Team Fortress 2 Sniper vs Spy Update released!
Posted by Srinath
The biggest, most awaited update to Team Fortress 2 has just been released by Valve. The update includes new maps, achievements for sniper and spy classes, general fixes among others.
The update comes a week after the "Meet the Spy" movie was supposedly leaked by one of the valve employees on youtube. What was touted as an update only to the Sniper class came as a surprise as Valve decided to roll out updates to the Spy as well.
Sniper Achievements here
Spy Achievements here
Open Steam. Download Update. Play On.
Apple and gaming
Posted by Srinath
Amidst rumors that Apple may buy E.A and that its building the next big console, one wonders what will happen to the gaming industry if the rumors come true. Traditionally, Apple has never been pro-gaming, as evident from its poor support for gaming hardware or software. But now that Apple has held itself together and posted a good profit during these hard times, and that its fanbois are crazy enough to catapult any minuscule product launch into a glitzy media event, getting into gaming might seem as the next logical step.
There are two basic problems with this:
1. Apple isn't known for gaming. Rather some may even say apple is anti-gaming
2. Anything and everything associated with apple is ridiculously priced
Both problems are hard to solve. You cannot just buy a game developer/publisher and change your image overnight. It will take months if not years for both the developers and the gaming community to start believing in Apple, and that will not be easily accomplished either. That will mean more advertisement campaigns, and counter campaigns by Microsoft, which means expenditure running into millions. And Apple's pricing will not help their cause either. With the popular "Laptop Hunter" campaign by Microsoft focusing on pricing, and support for gaming; and both being genuine reasons to chose a PC, it is going to be very difficult for Apple to post good sales numbers unless they retain the old pricing. Which is very unlikely to happen.
On the other hand, it will be a very smart move if Apple manages to do everything right. EA is well established, and with their popular titles grossing millions in sales, it already has a well established, faithful user base. By retaining the original team and pricing, Apple can get a head start into the billions worth gaming industry. It will also be a big plus that they can start developing quality titles for the Mac, something which is lacking for a long time now. It will be interesting to see how they handle the hardware support for the Macs though.
Whatever said, this is an interesting development that everyone in the gaming industry will watch. Hopefully, Apple will not screw this one up.
Quake Live Public Beta
Posted by Srinath
Yes! Quake Live is finally going into public beta. The announcement was posted on the quake live beta forums yesterday. The beta will be available on the public domain http://quakelive.com from Feburary 24th.
What beats me is that a very serious crash bug, that affects both FF and IE has still not been resolved. Maybe I don't know what others seem to know!
Quake Live Beta
Posted by Srinath
Got my invitation yesterday for Quake Live the FREE, in browser shooter game from id software, the inventors of the First Person Shooter genre (FPS). Few observations:
1. The game is actually Quake 3 Arena. I was disappointed, but thats partly my fault as I didn't bother looking up info before I started.
2. It works only on Windows XP/Vista/7. A BIG let down for me. What exactly is the use of a "browser" based game when you are going to restrict it to windows again. But thankfully it works on IE/FF.
3. The plugin downloads about 280 mb of content to your Application Data folder. Obviously the archives for the game in the old pk3 format (just like in Q3), and punkbuster, the anti cheat software. This is totally necesary, but again beats the purpose of being a browser based game.
4. It plays surprisingly well for a browser based game. The home page (for the beta) is pretty nice, and allows you to change the settings of pretty much everything like controls, display, gameplay, etc just like in a regular game. Resolutions upto 1024*768 are offered, and yes you can play it in full screen mode if you wish to.
5. The game initially has a Practice Match, where your skill is tested against a bot, and then rated. So, when you are looking for servers, a small icon tells you if it matches your skill level, or if you are going to get kicked royally. A neat feature.
6. Lots of gameplay modes like FFA, InstaGib, Team Deathmatch, CTF.
7. I'd rather have them release Quake 3 Arena for free, than Quake Live. Beats me.