Completely interactive, a Counter-Strike Source server is attached to the sculpture. When someone dies in the game, it shoots leaks a stream of "blood" across the wall, a "physical manifestation of nebulous kills" in the words of Harmon. Players who would like to participate in the exhibit can do so by using the command "connect 129.15.76.103:27015" in CS.

Sculpture on Exhibit [riley.harmon via MAKE]

With Counter-Strike 2, there's a big question between, do we go start over from scratch and build a whole new game, do we do something that looks more like Team Fortress 2 that is rooted in the old game but has a ton of new stuff, or do we just sort of take everything that's new that we've released and put that out in a new box.

I think we're leaning more towards the two more radical places than just sort of rolling up the new box and re-skinning the box and putting out all the new stuff.

The New York Post, not exactly a bastion for accurate and fair reporting, decided that "sick shooter" Steven Kazmierczak's interest in Counter-Strike three to four years ago made a better headline than the fact that he was off his medication when he decided to go on a rampage in an Illinois classroom.

The man who gunned down five people and wounded 16 in an Illinois classroom rampage was a loner who preferred studying to partying and was obsessed with an ultra-violent video game, dormitory mates said yesterday.

Stephen Kazmierczak, 27, played the wildly popular game Counter-Strike while studying sociology at Northern Illinois University in 2003 and 2004.

"He played a lot of video games, especially Counter-Strike, really loud," said dorm mate Ben Woloszyn, 24.

What they failed to mention was what dorm mates likely told them next, or at least told the Northwest Herald, that just about everyone in the dorm played the game.

But both men said that if Kazmierczak seemed disconnected from the other students, it could have been because he was an older student living alongside underclassmen.

"I guess he was polite," Rice said. "He was just really quiet. I wouldn't have guessed he would do anything."

Kazmierczak often would play the video game Counter Strike, a first-person shooting game, the roommates said, but they were quick to add that the game was nothing unusual for dormitory halls.

It's also worth noting that over the nearly 1,700 articles published about the shooting the only two that mention the game are the Northwest Herald and the New York Post. That didn't stop Thompson for shooting out an email this morning crowing about getting it right. It's nice to know that he cares about what's important in this shooting, that a college student played video games at one point in his life, not that six people are dead and a country traumatized.

Our condolences go out to the families of those killed and to Kazmierczak's family.

COLLEGE KILLER CRAZY FOR VIOLENT VID GAME [New York Post]

According to the AFP report on the matter, the prohibition on selling CS and EQ was actually passed in October of 2007, but was only recently enforced by PROCON, the national consumer protection agency. Good work, Brazil. Glad all of your problems are sorted out now that the video game police are tackling the tough issues!

Members of the Kotaku Brazilian Connection wrote in to let us know about the ban. Their letters are after the jump and provide some insight into the local video game market.

From Pinguin:

Since 01/17, Counter Strike and Everquest are banned in Brazil. The decision came from a federal judge, based in the Consumer Rights, saying that it puts in danger the life of buyers. You can see the full decision in this site. (in Brazilian portuguese)

The counter strike was banned because, in experts opinion, teachs war strategies.
Everquest was banned because of their quests. The Brazilian judge, claims that, some quests ask for the user do good things and bad things, leading the user to pscicological problems.

In Brazil, those games were rated to 18+, by the Justice. In the past, before those rates exist, games like Carmagedon, Grand Theft Auto and Postal were banned too.

But, we still can play Postal 2, Manhunt (the complete version) and all the other games. Everquest isn't even [sold] in Brazil!

From Romulo:

Since 17/01/2008 the games "Counter-Strike" and "EverQuest" are been confiscated in the Brazilian state of Goiás by the PROCON, an organism created to defend consumer rights. The decision is extended trough all brazilian territory, the games were considered "[improper] for consume" and "nocive to the consumer health" offending some articles of the brazilian "consumer defense and protection code", a law that is usually used to protection the consumer against big companies.

Here in Brazil a single judge can make a decision that is valid in the whole country, this is the case, but other states are not confiscating the game as they think there may be something wrong with such a decision. The judge also classify CounterStrike and Everquest as being "nefast".

