blizzcon updates.

[Content via GossipGamers] [Images via Blizzard]

A new expansion has been announced for World of Warcraft entitled Cataclysm.  This expansion will introduce two new races, Goblins for Horde side and Worgen for the Alliance side. The level cap will also be raised to 85 and there will finally be more race combos, so you can play as a gnome priest, a blood elf warrior and more.

What is also nice is that classic zones have been remade due to the change in the story line, for instance the Barrens have now been sundered into two pieces. Below is list of the changes from the official FAQ.

• Two New Playable Races: Adventure as one of two new races–the cursed worgen with the Alliance or the resourceful goblins with the Horde.
• Level Cap Increased to 85: Earn new abilities, tap into new talents, and progress through the path system, a new way for players to improve characters.
• Classic Zones Remade: Familiar zones across the original continents of Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms have been altered forever and updated with new content, from the devastated Badlands to the broken Barrens, which has been sundered in two.
• New High-Level Zones: Explore newly opened parts of the world, including Uldum, Grim Batol, and the great Sunken City of Vashj’ir beneath the sea.
• More Raid Content than Ever Before: Enjoy more high-level raid content than previous expansions, with optional more challenging versions of all encounters.
• New Race and Class Combinations: Explore Azeroth as a gnome priest, blood elf warrior, or one of the other never-before-available race and class combinations.
• Guild Advancement: Progress as a guild to earn guild levels and guild achievements.
• New PvP Zone & Rated Battlegrounds: Take on PvP objectives and daily quests on Tol Barad Island, a new Wintergrasp-like zone, and wage war in all-new rated Battlegrounds.
• Archaeology: Master a new secondary profession to unearth valuable artifacts and earn unique rewards.
• Flying Mounts in Azeroth: Explore Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms like never before.

This expansion is slated for a 2010 release.

Cataclysm [World of Warcraft]

So last night I was able to grab the new Wolfenstein by id software and published by Activision.  I sat down and played straight on through with maybe a 20 minute break in the middle, so I’m going to try to put everything I thought about this game now while it’s still fresh.

I guess I’ll open up with some of the story of the game, but people who have played any of the Wolfenstein series should know at least something about it already.  Every Wolfenstein iteration has the Nazis who are doing experiments on people and are producing evil zombies in an attempt to take over the world somehow.  This version of Wolfenstein is pretty faithful to that aspect.  You play as William “B.J” Blazkowitcz, an American spy who is sent to Isenstadt to help deal with the Nazis there.  From there, you meet with two groups: the Kreisau Circle and the Golden Dawn.  The Kreisau Circle is a group who is trying to liberate Isenstadt from the Nazi threat while the Golden Dawn is a group of scholars who is researching some ancient technology that the Nazis want their hands on.  Anyway, you end up doing a bunch of missions for these groups and you kill Nazis, zombies, Nazi zombies, and the like.

Now for some gameplay aspects.  As you begin the game, you’ll quickly realize that “Hey!  This is a first-person shooter.”  So yeah, no surprises on how this game plays for now.  I felt that the controls actually felt very much “Return to Castle Wolfenstein”-esque, meaning it just felt very similar.  What I did immediately notice though, is that I picked up a few more guns, buttons 1-4 didn’t change my weapons.  Buttons 5-0 were reserved for that.  So what do buttons 1-4 do?  They’re used to access your special abilities that you gain pretty early on.  You first get to use “The Veil,” which is kind of like a rip in your dimension into “the Black Sun” dimension.  With it, you can move slightly faster, see hidden objects and passages, and find an enemy’s weakpoint.

Along the course of the game, you gain even more abilities that you can use with the veil device.  You get three: The ability to slow time, a shield, and shield-penetrating bullets.  You end up using all three of these abilities to solve easy puzzles or just wreck enemies.  Something that was kind of annoying though, was that even though I was playing on normal, unless I abused all of my veil abilities, it was hard to not die.  Maybe I just suck, but with veil energy pools every 10 feet away, there didn’t seem like any reason to not constantly use your powers.  One of the drawbacks of this though, is that you have watch your screen become green and blurry all the time.  Which sucks.  It’s unappealing and detracts much from the game’s graphics.

I mean, when you aren’t in the veil, the game looks pretty decent.  Obviously not Crysis level, but what you would expect from a 2009 PC game.  My GTX 260 was able to play this on high settings fine and I did not have any points in time when the game would be bogged down by anything.  I’d say if you toned down the settings a bit too, you could probably play this pretty well even on older machines.  It’s not the most beautiful game, but I think the environment fit well for Wolfenstein.  I enjoyed not using the veil whenever I could, but it turned out that I had to use it often.

What seems to be more common in FPS’s now is some sort of easy to access map with quests point system on it.  Wolfenstein isn’t any different.  I guess they tried to make the game more RPG like by giving it a journal where you see the entire map, view your objectives, intel you’ve collected, upgrades, and stats.  It’s simple, but it works – they make it easy to plot courses to any of the safe houses or the black market arms dealer.  It also lets you choose what mission you want to make active, so your marker will point to it.  If you just roam the town, you can pick up side-objectives by just talking to people too.  This gives the opportunity to earn a little extra gold and discover more intel.

