Counter Strike Junkie

Community member, Bad Coupon, pointed out in our comments section that the details for the Heavy Achievements have been updated. It looks like a fairly balanced list with items that won’t be too hard to obtain during the course of normal gameplay. Though, I’m sure that won’t stop the farmers of the world.

Also of note is the one achievement, Konspicuous Konsumption, that seems to have spilled the beans on the last Heavy unlockable.

Eat 100 sandviches.

If the last unlockable is actually a sandwich that will help regain health in some capacity, then Valve made good on their promise to allow the Heavy to be more independent. We’ll just have to wait and see next week on whether or not this is actually the case.

The Championship Gaming Series (CGS) has announced their new CEO today. This announcement comes after Andy Reif, the now former CEO of the CGS, stepped down after two years in charge in order to pursue other opportunities.

The new CEO, Dale Hopkins, formerly the COO of G4 networks, took the reins and will assume control over the league. For more information on the CGS, feel free to check out their site.

The next unlockable weapon for the Heavy has just been revealed. Move over Sasha, there’s a new weapon in the Heavy’s life. Meet Natascha, the unlockable weapon for the Minigun.

Here’s a quote from the page explaining how Natascha works. You guys know what quotes are, right?

The Heavy’s second unlockable, Natascha, slows enemies with her bullets. Anyone damaged by her will move slower for an instant, encouraging them to find cover or turn and face the Heavy, mano-a-tiny-itty-bitty-mano. Unfortunately, Natascha is slightly weaker than Sasha, so she takes longer to finish off a victim. As a result, Natascha’s great against fleeing cowards, such as Scouts & Medics, and less great against anyone actively trying to kill her master. Heavies that like to jump around corners and surprise groups of startled enemy crybabies will also find her very useful, although they should look for a Sasha-wielding enemy Heavy before they leap.

The last two pieces to this “Heavy” update will come on Monday and Tuesday, with the actual update coming later on Tuesday as well. Feel free to try and guess at what the last unlockable will be while we go through the weekend.

Looking forward to purchasing and playing Bionic Commando: Rearmed on Steam? Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

Christian Svensson, Capcom’s Corporate Officer made a comment on their community forums about the situation.

Actually, I do have some bad news on the Steam front. At the last minute, we’ve been unable to reach mutually agreeable terms with Valve on BCR, so they won’t be carrying it (unfortunately you’ll have to get it elsewhere). I won’t get into the details but we do continue to have a good relationship with Valve and future Capcom titles we expect to be carried on Steam.

You can speculate all you wish about what happened during the zero hour, but it won’t change the fact that Bionic Commando won’t be released on Steam right now, or possibly ever at all.

The third reveal has made its public appearance for the upcoming Heavy-oriented update for Team Fortress 2. Badwater Basin is a new map using the Payload game type, a mode which was introduced previously with Gold Rush.

Badwater Basin is a Payload map focusing on more open spaces and less chokepoints than Gold Rush. (A) Right out of the gate is a multi-level area where the Blu team needs to control the high ground while moving the cart through a tunnel below. This open area has few natural choke points, allowing Scouts, Soldiers, and Demomen to move creatively through the space, forcing the Red team to rapidly respond to choices made by Blu. (B) As the track winds its way into tighter spaces, vertical control becomes more important. Each successive checkpoint requires the Blu team to take control of defensive positions above the track, usually occupied by Red Engineers. (C) Eventually the track winds down and a large basin which the Blu team must assault from all sides in a final push to destroy the Red base.

Unlike Gold Rush, where the track is split into three separate stages, Badwater Basin uses a single large stage with several checkpoints. As a result, the Blu team is highly encouraged to push the cart hard after beating their way through the Red defensive line.

The map is looking and sounding like it’ll be a ton of fun to play on. Don’t start relaxing yet boys and girls, we still have three pieces of this update puzzle to reveal!

Everyone loves a good rumor. Don’t lie to me, I know you do. The latest rumor comes from the mod team for Synergy. A forum posting (now since edited) revealed that the Synergy mod and four others will be able to be downloaded and updated via Steam through the use of the Steamworks SDK.