Acording to procon and the judge, Counter-Strike is described as "a game where drug deales sequestram and take to a morro thre UN representatives. Police invades the place and is received with bullets", the text also affirms, without showing names ou researches, that "in the vision of specialists that game teaches war techniches". Thats not counter strike´s but user generated content, CS_rio is a very popular map and played a lot in Brazil.

The reason to justify the ban, "violent games ou that bring violece are capable of forming agressive individuals, its evident is strong power of influence, reforcing agressive atitude on some individuals and social groups.", they go even farther when justifying everquest ban, [everquest] "takes the player to total nonsense and heavy psicologycal conflicts, because the quests he receives may be good or bad."

EA Brazil released a note claiming the content cited is not from counter strike but user generated, and say it´s waiting for a judicial notification to take legal action.

From Hank:

This is kotaku user HANK-SP, from Brazil, reporting that the brazilian state of Goias has banned the games Counter-Strike and the RPG EverQuest. The decision, taken by a court in Goias, is extented to all Brazil. The federal police IS already taking away copies from these games, altough EverQuest is not officially released in Brazil. Procon, brazilian governmental foundation for consumer defense, argued, on its website, that Counter-Strike is a game where "Rio de Janeiro drug dealers kidnapp and take to a slum three UN representants. The police invades the place and is welcomed with bullets. (...) In the vision of experts the game teaches war techniques". As for EverQuest, Procon states that it "takes the gamer to complete moral conflict and 'heavy' psychological conflicts; for the tasks that are given to them could be bad or good. (...) Violent videogames that use violence are capable of forming agressive individuals, making it evident that is strong its influence on psyquism, reinforcing aggressive attitude against certain individuals and social groups". The web site also states that anyone who sees these games being sold, that they should contact Procon for the arrest of the games. All this information has come from UOL, Brazil's biggest web portal, owned by Brazil's biggest newspaper "Folha de Sao Paulo". http://jogos.uol.com.br/pc/ultnot/2008/01/18/ult182u7954.jhtm In another news, UOL reports that EA has already answered that Counter-Strike doesn't have any Rio de Janeiro, any slums, any funk soundtrack, neither UN comissioners. http://jogos.uol.com.br/pc/ultnot/2008/01/18/ult182u7956.jhtm

Thanks for taking the time to write in, guys. Keep us informed of any developments, if you have the time.

Brazil bans popular video games seen to incite violence [AFP/Google]

Reader Peter sends in these scans of Counter Strike Source ads that ran recently in a Seoul, Korea free daily paper. Peter also explained the country's love affair with the game.

Here in Korea CS clones like 'Special Force' and 'Sudden Attack' are popular despite having sub-CS1 graphics. They are free and players can pay for ad ons. I guess CS Source here will operate in the same way. I found the layout of the ad to be amusing. The history of CS comming out of the clouds, the slightly oxymoronic '2nd premiere' and the sparse nature of the screenshot with only the pistol in screen. Be interesting to see if a free CS Source becomes huge here in Korea.

I wonder how The Orange Box would do there? Hit the jump to see the bottom half of this full page ad.

We're planning on adding achievements to all of our games you touched on in your mail [Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source]. We're just now coming out of the post-shipping haze, so these should start showing up on Steam pretty quick here.

We're also planning on adding a bunch more to TF2, starting with an achievement pack for the Medic in the next week or so.

... After sleeping on the question for a few days, this occurred to me: if we judge landmarks by their visual impressions, we tend to ignore what games are about, a large part of which is interactivity, and the player's understanding of the way things work within that game world. If locales are really going to be game landmarks, rather than fanciful imitations of real-world places that you could experience as well in non-game media, then the impression they leave needs to happen through gameplay; they need to be memorable because of the things they encourage to happen within them, not (just) because of the way they look.

So what makes a gaming landmark for you? I had a hard time thinking back to any sort of iconic structures, but I have plenty of games that have created such a strong sense of space that they would be included in my personal 'gaming landmarks.'

