GameStop has acknowledged to Kotaku that its corporate office approved the early sale of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in some locations.
The following statement was released by the Vice President of corporate communications Chris Olivera:


This past weekend, GameStop made the decision to break street date and sell reserved copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in select markets where other retailers had broken street date. Our decision followed many conversations with Activision and was an effort to protect our customer base.


Activision reportedly contacted Kotaku and contradicted Olivera's claims, stating that, "Activision has not given any retailer permission to sell Modern Warfare 2 prior to the Nov. 10 street date. The company fully supports the Nov. 10 street date."

Olivera did not specify exactly how many of its stores GameStop authorized to sell Modern Warfare 2, nor in all of the markets it did so. From reader tips and follow-up phone calls, Kotaku knows that stores in Bowie, Md., Bowling Green, Ohio, Reading, Pa., and New York City were involved.

The Razer Naga is the ultimate Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming mouse that shifts the balance between keyboard and mouse by putting an unprecedented number of in-game commands in one place. A multi-button thumb grid and Razer’s MMO game interface add-on combine to place every command you need in the palm of your hand. An ergonomic form shaped to maximize ease of use lets you game in comfort for hours on end. With the Razer Naga, you will Get Imba.

Technical Specifications:

5600dpi Razer Precision 3.5G Laser Sensor 1000Hz Ultrapolling™ / 1ms response time200 inches per second max tracking speedZero-acoustic Ultraslick™ Teflon feet 17 MMO-optimized buttons (including 12 button thumb grid)Optional MMO-specific software AddOnsUnlimited character profiles with AddOnsApproximate size: 116L x 69W x 41.6H (in mm)

It seems Valve is planning to release a new file system for Steam. The new system aims to reduce the huge loading times of Valve games: the slow GCF files have been replaced with NCF files, apparantly much faster and smaller than the current files. Unfortunately, this new system is currently avaible to Red Orchesta only, and it is still under Beta development. Read on!


New Steam file SystemOne of the things that we try to do as a company is really listen to feedback from our fans. An issue that has probably been mentioned the most has been the map load times. For our recent patch we put a lot of work into optimizations to improve the load times. At the same time Valve has been hard at work developing a new file system which can be used with RO. This new file system will allow Red Orchestra to be run directly from the hard drive instead of through Steam caches. This has a lot of benefits, including vastly improved load times as well as fixing a lot of compatibility issues with anti-virus and other software. This new file system combined with the optimizations that we made for the latest patch result in MUCH faster load times (up to three times faster on some machines).
We’re looking for volunteers to help us put this new file system through its paces. This is a beta and as such could have bugs, so PLEASE do not participate unless you’re willing to take that risk. To try the new file system you need to add special parameters to your Steam commandline. You will need to modify the desktop shortcut that launches Steam by adding the following parameters at the end of the commandline [right-click on the shortcut, then Properties and the commandline is in the "Target" box]:

-clientbeta newfs –beta fs
This will launch Steam with the new filesystem for RO. The first tim it will unpack RO to a new directory, and copy all your custom content and config files over to that new directory. Once that is done just launch RO from the Steam UI as usual. For those of you who are making custom maps or mods, we would highly suggest you backup your content before running this beta. Additionally, you’ll need to update any tools that you use to point to the new RO folder. The Red Orchestra install directory will be moving to a new location here:


"\SteamApps\common\red orchestra"

Steam is going one step forward, let's hope this new system is deployed to all Valve games. If you find a bug while playing Red Orchesta, report it.

Valve has informed me about their plans to deliver free games to all owners of ATI RadeonT graphics cards via Steam, a popular platform for the distribution and management of digital content.
Effective immediately, all owners of ATI Radeon graphics cards may receive a free copy of Half-Life 2: Lost Coast and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch via Steam, http://www.steampowered.com/ati_offer1a/. Steam will automatically confirm the presence of ATI RadeonT hardware and then enable immediate access to full versions of the games free of charge.

For added convenience to new purchasers of ATI RadeonT products, Steam will be included in all ATI CatalystT Software and Driver packages through early 2008.

