What kind of gamer are you?

There is, of course, a questionnaire.

I am a survivor-seeker.

Yay for me.

Gabe goes to Oz

I almost forgot about this. News from Fly Gabe Newell:

Greetings, O followers of the Fly Gabe Newell fund.

Gabe and Erik have their flights booked. We are, it seems, all going to Sydney to hang out! It may be the case that a certain number of members of the public are able to come, but those details are not yet clear. I'll let you know.

The event will be taking place on the seventh of October. In a week.

That's pretty nuts.

Also, Gabe and Erik are paying their own way, which means all the money accumulated will be going to the Child's Play charity. It will be going there tomorrow, because today my internet is shaped and therefore too slow to load PayPal.

Thanks!

GameTrailers reviews Section 8

Video Games | Section 8 | Review HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

And in case you doubted my comparison of Section 8 to Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, watch this.

Another L4D update

From Steam News:

Updates to Left 4 Dead have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Left 4 Dead (PC)

• Item density calculation corrected for Versus games
  
• Fixed weapon density in Crash Course
  
• mp_gamemode now a valid command
  
• New localized audio for Crash Course now available
  
• Fixed achievement issues in Crash Course
  
• Fixed dedicated servers not updating correctly to master server
  
• Increased the timeout to fallback to listen server when searching for a dedicated server to 45 seconds

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Killing Floor updated

From Steam News:

Updates to Killing Floor have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Killing Floor

• Added surround sound support for Vista
  
• Added Universal Plug and Play(UPnP) support for hosting Listen Servers
  
• Improved Map White Listing system to get maps onto the list faster
  
• Fixed exploits on each official map

Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft has released a free anti-virus/spyware/malware package for Windows XP, Vista, and 7. It's supposed to offer real-time protection with minimal resource usage.

Paul Thurrott has a comprehensive review of the software on his blog. Quote:

Microsoft describes MSE as a "thin layer on a deep technology stack." It's comprised of a user mode service and a kernel mode driver, so it can handle malware no matter where it lives in the system. It's all backed up by a series of web services, including telemetry data through the SpyNet service, Microsoft Update, and a separate signature update service.

Thanks to the 450 million people who automatically download security updates every month from Microsoft Update, the software giant has a unique and gigantic feedback loop from which they can quickly identify new attacks and react aggressively. On the client itself, the MSE real time protection mechanism operates at the kernel level to examine the behavior of unknown binaries and then sandbox potential malware before it can do any harm. And thanks to a new Dynamic Signature Service, MSE can immediately query online to see if there is anything that matches what its seeing on the PC. Because of its kernel mode hooks, MSE can also detect kernel mode rootkits and, in many cases, even clean them out after they've rooted their way into the system.

Ars Technica has a positive review as well.

I installed MSE today. I'll be watching for other reviews (especially criticism) of the suite, and I'll report any significant information here.

The vulture has landed

L4D's newest campaign, Crash Course, is now live, and with it comes a couple of changes to Versus:

"While containing both Survival maps and a Co-operative Campaign, one of the primary goal of Crash Course is Versus mode. Crash delivers a complete, streamlined Versus mode experience in just 30 minutes. A recharge timer for infected teammates has also been added, so you can better coordinate your attacks. Item spawn behavior has changed for more balanced gameplay."

According to Steam News, the aforementioned item spawn tweaks mean that "all weapons, pills, health packs, molotovs, pipe bombs and other items will now be identical for the second round of a chapter[.]"

The DLC also includes some matchmaking improvements.

Monday Music IX - Broad Bands

DISCLAIMER: Yes, I know solo performers aren't technically "bands," and I know Heart had male members (double entendre, FTW!). I'm just not willing to give up a classic tag-line for the sake of pedantic accuracy.

Doria Roberts - Perfect



Heart - Barracuda



Broadzilla - Ecstasy



Antigone Rising - Fat Bottom Girls