Landmarks, of sorts. [Braid]

After the competition was announced in March, Zhang [Bin, one of the competition organizers] said, police officers were enthusiastic. Now almost half the total Tianjin force are regular players.

"Of course, they play, or should I say train, after work," he added.

Officers reported noticeable improvement in self-protection on field missions after the play, Han said, stressing the game was only "a supplement to their traditional means of training."

Now all they need is an outpost in Second Life to recruit officers, and they'll be in business.

Counter-Strike, China police's latest tool of anti-terrorism [People's Daily Online]

Who's up for some Counter-Strike tonight?

VALVE® OPENS BETA FOR STEAM® COMMUNITY FEATURES

Free Update Connects Friends, Groups, Tournaments and More

August 6, 2007 — The largest update for Steam, a leading online platform for PC games and digital entertainment, is now open for public beta testing. The update, which will be available free of charge, introduces an expansive set of social networking and online multiplayer features to a growing PC platform serving games and digital entertainment to over 13 million accounts.

The new Steam community features are designed to connect gamers with friends and other gamers, create and join groups, and organize matches and tournaments. The initial batch of features rolled out in the beta version include:

. Steam ID. Create a personal profile-complete with a photo or avatar, biographical details, favorites, and more-viewable on the Web and within the Steam client.
. Friends. Add peers to a personal Friends List that shows in real-time who's online and available to chat or play a game. Accessible from within the Steam client or while playing a game, the Friends List makes it easy to invite friends to chat, play a game, or join a group.
. Groups. Create and join public and private groups comprised of gamers who share a common interest, such as fans of a particular game, map or mod, or competitive teams. The Group Profile page displays information about the group, recent activities, news and announcements, and a schedule of upcoming events. Groups can quickly initiate a text or voice chat; plan a game, tournament, LAN party, or any other event; and track group gameplay statistics.
. Statistics. From both a personal Steam ID or Group profile, users can view a range of gameplay statistics, such as most played games or maps and average playing time.
. Chat. Initiate a chat with friends and groups using integrated instant messaging, text chat, and voice features.
. Events. Schedule matches, tournaments, and in-person gatherings, such as LAN parties. Upcoming events are displayed in both a list and calendar view, and members can receive reminders that help keep everyone on schedule.

The Steam community features may be accessed within the Steam client or from within any game available in the Steam library of games - a growing collection that includes new releases and classic titles from leading publishers and independent developers around the world. Additionally, certain features, such as the user's Control Panel, Friend's List, and Groups pages may be accessed and managed using any Web browser.

This upgrade marks the largest extension to the Steam platform since its first commercial release in March 2004. In its three year history, Steam has defined the next generation online gaming platform delivering hundreds of games to millions of users with services such as Guest Passes, Automatic Updates, Free Weekends, and access to purchased games from any PC.

To explore the Steam community features, install the Steam client available at www.steampowered.com. Click the Community tab within the Steam interface to take a tour of the features and create a profile.

About Steam
Steam is a leading platform for the delivery and management of games and digital content, and has pioneered its broadband services to over 13 million customers with core and casual games from today's leading publishers and developers. For more information, please visit www.steamgames.com.

About Valve
Valve is an entertainment software and technology company founded in 1996 and based in Bellevue, Washington. The company's portfolio of entertainment properties includes Half-Life®, Counter-Strike®, Day of Defeat®, Team Fortress® and PortalTM. Valve's catalog of products accounts for over 20 million retail units sold worldwide, and over 80% of PC online action gameplay. In addition, Valve is a developer of leading-edge technologies, such as the Source® game engine and Steam®, a broadband platform for the delivery and management of digital content. For more information, please visit www.valvesoftware.com

Discounts on some of Valve's other Half-Life 2 products are also available, making it easier for penny-pinching gamers to get their Gordon Freeman fix and prepare for the eventual release of the Half-Life 2 Orange Box this fall. Or this winter. Or whenever it finally ships. Michael McWhertor

Free Games On Steam [Steam]

"You buy the product, you get the content," Team Fortress 2 designer Robin Walker told us. "We make more money because more people buy it, not because we try and nickel-and-dime the same customers."