And, as recently announced by AMD, customers who purchase the new ATI RadeonT HD 2900 XT will also receive, upon release via Steam, the highly anticipated trio of new games coming from Valve: Team Fortress® 2, PortalT, and Half-Life 2: Episode Two.
There is no source, via e-mail.

Quoted from www.destructoid.com


With Half-Life 2: Episode Three planned to be the grand finale' of the Half-Life 2 story arc, you may be forgiven for wondering what's next in the parade of constant interruptions for the long suffering Gordon Freeman. Well, we can keep wondering, but at least we know there will be (half) life after Episode Three as, quite unsurprisingly, a new sequel is definitely on the cards.


The confirmation came from Valve's Dave Lombardi who simply had this to say:

We haven’t announced anything specific, but Half-Life won’t end at Episode Three – hang on to your crowbars!


So there you have it. Episode Three is not the end of the Half-Life universe, as if there was any doubt it would be. But what will happen? Will the G-Man have a brand new contract for our silent hero? Will Dr. Freeman awake in a different timeline? Will the headcrabs still be annoying as ever? Start your rampant speculation ... NOW!


Source: www.destructoid.com

Valve has released an update for Source SDK which fixes some small bugs and also the Google SketchUp exporter.

Updated Included:


Fixed bug in which the model browser can become unresponsive

Game overlay no longer attaches to Hammer which fixes incorrect 3D camera position bugs

Google Sketchup to Hammer exporter now ships in the Source SDK

Updates to Buy Madballs in... Babo:Invasion have been made!
For those of you who don't know the game it's an arena based 3D shooter of which I recommend you atleast try the demo.

The major changes include:

New Features


■Night of the Chompiis !!! - the first map of our new 4-player Co-op Survival mode, is now available! And includes a new Chompii mutation - the Spider-Chompii !

■Weekly Missions - the weekly mission system is now in place - new missions (to unlock character skins) each week! This week's skin - Obsidian Magmor! Note - check the status of your missions / collected skins via the new Collectibles section in the Unlocks screen.

■Dedicated Server enhancements - you can now see and participate in chat from the Dedicated Server console (useful for debugging, or letting folks that you're going to do server maintenance, etc.). We've also updated our Server Guide doc.


Misc fixes

■Hallowe'en skin fixes! D'oh - we fixed a defect that caused folks to lose their hard-earned Hallowe'en skins - to compensate we've extended the Hallowe'en promotion (until Nov 12th) with minimal mission times (5 minutes / 15 minutes)

■Weapons tuning - we've tuned up the Slicer a bit (faster traverse) and Striker weapons (especially Harpoon mode - faster re-fire, less kickback, more lethal damage) to make them more competitive in combat - give 'em a try. The Riffer incendiary nail got a bit more fire aftertouch as well. More updates to come over the next week on these...

■Smaller updates! We've re-packaged things so that on average you'll have a lot less to download each time we update the game (which is important, 'cause we keep adding new features! )

■Achievement checks! MiBI now does extra checks to ensure that it keeps your Steam achievements and MiBI unlocks in sync with each other

■Special unlocks - info on the Slicer and Striker weapon unlocks have been added to the new Special unlocks section

■Voice chat controls - we fixed a defect where voicechat could get unmapped from the keyboard and/or 360 controller (especially troublesome since there was no way of adding it *back* to the 360 controller). You need to hit [Defaults] on the Controller config menu (just this once) if this issue has already affected you though

■No more duplicate servers - we are no longer showing servers twice if they're located on your local LAN

First i wanna say that its maybe a little to soon that they release this game, but after all its a very cool game and very completed. I've tried the Demo and im going to do a little assesment of it.

Pros:

I like the New Orleans style and its cool to try a zombie game that doesn't happen i dark. The graphics is going to be a 8/10, the graphics are good and nice but they could have upgraded the source engine a little more.
The game characters is very nicely done with there backgrounds and sounds. I think that its going to be a big hit and its very entertaining to play.

Cons:

They could upgrade the Source Engine a bit more, make it directx 11. The only thing they did was adding better anti-aliasing. But i dont have much to say about how bad it is, it is a nice game. And i am myself a big fan of Valve games.

Here is A pictures i took of it in-game.



This is defintly a game you should buy if your into FPS games

Grow your own gnome