May 21st was a long time ago

MW3 will whore "premium" content

You knew it was coming.

MCV reports that MW3 will indeed feature purchasable content beyond the usual map packs we've all come to loathe:

CEO Eric Hirshberg described [the new "Project Beach Head" tech] as as "online platform" that "will be an integral part to the innovation signature of the Call of Duty game that we're releasing this year". 

The biggest news, however, is confirmation that for the first time Call of Duty will offer players additional online features at a premium. Whether or not this will turn out to be the long-rumoured subscription service remains to be seen.

And later:

Boss Kotick, however, was keen to emphasise that players will never have to pay extra to receive they services that they do today... 

"While we are attempting to deliver new incremental experiences that have yet heretofore been unseen by our players, we are not attempting to monetize or take any experience away that currently comes as part of the value proposition of buying the game."

It might have just been a poor choice of words on Kotick's part, but "incremental experiences" doesn't sound like "cosmetic upgrades" to me. Since I'm in the minority that finds that the ability to purchase tattered hats and beard dirt does nothing to enhance my experience in any given game, however, I may be reading too much into it.

MW3 trailer - "Our buildings also fall over."

Com3 to Franc3! 3njoy cr3p3s, bagu3tt3s, fin3 win3, and th3 3iff3l Tow3r!

I promise you all, this game will be shit.

Promise.

It can only happen in TF2

(Yes, it was obviously staged.)

OT: Civil War Reenactment

For those of you interested in real wars, I grabbed several shots of the Civil War reenactment of the "Battle of Lewisburg" today and posted them to Flickr:

Brink: "Parkour This" in 18 seconds

Brink patch here, free DLC coming

The following information comes from Splash Damage's Brink blog. 

The DLC

It's due in June and will include new maps (note the plural) and "new content." That content is rumored to include additional weapons.   

Patch notes

A new game update for the PC version of Brink is now available on Steam and we've got the changelog here for you. Thanks to the magic of Steam, you'll receive the update automatically the next time you log into your Steam client.

General:

• Fixed issues with custom ui_fov settings when playing as a client

• Added support for 2560x1440

• Slightly improved start up times

• Fixed crash when clicking in blank area on Training Videos menu

• Fixed memory leaks on shutdown

• Fixed Be More Objective leaderboards being incorrectly named

Graphics:

• Fixed "texture gridding" issues on certain graphics cards

• Fixed settings being incorrectly applied on the advanced video options screen

• Improved performance when using Ambient Occlusion

• Fixed halos not rendering correctly

AI Bots:

• Removed bot intelligence inhibitors for Freeplay games

• Adjusted bot behaviour in Campaign games to make teams more evenly matched

• Changed bots' objective priorities across all game modes

• Fixed issue with bot difficulty continually dropping

User Interface:

• Fixed poor server browser performance for users with a large number of items in their history

• Made server browser refreshes much more responsive

• Changed server browser to no longer group player counts by max players

• Added new pop-up text for server browser filters

• Fixed not being able to sort by favourites column

• Server browser now retrieves favourites correctly from Steam

• Fixed arrow keys not working when exiting out of a chat submenu

• Made it easier to select a default secondary weapon

• Disabled chat options in solo mode

Dedicated Servers:

• Can now use net_ip command to assign IPs to server instances

• Dedicated server binary can now be run as a service, which won't have a CSIDL_PERSONAL virtual folder

Art imitating life

From the Department of Damn That Was Fast:

FY_ABBOTOBAD Released for Counterstrike

From GameBannana:

Created by Fletch (May 7, 2011)

Based on Osama's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Map may be used as a base for a bomb or hostage map at a later stage. 3D skybox will also be added when/if I have time.

A quick update (May 9, 2011)

What alot of people don't seem to understand is that the only thing this map has in common with Osama is location. I can see how people would think it is in bad taste, but honestly if that's your opinion you may as well protest the whole game (as well as many others).

BRINK launch trailer

Brink ready for pre-load

The game unlocks on Monday, May 9.  (EDIT: it actually unlocks at midnight, so call it the 10th.)