Valve won't charge for DLC [Eurogamer]

It's hard work, playing Counter-Strike for 8 hours non-stop. Especially if you're only fueled only by Coke and sweets, and surrounded by blokes emitting bloke-gas. Imagine the smell after 8 hours, let alone a sleep-over, and these things sometimes go for entire weekends.

I think this picture says it all. One dude fast asleep (if he doesn't wake up with a sharpie moustache, his mobile in his mouth and crisp bags stuffed in his ears, he should count himself lucky), one guy with the world's worst posture, and one with his thumb firmly jammed in his nostril.

Ah LAN parties. How I miss you. Alice Taylor

Beware the photographer [via Flickr]

PlayNoEvil has an interesting analysis up on the potential problems with this format - and points out that cheating gets a whole new purpose: "Cheating is different when money is involved. While hackers may share cheats for these games in online forums when it is 'just for fun'. The rules change once money is involved. The value of attacking the game goes from being an ego-boost to money in your pocket." Maggie Greene

Valve Software gets into Skill-based Gaming for Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike in deal with Tournament.com - Risks and Rewards [PlayNoEvil]

"School shooting expert" Jack Thompson appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews today to ramble incoherently further about the gossamer-thin connection between Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui's actions and the Half-Life mod Counter-Strike. According to Jack—and no one else—Seung-Hui might have played Counter-Strike in high school at some point making him a calm and efficient killer. While Jack defends that connection in the most what-the-fuck way possible, Matthews takes him to task for his massive leaps in "logic."

Normally, I'm not a fan of helping this tired [expletive deleted] spew his garbage propaganda via the site, but the clip is worth watching for a refreshing change. Instead of letting JT simply regurgitate the same spiel for the thousandth time unfettered, Matthews actually calls into question Jack's warping of the facts.

Wonder if they found Crecente's feature, forwarded them prior to the taping pointing out Jack's lies, helpful? We can only hope!

Thanks for the vid, darkslide. Shame about that off-sync sound though. I do apologize for that. Michael McWhertor

According to CS-Nation, two maps currently support the new ad spots, Dust 2 and Aztec. With time, I'm sure Valve will find new locations to paste up billboards for whomever's willing to foot the bill.

Personally, I don't really care. I've found the inclusion of custom sprays far more offensive. Man, I've seen squids show up in some unlikely places. Michael McWhertor

Ads Now In CS1.6 [CS-Nation]

Part iPod advertising aesthetics, part Stomp, part Garry's Mod showcase, this clip from Mighty Crane Films is a gun-popping, Strider-killing tour de force that everyone and their mother just sent in. Must see YouTube fodder. Thanks to our tipsters (and their moms) for the flood of goodness. Michael McWhertor

Wired has an excellent piece up on the current state of fear surrounding violent video games in Germany and the nation's efforts to ban content that doesn't mesh with its modern pacifist streak. Not unlike North American politicians, a number of German pols are looking to increase limitations on the sale of violent video games, an agenda they want to spread continent-wide to other members of the European Union.

Germany is no stranger to effectively banning games with objectionable violent content, as the software ratings board has denied ratings in the past to games like Dead Rising and Gears of War. Games like Manhunt and Counter-Strike are often blamed for societal ills and violent outbursts in European youth.

Sensible course of action to protect children or the work of agenda driven, headline grabbing politicians? Surely there must be some middle ground between government regulation and free-for-all skull splitting game access by 8-year olds. Michael McWhertor

German Past Haunts Gamers' Future [Wired]

Maybe for your next LAN party? Michael McWhertor

Shadow of the Colossus map mod for HL2 [bit-tech via 1UP]

Despite my l33t AK skillz, I lost. By a wide margin. He threw in a couple pity kills to stop my snot-nosed sobbing, but it was pretty clear I still suck at Counter-Strike. At least I got a t-shirt I'll never wear out of it! Michael McWhertor

Starting next week, you can expect your Steam client to look and operate a little different. Here are the new features those of you still playing Counter-Strike and Half-Life 2 should be looking forward to.