There are a decent amount of weapons in Wolfenstein; from the classic MP40 and Kar98 to tesla guns and particle canons, you’ll find something you like and stick with it.  What’s nice is that you can upgrade your weapons too.  That means if you particularly like one of them, you can pretty much stick with it for the entire game.  I ended up using the MP43 a lot just because there was tons of ammo around for it.  If you want to use one of the more powerful weapons though, you might end up spending a lot of your gold on buying ammo.  The amount of gold is limited too, so choose your upgrades wisely.  You can even upgrade your veil abilities at an expense.  Remember though, not all weapons are created equal.  You will end up burning through your more powerful ones’ ammo when the need arises as normal weaponry just won’t cut it.  Oh, and one more thing – in order to upgrade your weapons you must collect intel.  Without certain intel, your upgrades will stay locked.

As you play through Wolfenstein and happen upon more supernatural enemies, you’ll realize that there actually aren’t too many types of them.  There are overpowered flaming zombie things that can kill you quickly, these other zombies that run around on all fours to try to eat you, some ninja-like zombies that are quick and dodge bullets, and the annoying zombies that produce shields for enemies or shoot plasma at you.  Of course, you also have the Nazis, but they’re relatively easy to kill when the others aren’t present.  Oh yeah, the Nazis also have these supersoldiers that wear something that looks like a tesla-armor from Fallout 3, but they only come out rarely and are pretty easy to kill.  Other than that, and the bosses, it’s pretty much it.  The entire game is one long fight though.  When you finish more story-important objectives, the town of Isenstadt becomes more dangerous as Nazis and the Kreisau Circle start openly fighting.  More parts of the town become destroyed and you end up using a lot of ammo just traveling in between objectives.

The missions are pretty much all the same, but it doesn’t really matter since you’re playing this to shoot a bunch of Nazis; not to explore and think a lot.  You go to your mission start point, get carted off to a new map, “infiltrate” (walk in the front door using your abilities while blowing shit up), kill people, and leave.  You’re pretty much alone all of the time against a ton of enemies, but hey – would you rather have it any other way?

Overall, I’d have to say that this was an enjoyable 6-8 hours of gameplay.  I basically skipped all the little side-quests and whatever, but I don’t think they would’ve offered too much – just more killing and some money.  The story is typical Wolfenstein and so is the gameplay, with the addition of the veil abilities.  For an end of summer release, I would have to say that id software did a pretty good job since there isn’t much else at this time.  Gaming season is right around the corner though, so maybe this would be good to get back into the swing of things guys.  It might be worth the 60 bucks as long as you play it and return it within a week.  If not, wait till all the blockbuster games are released later and buy this off the used shelf for cheap while you’re waiting for your favorites to drop in price.  In any case, it’s fun and will keep you occupied, so I’d have to say it’s recommended.  Nothing special, but fun nonetheless.

Here’s some screens!

GameTrailers posted a Wolfenstein Retrospective this week.  For those who don’t know, GameTrailers does retrospectives for many franchises such as Final Fantasy, Zelda, Metal Gear, and Resident Evil.  These retrospectives detail the history and evolution of a game franchise, and are very well done!

For those that don’t know, Zombie mode in this game is extremely fun to play with friends.  It is great seeing Treyarch support the PC version although it is kind of disappointing that it is behind console releases.

As with the previous two Map Packs, Map Pack 3 will indeed be coming to the PC – the team is hard at work on it and I’ll let you know when it’s in test.

As such, there will be a Patch 1.6 as well, which will address some additional game issues. When I have details on what else will be included in the patch I will be sure to post them.

We appreciate your patience as always, and look forward to its release as much as you do!

Forum Post [Treyarch]

So we all remember Return to Castle Wolfenstein, right?  I actually enjoyed playing that game back in the day.  The single player was fun, albeit short and fairly easy.  The multiplayer aspect of the game though, occupied a lot more of my time since most of my friends also played.  You could pick classes such as Medic, Field Ops, Engineer, or Soldier – each with different weapons and skill sets.  A free multiplayer version came out that added new maps and more features called Enemy Territory was also released.  Shortly after some time though, everyone started hacking the game and made multiplayer no longer fun.

I’ve never actually played Wolfenstein 3D, the first of the Wolfenstein games to come out, but judging from what I’ve seen, it feels very doom-like; it was a DOS game after all.  The premise of the game is that you’re an American soldier trying to escape from a Nazi stronghold.  I think in the end you end up killing the Fuhrer himself.

But enough about the old; it’s time for the new!  Wolfenstein from Activision obviously looks much better than its predecessors, especially since Return to Castle Wolfenstein was released all the way in 2001.  The graphics aren’t over the top, but I think I like the way it looks from the screenshots off the [website].

Wolfenstein is actually the sequel to Return to Castle Wolfenstein, so there should be similarities or at least references to its predecessors I assume.  The release trailer was made public yesterday at [Quakecon] and has quickly found its way onto the internet, so I bring it to you here, courtesy of [GameTrailers]:

It seems like there will be a lot of Nazi zombies going around, along with a bunch of other supernatural things – the usual RTCW stuff.  The release trailer kind of hints at a story where you’re an American soldier that was captured and is now trying to escape from the castle.  Wait, what?  I think I just experienced deja vu as this plot seems familiar, but we’ll see – I have to play the game first.  With only 5 days left, hopefully it’ll be sooner, rather than later – oh if only school wasn’t starting so soon.