I would also like to inform you that we will be releasing Synergy and future updates through Steam! Valve Software has allowed us to do so by giving us access to the Steamworks SDK.

We are honored to be one of the four (sic) first selected mods to be given this opportunity. We will certainly put this to good use!

For you players, this means that you will see Achievements and Stats coming to Synergy in later updates. (Not to mention the automatic updates, provided by Steam.)

It certainly looks as though they let the cat out of the bag a little too early as the post has been edited to remove all of the above quoted information.

A little snooping around in the Steam registry content found the names of the other mods that may appear on Steam in the near future.

• D.I.P.R.I.P. Warm Up

• Insurgency
• Zombie Panic! Source
• Age of Chivalry

Those four mods, in addition to Synergy may end up be coming to Steam. Nothing has been announced by Valve yet, but we’re hoping to hear back on it soon.

Would-be owners Call of Duty: World at War might want to check out Gamestop if you’d like to obtain instant access to the M4A1 weapon.

To give an advantage to the multiplayer elite on day 1, pre-order through GameStop and you’ll instantly get access to the M1A1 Carbine Assault Rifle! The M1A1 is a high-level (15+) assault rifle which you can have from the moment you start playing multiplayer.

• A much larger magazine-size than starting rifles so you can get more kills without slowing to reload.

• Pin-tight targeting sight helps with quicker aiming for accurate take downs and headshots.
• Lighting-fast semi-automatic firing gives you kill speeds you’ll need to blow away your competition.

You too can pick up a rifle that will give you those lightning-fast kill speeds to have a leg up on the competition. If you’re interested in pre-ordering the game and want to give Gamestop your hard earned dollar, head on over to their website to pre-order. If you tell them that Zips sent you, you’ll receive absolutely nothing extra at all!

Ah yes, the next piece of the massive Team Fortress 2 update (coming next Tuesday) has been revealed to all. The K.G.B., or Killing Gloves of Boxing, is the first unlockable weapon revealed for the Heavy.

The unlockable for the Heaviest pugilists out there is the K.G.B. Any time a Heavy kills an enemy with the K.G.B he receives five seconds of guaranteed critical hits. This crit-boost can be used to punch and kill further enemies, extending the boost time. Alternatively, the Heavy can switch to another weapon and use the boost to take out an enemy at range. The Heavy’s slow movement speed, and the K.G.B’s slower swing speed, make it a risky prospect.

Additionally, the icons and names of each of the 35 new achievements were revealed to the world yesterday. Do you want to know how to unlock any of those achievements? You’re just going to have to wait, it’s a secret.

The upcoming stand-alone expansion to Crysis, Crysis: Warhead, has a firm release date set of September 16th (September 12th for Europe). They even sent out a lovely press release that you can view. Awesome!

“We think Crysis Warhead is going to offer a tremendous experience to a wide range of gamers,” said Cevat Yerli, CEO and President of Crytek. “Fans of Crysis are going to enjoy more of the open-ended gameplay, cutting-edge visuals and huge, epic battles from the first game, while also finally finding out what kind of havoc Psycho was wreaking on the other side of the island.

At the same time, we designed Warhead to be more accessible for gamers new to the Crysis franchise. It is a game with a story that can stand on its own, it has been optimized to run better on a wider range of PCs, and we are introducing Crysis Wars, a tailor-made experience for multiplayer gamers within the Crysis universe – all at a great value.”

That “great value?” Warhead will retail for just $29.99 in stores or pony up $24.95 for a pre-order from the EA Store. You can find more information at the new Warhead website.

The Steam version of Unreal Tournament 3 has been updated with a number of small fixes. If you’re an owner and avid player of the game and haven’t yet skimmed over the change log, now is your chance!

Hit the break for the full details.[break="change log"]

• Fixed overlay mesh showing up on hidden sniper rifle when un-zoomed

• Added motion blur menu option for PC (defaults to off)
• Fixed zero extent collision bug in octree code (finding nodes in Z axis)
• LOD Hysteresis / LOD Decision making bug fix
• Fixed default mesh not having proper LOD settings
• Fixed rare darkwalker physics crash
• Added player name list to server browser