Guest Passes
Guest Passes allow owners of certain Steam games (purchased either via Steam or at retail) to let their friends play games for free, for a limited time trial. The first game to take advantage of this new feature will be Day of Defeat: Source. Beginning the week of January 8th, owners of DoD:S will each receive a guest pass to give to a friend. So if you own Day of Defeat: Source, watch your games list for your guest pass to appear, and then send it to a friend.

Background client updates
Since the Steam client was first released, it has always kept itself up to date — but now it'll do so without making you wait during startup. Instead, it will acquire new updates in the background and then (once they're downloaded) ask if you'd like to restart & apply them. Steam will also let you know what's new whenever a new update is ready to apply.

Games list Favorites
Steam's catalog of games has grown quite a bit over the past year or so. If you're like most Steam users, the list of games you own has grown pretty long. Time to organize! Soon you'll be able to try out the new Favorites feature in the My Games tab of Steam. Once you've selected a game as a Favorite, it's available for quick access at the top of your list. If you wish, you can also collapse the Installed and Uninstalled sections, leaving only your Favorites in view.

New look
Steam's getting a new coat of paint. We've stripped away all the non-essentials and created a new streamlined appearance, and it'll be available in five different colors.

Not a bad set of updates! I'm glad to see that the background client updates are finally moving to how I always expected them to work. Michael McWhertor

Coming Soon To Steam

Valve was none to pleased:

As most of the community knows by now, last week a major windstorm hit the greater Seattle area. Power outages are fairly common in the area, but the magnitude of this storm knocked out our datacenter, resulting in about 20 hours Steam interruption. This was very frustrating for everyone here and we know it was frustrating for you as well. We learned a lot and are taking steps to make sure that when the next storm like this hits our area 15-20 years from now *fingers crossed*, people will still be playing games on Steam while we are buying flashlight batteries.

Hmm. Considering Valve's track record of shipping late, I'm guessing 15-20 years to install additional failsafe data centers sounds about right. Michael McWhertor

God Hates Steam, Too [Kotaku]

Gamers are reporting widespread problems connecting to the platform, the Steam forums, and game servers, rendering many Steam-dependent games and tools useless. After learning of the issue this morning, I attempted to play a quick round of Counter-Strike Source, only to find no game servers available. Attempts to play Half-Life DM and Day of Defeat Source yielded only marginally better results, three total games currently running for each title. I was able to connect to at least one of the Steam content servers, allowing me to download the recently released Zen of Sudoku demo.

The Bellevue, Washington based company is located about ten miles east of the city of Seattle. No word on when we can expect to resume team-flashing eachother. Let's hope that backup systems will be in place to prevent an outage like this in the future so gamers and developers worldwide aren't also left in the dark. Michael McWhertor

It appears that Steam's innovative new pricing system for weapon and equipment has lead to other tweaks for PC shooter Counter-Strike: Source.

On Oct. 11 the developer launched the system, which modifies the cost of weapons and gear based on an algorithm that "calculates the global market demand." In other words, the more popular a weapon is, the more expensive it becomes.

The unexpected result of the system, it appears, is that the really good guns got way over-priced, forcing Steam to tweak the other weapons to make them more attractive.

Specifically, the developers increased the damage inflicted by the ES57, Compact 228 and Dual Elites by 25 percent. Brian Crecente

Counter-Strike: Source Update Released [Steam]

Attention Counter-Strike players, your game is about to become infested with in-game advertising courtesy of Valve and IGA. In an interview with Valve's Doug Lombardi, CS-Nation questioned the marketing director on how the ads would be implemented and the reasoning behind the commercial change to the seven-year old mod with a diehard community.

In-game advertisements aren't necessarily a new thing in certain maps, but it appears Valve will dedicate much more real estate to promotional space. According to Lombardi:

There will be some ads posted on walls in the game world, an ad on the scoreboard screen, and one in the letterboxed area of Spectator mode.

