Today Valve announced a new team-based shooter called Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. It's due out in early 2012, and will be available on Windows and OS X through Steam, as well as the PS3 and Xbox 360 over their respective game networks. "CS: GO features new maps, characters, and weapons and delivers updated versions of the classic CS content (de_dust, etc.). In addition, CS: GO will introduce new gameplay modes, matchmaking, leader boards, and more." According to a hands-on report, "We've all seen and played pretty looking games before, but hands down and unanimously, everyone was most interested in the movement, weapon handling, and game play. It didn't feel like 1.6 and despite being built on the Source engine, it didn't feel like CS:S. By design, Valve wanted to create a game with a different feel, and overall it was really smooth. The pro players seemed surprisingly happy with the player player movement and feel of the game but thankfully they weren't short of feedback and most weren't shy to share it. Tweaks and adjustments are needed, but in my opinion, it was a great sign that it didn't grossly offend anyone."

blanners writes "James Bond fans jonesing for some suave British espionage will be getting a (sort of) brand new GoldenEye this fall. Mashable got some hands-on time with an alpha build of GoldenEye 007: Reloaded, Activision's new first-person shooter video game based on the historic franchise. Quoting: 'Perhaps the most fun to be had with Reloaded is its obvious nods to nostalgia. Although the distinctive file folder menu screens are gone, the game has a series of modifiers, both silly and useful, which can be applied to some multiplayer or Mi6 games. You can edit your weapons load-out as easily as you can give characters big heads, paint ball guns or make every enemy the same joke character.'"

An anonymous reader writes "John Carmack just confirmed during his QuakeCon 2011 keynote that the source code to Doom 3 will be released this year. The source drop will follow the release of their Rage game in October. Carmack has also challenged other game developers to release their old source code."

dotarray writes "Even though an adult rating for video games has been approved in theory for Australia, it's still a little ways off – and will not come soon enough for Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad. Alan Wilison, VP with the company producing the game, said, 'We are hoping that they will take the same view as PEGI/BBFC and not go all silly on us. However, until we're sure, we putting LV up to be safe.'"

Today, after Eurogamer spilled the beans earlier than Randy Pitchford would have liked, Gearbox and 2K Games officially announced Borderlands 2, the sequel to 2009's well-received shooter/RPG. It's planned for sometime between April 2012 and April 2013, and will be available on the PS3, Xbox 360, and Windows. Gearbox plans to demonstrate the game in its current state during Gamescom and PAX Prime later this month.

id Software's upcoming shooter Rage is nearing its Oct. 4 release, and the company recently provided some hands-on time with the game in its current state. GiantBomb described it thus: "In those three hours, I discovered a first-person shooter. Also, a racing game. And a car combat game. And an open-world adventure. A collectible card came, too. Lastly, it's practically every piece of apocalyptic science fiction we have known to date tossed into a blender, set to puree, poured onto a disc, and spread evenly over a seemingly lengthy and elaborate single-player adventure. In short, Rage is a kitchen sink kind of game, the kind so often labeled as 'missed potential' due to a lack of focus on any one particular aspect. I don't think Rage will garner any such labels." Rock, Paper, Shotgun's write-up is a bit more poetic, providing a first-person preview of the first-person shooter.

trawg writes "A small Australian software company — backed by almost AUD$2 million in government assistance — is claiming they've developed a new technology which is '100,000 times better' for computer game graphics. It's not clear what exactly is getting multiplied, but they apparently 'make everything out of tiny little atoms instead of flat panels.' They've posted a video to YouTube which shows their new tech, which is apparently running at 20 FPS in software. It's (very) light on the technical details, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but they say an SDK is due in a few months — so stay tuned for more." John Carmack had this to say about the company's claims: "No chance of a game on current gen systems, but maybe several years from now. Production issues will be challenging."

donniebaseball23 writes "id Software co-founder John Carmack defended the creativity of first-person shooter games in a recent interview. The legendary programmer, who was a pioneer in the shooter genre with Doom and Quake, said he doesn't like hearing from developers that shooters aren't good because they're not reinventing the wheel. 'I am pretty down on people who take the sort of creative auteurs' perspective. It's like "Oh, we're not being creative." But we're creating value for people — that's our job! It's not to do something that nobody's ever seen before. It's to do something that people love so much they're willing to give us money for... you see some of the indie developers that really take a snooty attitude about this,' he lamented."

heptapod writes "Valve has announced that Team Fortress 2 is now free to play. 'We've been toying with the idea of making Team Fortress free-to-play ever since the Mann-conomy update [in September 2010],' said Valve's Robin Walker. 'Team Fortress 2 would only be monetized by microtransaction payments. No advertising model will be pursued, Walker said. No premium subscription model will be used. No cynical "pay-to-win" options will be implemented, he assured.'"

Kethinov writes "Ars Technica writes one of their most negative reviews of a game in a long time, referring to Duke Nukem Forever as 'barely playable' and 'one of the worst games from a major studio in quite some time. The jokes border on hateful. The graphics are a blurry mess. The shooting is unsatisfying.' Their verdict? Skip this one."

