ValveTime

What with all the excitement over the Counter-Strike: Source release last night, and of course the fact that I played every single new map back to back, we forgot to report on this very helpful article.



The guys over at IGN Gear have written up a five page guide on optimising your computer in preperation for Half-Life 2, and why not CS:Source too considering most of us have it? There's certainly some things I've neglected to do with my computer and this guide is very helpful.



You can find the full article here.

Our US East Coast and Central US server sponsor, Leetnet, has just finished uploading the rest of Counter-Strike: Source 1.0 on to our servers. Please join us on there as soon as you can, and remember to give our sponsors a visit.

So, the best score yet for Half-Life 2 rolls in and everybody couldn't be higher. What with CS:Source being released tonight (a review will follow shortly), it seems as though everything is falling together. Not to mention of course that CS:Source is very good. There are already thousands of people that have purchased Half-Life 2 this evening and not a single one of them is likely to be disappointed. IokesI over at the Gamespot Forums has received his copy of PC Gamer US today and they have scored Half-Life 2 a whopping 98%, bringing the average total of the print reviews up to an amazing 95.4%. Here's his forum post:









So, what are you waiting for? Want to play this amazing game as soon as it's released? Want to play CS:Source right now? Log on to Steam and purchase, we're in for some good times.

Update: Jess Cliffe of Valve Software has confirmed this information to be true in this post.

Our UK server sponsors, b33f.co.uk have just finished uploading the rest of Counter-Strike: Source 1.0 on to our servers. Please join us on there as soon as you can, and remember to give our sponsors a visit.

This has just been sent through by Doug Lombardi (as if you didn't know already):




This is excellent news and after all this time, we finally have something to keep us going until the Big Daddy of all games is released, Half-Life 2. You now have five options. You can either buy Half-Life 2 as retail, buy it as part of a Collectors Edition at the shop or buy it through Steam with three seperate packages to choose from. The choice is yours.



For a reminder of the available packages, please see this news post.



I have been notified by forum member, Varsity, that some people are having problems accessing the Steam Storefront. If that's the case, please make your options by clicking the special Steam hotlinks below:



Gold Package

Silver Package

Bronze Package



Oh, and of course, here's some screenshots while all the files unlock!

See you on our servers!