However, the company plans to keep it tasteful.

Counter-Strike levels aren't going to turn into Times Square or a Nextel Cup racecar. We have control over what ads show up in Counter-Strike and how they are presented.

You graphics whores out there who've moved on to the Source port of Counter-Strike should expect to see the same soon. Lombardi confirms that Valve considers the 1.6 implementation a test and will guage community response. I can only assume that more in-game ads from Valve and its partner are inevitable. Michael McWhertor

Advertisements Coming to CS [CS-Nation]

Once again an incident of school violence causes lawmakers to call for strict legislation against/banning of violent video games, only this time it's in Germany, where an 18 year old former student known as Bastian B. stormed a secondary school armed with explosives and firearms, wounding upwards of 32 people before ending his own life.

"The only thing I really learned at school was that I'm a loser," the youth wrote in a letter posted on his Web site that was later removed by police. "I hate people ... I'm gone."

German kid injures 32 and kills himself [United Press International - Thanks Ugly Joe]

Starting on Wednesday of next week we'll be starting a beta of the new Counter-Strike weapons market that we first announced here. The beta will give us some real-world data to start the market going, along with making sure that any issues get fixed before we roll this out to the entire community. Information on how to join the beta should show up on most of the major Counter-Strike news sites.

I squeezed in a little CS:S time this morning before work and eagerly anticipate seeing how this will affect gameplay (probably not too much). We'll follow up when more beta sign up details become available. Michael McWhertor

More Counter-Strike Changes Coming [Kotaku]

Reuters is reporting that an Iranian group, using state-sponsored development, has modded the fan favorite team based FPS Counter-Strike to allow players to virtually train for demolition runs against oil tankers. From the report:

The game, "Counter Strike", invites players to plant two bombs on the oil tanker to sink it and make the strait of Hormuz impassable, the Jomhouri-ye Eslami daily reported. About two-fifths of globally traded oil passes through the channel.

The Reuters report, most likely written by someone concerned more with world events than playing CS with 15 teenage boys, doesn't seem to have a good grasp on how the game is structured. They imply that the game is less of a mod or custom map than a built from the ground up title. Anyone who has spent time with Counter-Strike knows that bomb planting is one of the core game types.

Thanks for the heads up, Ross. Michael McWhertor

Iranian video game offers chance to blow up U.S. tanker [Reuters]

Valve has balls. To poke the Counter-Strike hornet's nest is a dangerous thing. With the recent change to the radar system, it doesn't seem like Valve is scared of tweaking the gameplay.

Now, they're mucking about with the pricing. You know that everyone just buys AK-47s, AWPs, Desert Eagles and Colts right? Well, they're making an effort to change that. Here's what they have to say about it:

We at Valve know we're not alone in thinking that some of the prices in the game have never been exactly what they should be. (Uh, night-vision?) But rather than tweaking the values ourselves, we thought we'd rather let you decide. Coming soon in Counter-Strike: Source is a new system that sets the prices of what you can buy based on, well, what people are buying.

Starting on October 11th, the prices of weapons and equipment in Counter-Strike: Source will be updated each week based on the global market demand for each item. As more people purchase a certain weapon, the price for that weapon will rise and other weapons will become less expensive.

Cool idea, one that I'm looking forward to testing out. Any CS:S players out there? We'll get a game on. Michael McWhertor

CS: Source Pricing Algorithm

Yes, I still play Counter-Strike. A lot. Some folks may have moved on, to games like Battlefield 2, or regressed, to games like Halo 2, but I'm still stuck in the year 2002. I still get a rush when I'm the last living CT, aware that two dozen pre-teens are closely watching my performance, ready to let loose a bilious stream of homophobic and racial epithets should I fail to defuse the bomb.

Well, Valve has seen fit to make some changes to the long stagnant Counter-Strike gameplay. Why? To "move the core gameplay forward" they say. What's on deck?

The first update will include an updated version of the map Train, which will feature an HDR lighting pass, some minor layout changes, and a number of small bugfixes.