Gamespot spoke at length with id Software's John Carmack at E3 about upcoming FPS RAGE (which is now only a few months away from release), as well as his thoughts on the new console offerings revealed by Nintendo and Sony. He seems optimistic about the Wii U, and rather less so about the Vita. "But you know the technology level on [the Wii U] brings it up to parity with the other consoles, which is nice for us. Previously, the Wii was not a target. Id Tech 5 was just not suitable for the Wii at all. ... now that we're looking at another platform that is eminently suitable for the technology, I'm sure we're going to try and bring it up on there." On the other hand, Carmack and Tim Willits both expressed concerns about whether Nintendo users were the right demographic for id games. Of the Vita, he said, "I wouldn't want to be the executive making the decision to launch a new portable gaming machine in the post-smartphone world. I think that they've picked as eminently a suitable hardware spec as they could for that. ... But of course, by the time they actually ship, there may be smartphones or these tablets with twice as much power as what they're shipping with on there. And a year or two after that, it's going to look pretty pokey."

An anonymous reader writes "After Intel showed a ray traced version of Wolfenstein last year running cloud-based streamed to a laptop the company that has just recently announced its shift to the mobile market shows now their research project Lalso running on various x86-tablets with 5 to 10 inch screens. The heavy calculations are performed by a cloud consisting of a machine with a Knights Ferry card (32 cores) inside. The achieved frame rates are around 20-30 fps."

uslinux.net writes "Gearbox Software released the demo for Duke Nukem Forever today, though it's only available to preorders and other promotions for the time being. After more than a decade, it looks like this game will actually hit stores this month. After 12 years in development, will it live up to the hype?" Included with the linked article is DNF's launch trailer. This should go without saying, but just in case: NSFW. Seriously.

dotarray writes "Activision has denied it and denied it, but now it's been revealed – Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 will feature an online service (that's what Call of Duty Elite is), complete with monthly subscription fees. 'Activision executives said they haven't yet figured out how much to charge for the service, but they expect the cost to be less than fees for comparable online-entertainment services, such as a $7.99-a-month Netflix Inc. movie subscription. Portions of the service will be free, including features inspired by Facebook Inc. that will let Call of Duty players meet for online gun battles with others who share various affiliations and interests. Another feature of the service will give Call of Duty players tools, modeled on those from stock-trading websites, to analyze their performance within the game, gauging factors such as which weapons have been most successful for them in killing enemies.'"

doug141 writes "GameStop encourages customers who pre-ordered more than a year ago to verify their reservation with their local store. 'Provided the customer has a receipt, we will honor even those pre-orders taken long ago. At this time, we expect that all pre-order customers will receive Duke's Big Package at time of purchase, regardless of when the reservation was made.'" If you have an especially old order, though, you might want to visit the store with your original punchcard, or a daguerreotype of it.

theodp writes "If you could change the way wireless companies did things, what would you do?' asked Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. How about stopping the use of Sprint's firmware updates to download apps that aren't wanted and can't be removed, Dan? Sprint confirmed to CNET's Elinor Mills that those strange apps she was shocked to find on her Android phone — sci-fi shooter N.O.V.A. and Blockbuster — with a long list of permissions that couldn't be uninstalled had been sneakily downloaded onto her phone during a firmware update. 'Sprint does offer a variety of partner applications that are optimized for use on our wireless phones,' a Sprint representative explained in an e-mail. 'From time to time, we will provide new apps to our customers in conjunction with a software maintenance release. Also, Sprint, in conjunction with Google, is taking steps to develop a technical solution that would allow customers to remove any unwanted applications that have been preloaded or pushed in an over-the-air software update.'" Asking first would be a nice non-technical solution.

An anonymous reader tipped us to a People's Daily story about the (Chinese) People's Liberation Army's new shoot-em-up game with US soldiers as targets, and that story led us to a more complete description of the Glorious Revolution game at the Daily Mail, which includes a nice video (in Chinese, of course) toward the bottom of the article that shows how the game looks in action.

fysdt writes "Details on the next Call of Duty game, Modern Warfare 3, have not simply leaked onto the internet; they have flooded. Among other details, a November 8 release date was mentioned. According to a report coming from Kotaku, what was just a month ago among the best kept secrets of the gaming industry — information on the next Call of Duty game — has now become anything but."

donniebaseball23 writes "As the PlayStation Network outage continues, developers are feeling the economic pinch. There's been no word from Sony on whether they'll compensate companies who produce games for PSN, but Capcom has already said it's losing potentially 'millions' from the downtime. Worse yet, developers who rely on PSN revenues may jump ship if they aren't compensated, warns Dylan Cuthbert, creator of popular PSN game PixelJunk. 'I have a feeling they [Sony] are thinking about doing something or they will lose developers, which of course is pretty bad for them,' he said." While a major shift away from the PS3 is unlikely — downtime or not, developers don't want to lock themselves out of such a big piece of the market — it does have undeniable negative effects on some companies. For example, Bethesda's FPS Brink, which focuses heavily on multiplayer, launched without that capability for PS3 users. You can bet Microsoft will use this outage as a selling point for exclusivity or Xbox-first arrangements.

dotarray writes "Osama bin Laden's final hiding spot in Abbottabad, Pakistan, has been made into a playable map for Counter-Strike: Source. Honestly, we're a little surprised that it took this long."