Valve adds Spy + Sniper achievement milestones

Valve have released an update to TF2 just a short time ago, with the most notable change being the addition of achievement milestones for both the Spy and Sniper classes.  This allows players who have been unlucky with the random drop system to obtain new unlocks for the Spy and Sniper classes through the old method of completing achievements as well as possibly get them through lucky drops.

The full list of changes in this patch are as follows:

General
- Added Sniper/Spy milestone achievements as an additional way players can get the new unlockables
- Added the userid of the player who built the teleporter to the "player_teleported" event
- Fixed player killed event causing server crash
- Fixed Spies not being telefragged when standing on an enemy teleporter exit with the Dead Ringer enabled
- Fixed attackers seeing the mini-crit particle effect for full crits if the victim has the Jarate effect enabled
- Fixed the Ambassador not doing damage to buildings
- Fixed Spies disguised as their own team not drawing blood effects
- Fixed players killed by flaming arrows not showing the appropriate death icon

Arena Mode
- Added tf_arena_use_queue server convar. Turn this on to get the old queue behavior. Default is off
- Added tf_arena_round_time to set a timelimit on the round

I’m sure the added milestones will make a few people happy, so you can work towards getting the unlocks in a manner that guarantees you will get them rather than relying on just luck.

Grand Theft Auto – The Ballad of Gay Tony

Before GTA IV was even out in the wild, corrupting the youth and teaching kids the importance of exiting flipped vehicles to avoid the inevitable explosion, Microsoft secured the rights for two exclusive downloadable episodes for a cool sum of $50 million USD. In February, the first episode was released – The Lost and Damned followed a biker named Johnny Klebitz who had a minor appearance in Niko’s story. Rockstar announced yesterday that the next episode for GTA IV would be titled The Ballad of Gay Tony.

In an email to the Rockstar Games mailing list, a trickle of details have been released by Rockstar Games, don’t be misled by the title, you won’t actually be playing "Gay Tony":

There is good news also for those (Xbox 360 owners) who did not grab the first expansion, off Xbox LIVE or even  GTA IV! Rockstar games will be releasing the two expansions on a retail disc that will not require the original GTA IV game. The Ballad of Gay Tony will also be on Xbox LIVE for around 1600 MS points (some where between $20 and $30 Australian dollars, depending on the dollar at the time of release). Still no word yet if either of these expansions will make their way to the PS3 or PC.
 
The release date for The Ballad of Gay Tony is set for fall 2009, aka Spring in Australia. This roughly translates to the fourth quarter of Take Two’ Interactive’s financial year of 2009 (August 1 to October 31).

Flash Game Friday: Shift 4 + Learn to Fly

Looking for something to do on an otherwise boring Friday whilst waiting for the weekend to finally arrive? Well maybe our section Flash Game Friday has something for you.

To make up for the Flash Game Friday being missing in action last week, this week we’re bringing you not one, but two flash games to have a go at!  This week’s selections are Shift 4 and Learn to Fly.  Shift 4 is a puzzle game where you shift the world you’re in to work your way through doorways through to the end, whereas Learn to Fly has you building up your penguin with upgrades to push him greater distances each time across the water.

Go play Shift 4!

Go play Learn to Fly!

Wolfenstein receives an official release date

The latest iteration of the Wolfenstein series has been given an official release date by Activision.  Under development at Raven Software in co-operation with id Software, the game is based on World War II, but of course its not even close to re-creating real life events.

Wolfenstein will be going off on a completely fictional tangent with you battling against supernatural forces that the Nazis have unleashed and/or discovered. This new iteration of the game will introduce something called "the Veil" which is some sort of alternate dimension that you’ll have to battle through as part of the single-player campaign.

Of course you’ll be wanting to know what the date is now right?  Well its currently slated for release on the 4th of August in the US, so hopefully that means it lands in Australia at around the same time as well.

