PHL Plays CS:S

[CSN NewsBot]

Planet Half-Life's Steve Saunders — recovering from a terrorist plot to infect the United States with a deadly virus on the hit FOX series 24 — travelled to Valve Software recently to conduct a Counter-Strike: Source playtest. One of the highlights of the playtest article is that it has a clear screenshot of the new Desert Eagle skin, which has been updated significantly since we first saw it. The skin looks great!



In additional to the playtest, Steve was able to conduct a Q&A with Valve. The Q&A is structured a bit weird — it seems as if Steve is both asking and answering the questions — but it still addresses some unknowns. One big fact is that Half-Life 2 will now only ship with two SKUs: the "normal" edition and the collector's edition. Previously, twenty million different SKUs were planned and would be awarded depending on a variety of factors, including income, SAT scores, and whether or not the buyer was a fan of Modest Mouse. Thank goodness that the purchasing has been simplified! More Q&A here!



The Counter-Strike: Source BETA is currently playable at Valve Cyber Cafe Partner LAN centers, and will be opened to Counter-Strike: Condition Zero owners and ATI voucher holders this Wednesday (the 18th).

[le gritche]

Edited by [user="55177"] @ [time="1092572044"]

nice skin for sure.

Now that the safety lever is so well done, could it be useable to avoid teammates shooting you at spawn when they miss with there binds/buying click

A: Most (NOT ALL) of the physics calculations are done client-side using a prediction method. Server-side physics are handled very efficiently...

As i can see a barrel clipping with a concrete block on the DE skin pic, I would say the prediction is as reliable as astrological prediction.



another DE skin pic here



it's a bit blurry but bigger than the one in the news



there's also an usp skin (color change and various enhancements) blurry as hell here

[DeFade]

aaahaha cs:s sucks! looks at the barrel clipping into the cinder block. seriously though, the deagle is amazing. bring on wednesday.

[Supersonic^]

Like the new deagle skin. The old one looked kinda lame..

[Para]

Just to point out, the deagle doesn't have "only" a skin, it also seems to have an envmap of some sort (or possibly even a pixel shader to do the reflections). Anyway, it surely does look cool.

[0 Tolerance]

Edited by [user="90538"] @ [time="1092575772"]

deagle looks great, but did anyone notice the 'realistic' physics in other parts of that screenshot?... ...particularly the barrell which is clipping through the concrete block?



*sigh* i know im being picky...but i hate that stuff.



//edit

sorry le gritche & defade, i hadnt read the other posts yet [dumb me]. i see you two also noticed the clipping. ...just annoys the crap outta me. yes, yes, a minor detail compared to the wholeness of the game however. i cant wait to play.

[cheetarah654]

omg did you guys notice the barrel clipping into the cinder block!!



aside from steves lack of writing skillz, i learned nothing new. but the deagle does look beautiful! :)

[int3rnil]

cheetarah654 wrote..

omg did you guys notice the barrel clipping into the cinder block!!



aside from steves lack of writing skillz, i learned nothing new. but the deagle does look beautiful! :)

omg, did you notice that it's Beta still?

[Dangki]

A: TF2 is being worked on at VALVe, and will most likely be announced after Half-Life 2.

Although I'm sure everyone knew this anyway but it's nice to have a unofficially official confirmation that it hasn't been forgotten.

[thor2488]

I was worrying about thee terrible skinning, but this must just have been a placeholder.



Yay for news on DoD:S!

[crankerdevil]

LOL Rizzuh at the 24 reference. :)

[Bokuho]

That Deagle model looks okay, though I've seen better from custom modellers.

(read: that Deagle looks like a direct rip-off of the one from FarCry, as does all of CS:S in fact, and Firegold/Wannabe's Deagle model looks much nicer).

[cheetarah654]

int3rnil wrote..

omg, did you notice that it's Beta still?

omg did you notice i was joking since everyone made that stupid observation?

[ukHazard]

Bokuho wrote..

that Deagle looks like a direct rip-off of the one from FarCry, as does all of CS:S

Yeah, isn't it funny that when people work off pics of actual guns, that they look similar!

[Vi3tSkl11]

I don't see how they look similar...

If you mean the GUN looks similar, well, DUH, IT'S THE SAME GUN!

However, visually, they look VERY different. For one, they're mirrored differently. Secondly, the Deagle in CS:S actually REFLECTS the environment (look in the videos, you'll see what I mean).

Thirdly, 'better-looking' is an opinion. I personally prefer this new deagle model; that is, unless someone can get a reflective version of Snark's deagle...