No biggie. I can get behind this. The underplayed bomb map de_train has its issues and who doesn't like a little high dynamic range lighting (with the exception of my tired Radeon 9800 Pro)? What else you got?

The second facet of this release will be a completely reworked radar system. There will be a significant change to the aesthetics of the radar, but there are also some fairly significant gameplay ramifications to the new system. One example: when you look directly at an enemy for a long enough time for their name to appear on your screen, everyone on your team will be able to see that enemy in the radar. We're planning on releasing this first update in about two weeks.

Woah. Anyone who has played CS for any length of time will tell you that the ornery virgins who belly up to the keyboard on a Friday night are going to have some furious forum posting to do about this. While not an earth-shattering change, it will give away (temporarily?) an opponents location. But this is not such a bad thing, in my opinion. Those without mics should be able to act as spotters for the group, something that would benefit both sides strategically and save some awkward keyboard-based messaging.

Now, I won't whip out my e-dick and say that I've been playing CS since beta this or beta that and that this really makes me angry(!). That's not cool. I'm all for changes, if they add something strategically interesting and fresh to the game. Just never ever bring back that motherfucking riot shield, guys. Please. Michael McWhertor

Valve Weekly Update

Live nude Counter Strike gaming girls. Wonderland points to a new "online gaming community and nude pinup gallery," called GirlsofCS. Here's directly from nuddy site:

We are out to empower female gamers by eliminating the negative online stereotypes towards them. Online gaming has typically been dominated by men, but that is changing. By keeping our community mature, we hope to encourage more female gamers to enjoy their games with us.

GirlsofCS members will have access to our private VoIP server, Counter-Strike Source Game Servers, and exclusive content through our website. We plan on providing the no-bull gaming community that gamers have dreamed of since the internet began.

So, naked pics empower female gamers and erase negative stereotypes? Geez, we always thought they reduced women to sex objects. How immature of us!

More Here [Wonderland]

According to the weekly Valve update:

The Friends system is also nearing the end of its beta phase, and will soon be available to everyone running Steam. [...] There are also a number of additional features we'll be adding to it over time. Early next week, we'll be updating Steam with a convenient way to join the Friends beta.

Sweet! Also news worthy is that high dynamic range lighting is being added to some older Counter-Strike: Source maps, including the classic de_dust.

Aside from simply being a sad story for the boys and their families involved in this mess, it's also a sad situation for gaming. Stories like this one are the type that people will latch onto in their campaigns against video games and online games. Isolated incidents become the biggest black eyes on the gaming industry's face.

JUSTICE FILES: Counter-strike Clan Leader Busted as Pedophile [GamePolitics]

I can't wait to get AWPed in the first 10 seconds of a round with these new digs!

Oh, and there's something about Strategy First's Dangerous Waters netting IGN's coveted Game of the Month nod, but it apparently doesn't involve shooting people in the head. Not interested, but thanks!

SAS and Leet Crew Are Back [Steam]

Gamepro reports that Valve did not approve the in-game ads that Engage In-Game Advertising had run in Counter-Strike. Now it appears things are going to get all legal and stuff. From the article, Doug Lombardi's response: "At no time did Valve grant permission nor discuss these advertisements with Engage. As such, this is now a legal matter. Advertising or any other commercial use of our games requires our written permission." The phrase "uh-oh Spaghetti-o's" just seems to fit.

Valve Did Not Approve In-Game Counter-Strike Ads [Gamepro]

Before you drown in acronyms, we'll clarify. Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source will both land some new maps according to a news update over at Steam. Counter-Strike is the energizer bunny of games, that's the only way I know how to describe it.

Game Set Watch points to an excellent story over on GotFrag that compares the strategies used in chess and Counter-Strike. It really isn't that far a stretch, strategy is strategy; the hard part is mastering the ability to use it to cross forms. Just look at all those crappy business books that use the Art of War or Ghengis Khan to teach success in business.

The article is worth a read it talks about the lessons FPS instructors have to teach about gaming and how they compare to what you learn from chess instructors.

Kasparov Frags Karpov Checkmate [Game Set Watch]