Via:  Shacknews

If you could ask Valve one question about TF2

With the recent combined Sniper and Spy update out of the way, and everyone having a good idea of the changes that were made, particularly with the semi-randomweapon unlock system, we thought it might be interesting to gauge what you think about the current state of TF2 and find out what you would ask if you could ask Valve just one question.

We’ve created a forum thread for you to post in that you can hit up here or alternatively you can post in the comments.

Bioshock 2 receives an official release date

Publisher Take-Two Interactive have announced the official release date for the imaginatively named Bioshock 2.

The game is currently slated to arrive during the mad month of November in the US, which is when we can expect a raft of other big titles to be released as well in time for Christmas.  The US release date is the 3rd of November, but its been suggested that international locations (maybe including Australia) will get the game a few days earlier on the 30th of October.  Take-Two haven’t confirmed that the game will be launching simultaneously on all 3 platforms – PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, but that’d make the most sense to do a simultaneous release if you ask me.

If you’re not sure what this Bioshock thing is all about, well take a step back in time to 2007 and check out our review of the original Bioshock by going here.

Via:  Shacknews

Valve buffs the Ambassador

Valve have released a small required update to TF2 this morning, with the biggest change being a buff to "The Ambassador" revolver for the Spy.

The full list of changes are as follows:

General
- The Ambassador now does full critical hits on headshots, instead of mini crits
- The Cloak & Dagger now fully drains the cloak meter, even if the Spy leaves cloak early
- Fixed Spy disguise menu not being visible in HUD minimal mode
- Fixed server crash related to the Jarate

Server log improvements
– Added "player_extinguish" event for servers to log when a Pyro extinguishes flame with the airburst
– Fixed kill descriptions for Force-A-Nature & Sandman, so server logs can distinguish them
– Identified feign deaths in the events sent to server logs

So quite a significant buff to the Ambassador for Spies, which will make the weapon a lot more useful. Simply restarting your Steam client should be enough to pickup the update.

Modern Warfare 2 reveal trailer is.. err. revealing

Infinity Ward have unveiled the full reveal trailer for Modern Warfare 2 (aka CoD6), showing off far more of the game than was shown in the brief glimpse we had a look at before.

Of course we’ve got it mirrored here in the Freezone to give you a brief view of what you can expect in the full game that is due out later this year.  You can grab the just under 120Mb trailer here.  The trailer shows off some of the fighting that will take place, including what appears to be a mission possibly in Africa somewhere (my first thought is that that bit is ripping off Far Cry 2 or the latest Resident Evil – sans the zombies), of course there is a short underwater sequence shown, snowmobiles and of course the obligatory 3 dozen explosions included, which shouldn’t really surprise anyone.

Given the franchise is back in the court of Infinity Ward, it’ll be interesting as to how this one goes (given its effectively Call of Duty 6).  It should no doubt be an interesting one to keep an eye on anyway as the release date (10/11/09) gets closer.

TF2 Spy/Sniper update is here!

The much anticipated latest TF2 update has just hit a Steam server near you,in combination with this, Valve are also doing a free weekend of Valve for 4 days!  There are also quite a number of changes made in this patch, which we’ve got all of the details on just below.

Firstly, restart your Steam client and you should pick-up the update, our WA Steam Content server is currently being hammered, so if you select that one in Settings > Downloads > Region, you should be able get the update as Freezone.  Now for the full list of changes:

Maps
- Added new map, Pipeline. Pipeline is the first map in a new game mode named payload race, which uses two carts in each map instead of only one like traditional payload maps
- Added new arena map Sawmill
- Added new arena map Nucleus
- Added new community payload map Hoodoo

