Counter Strike: Global Offensive announced

The rumours about the next game in the Counter Strike series have been confirmed by Valve. The game will be entitled Counter Strike: Global Offensive and will be on PC, Mac, Xbox 360 and PS3.

"CS: GO promises to expand on CS' award-winning gameplay and deliver it to gamers on the PC as well as the next gen consoles and the Mac" says Valve's Doug Lombardi.

Little is currently known about the game but it will be multiplayer focused and we will be seeing some remakes of classic maps; 'de_dust' has been confirmed for the game. I am certainly excited about this news but the fact that it will be appearing on the Playstation Store and  Xbox Live Arcade (typically the home of smaller releases) might mean that it won't be competing with the heavyweight shooters, on console at least.

I'm back!

Hi all, after a long rest due to uni exams and my holiday I am now back and ready to roll out some fresh content! I will be trying to post daily with news, reviews and opinions on all things related to gaming and technology.

I've started playing Starcraft 2 again and have gotten pretty hooked. Got placed in diamond 1v1 this season and slowly making progress on my quest for masters. My plan is to play a lot of custom games to get back into shape then go on a mass laddering spree when I'm in tip top form.

My current progress:

I'll be putting up my thoughts on Starcrat 2 soon. See you in master league!

Minecraft?

I'm sure most of you have at least heard of minecraft by now, and if you havn't, you can check it out at www.minecraft.net.

I am still yet to jump on the bandwagon and buy the game and am wondering if i should. I've played the free sandbox online (not even sure if thats still available) and although it was pretty fun, it got boring after a while.

Just wanting to see what peoples opinions on it are. Have any of you bought the alpha/beta? Played it? Still madly addicted?

Some of the things people have made are truly amazing. Heres a fully programmable 8 bit CPU! I can't immagine what else people will create!

Keyboard / Mouse

I've been thinking about getting a new keyboard and mouse soon and have been looking around quite a bit. I've taken a liking to the Steelseries 7G for its mechanical switches and the Razer Deathadder as i've read countless times it's an outstanding mouse. They are so tempting but i'm just not sure if i can justify spending that kind of money on a keyboard and mouse (close to £100 just for they keyboard).

Does anybody recommend a good keyboard and mouse for heavy gaming use? Whats your opinion on this kind of overpriced 'gaming' equipment? Anybody got either of these and think it's worth the money?

CSS

I recently stumbled across an old gameplay montage from counter strike source that sparked up my interest in it again. The vid is called Synced 2 and I love just about everything about it - the music, the editing, the slomo effects timed with the tune. I've been playing a bit of CSS again thanks to this video. Anybody else watch videos that realy inspire them to play an old game again?

Magicka

I was persuaded to buy a game on Steam called Magicka earlier this week and I have to say it's pretty good considering the price. It's a third person top down RPG with 4 player co-op, but what makes this game super sweet is the spell casting system.

The player has 8 basic elements to cast spells with (water, life, protection, frost, lightning, arcane, earth and fire) with which he/she can press combinations to cast a huge variety of spells. Each spell combination has a targeted version and an area of effect version and some elements combine into others (water + frost = ice). The co-op allows players to combine beams for extra power and beams containing opposing elements crossing cause explosions. On top of this you can unlock special spells throughout the game like teleport and raise dead.


A personal favourite of mine is to soak all enemies with a water AOE and then use a lightning-frost spell to chain-freeze them all in place. The game is a lot of fun and I still don't think i've seen all the spell combinations yet. It's definitely worth checking out.

April Fools Roundup

Hey all, sorry I havn't had an update in a while been busy with things and playing ALOT of Crysis 2 and got into the top 100 on wins globally. Anyway heres a fun roundup of all the gaming related April fools tricks i've heard about.

- Minecraft’s over-priced “macrotransactions store.”
- Blizzard announces Starcraft with motion controls.
- Diablo’s Horadric Cube for the iPhone.
- The darkest Warcraft dungeon yet.
- WoW’s new dungeon helper.
- EVE Online gets mounts.
- The new Guild Wars class, Commando.
- EA prepping new M-rated Harry Potter game.
- The world’s first gaming exo-skeleton.
- First look at Halo Dance Central.
- Sonic the Hedgehog franchise discontinued.
-  Mass Effect 3 set entirely on one planet.
- Grand Theft Auto V teaser trailer.
- The Old Republic Wookie localization.

What do you think the best prank has been this year? Any of the above or somthing else I have yet to hear about?