Sniper
- Added new sniper rifle replacement, The Huntsman. Instead of a sniper rifle, you have a bow that allows you to move around faster while firing, and fire more quickly than the sniper rifle. Works better at medium range than the standard rifle
- Added new SMG replacement, Jarate. If thrown on an enemy they will take more damage for short period of time. Also extinguishes flames on yourself or allies
- Added new SMG replacement, The Razorback. Will protect you against a single spy backstab, and stun the spy for a short period of time. Comes with a 15% move speed penalty for the wearer
- Standard sniper rifle now shoots through friendly players
- Added 54 new Sniper voice lines
- Added 35 new Sniper achievements

Spy
- Added new revolver replacement, The Ambassador. First shot is very accurate and will cause a critical hit if it hits an enemy’s head. Accuracy is poor for a period after that
- Added new watch replacement, the Dead Ringer. When armed, you will appear in all ways to die to the first damage you take from an enemy. You’ll be cloaked for 8 second after taking this damage. Upon de-cloaking you’ll make a loud, distinct sound
- Added new watch replacement, the Cloak and Dagger. Your cloak meter is only depleted when you move, so you can stay invisible indefinitely if you’re standing still
- Spy name tags now show up properly when disguised as their own team
- Fixed a bug that would cause spectators to see disguise weapons incorrectly
- Fixed a bug where enemy spies disguised as friendly spies would have cigarettes that didn’t burn
- Fixed a bug where overhealing disguised spies would show the wrong overhealing amount to the medic
- Made it more obvious on first person view model when your motion cloak is out of juice and you are partially visible
- Also made it more obvious on first person view model when you’re bumped while cloaked
- Improved the way your disguise weapon is determined to make it clearer and fix a couple of rare issues
- Spies disguised as enemy spies now get a random mask to help complete the disguise, and their target id will be set appropriately
- Spies disguised as medics now have an Ubercharge: line in their disguise target info
- Spies outward facing "disguise health" now matches their disguise target when they first apply the disguise
- Spies can now pick up health kits for their "disguise health", even when uninjured
- Disguise UI doesn’t show up in minimum UI mode (hud_minmode)
- Spies that disguise as a player using an unlockable now show that unlockable in hand
- Spies can now use enemy teleporters
- Added 70 new Spy voice lines
- Added 34 new Spy achievements

Scoreboard
- Dominations no longer get wiped when teams switch sides
- Dead players draw slightly darker in scoreboard
- Converted class labels to class icons
- All players now display the total number of people they are dominating

General
- Fixed a bug that would cause the scout’s ball to regenerate at inappropriate times
- Demomen can now detonate their stickies while taunting
- Flamethrower’s air burst now extinguishes fire on friendly targets
- Grenades and rockets deflected by a pyro under the effects of Kritzkrieg will now be criticals
- The Heavy and Sniper now have new custom death animations
- Fixed payload HUD not updating properly if you join in the middle of a match and the cart isn’t moving
- Engineer’s dispensers now give 20%, 30%, or 40% of player’s max_ammo (for each ammo type) on each use, based on the level of the dispenser
- Added -sillygibs commandline parameter which will allow the non-violent gibs to be enabled
- Added a new taunt for the Kritzkrieg, which also heals for 10 points
- Improved the deathcam camera handling used when a player plays a custom death animation

We’re also putting up a bunch more servers at the moment, which should see double the number of 3FL servers normally available (32) very shortly.  So this should mean you don’t have a problem finding a server slot.

So combined with the class update and a free weekend, its looking to be a huge weekend of TF2.  Now get to it!

Monkey Island for XBox 360?

An entry in the German Ratings listings has sparked rumours that a remake or port of the classic graphic adventure "The Secret of Monkey Island" may be on its way to the XBox 360 at some point in the future.

The listing attributes Activision Blizzard in Germany as the company behind publishing this. Unfortunately the listing has been taken down at this time.

However, to add to the speculation, the website "Adventure Gamers" has claimed that they have sources who have confirmed the project and that more information will be released at E3 in a fortnight. No details as to whether it is just a port or a full-blown remake have been released, but either way if the rumours are true it would be a treat to see the classic brought back to life.

Source: Kotaku