Slashdot Mirror
Counter-Strike Source Beta Debuts In CyberCafes
orion024 writes "From the official Half-Life 2 website - the Half-Life: Counter-Strike Source beta '...will be playable [starting tomorrow, Wednesday] at all cyber cafes that subscribe to the Valve Cyber Cafe Program. Later this month, the beta will be extended to owners of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero; and ATI Fulfillment Coupon holders.' Hopefully, this beta, using the Source engine Half-Life 2 is built upon, will ease those HL2 jitters many fellow gamers are experiencing." We previously reported on some friction between cybercafe owners and Valve - as for CS:Source, IGN PC also has an updated preview on the title, which sports "the same specs that Doug Lombardi mentioned for Half-Life 2... minimum system requirements appear to be a 1.2 gigahertz processor with 256 megabytes of RAM and a DirectX 7 video card."
Man CZ owners should have gotten it first...or at least at the same time. We payed how much for CZ and got very little change, and what changes we got are moot with the release of source... I'm not complaining, but how does this really help cybercafe owners? The installed base of CZ is not huge, but you would think you would want as many people out there playing source as soon as possible to prevent a dearth of serves...
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
Cybercafes are paying around $10 a month per computer to be in the cybercafe program. Valve wants to give them all the benefits they can so they'll feel its worth the price.
As much as I hate FPSes, I'm going to have to defend Doom here. They aren't trying to be revolutionary. They're trying to create a graphics and physics engine. Any game wrapped around the engine is just a demo for its abilities.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I mean, seeing how they bitch with every CS update (not without reason, i might add - from 1.3 it's been downhill); this one will change the gameplay dramatically, if only because of the added freedom in maps. Imagine pushing a barrel arround for cover, and so.
;)
Also, the minimal hardware to run CS (which was pretty low spec for the original HL engine) will be kicked up a notch. Expect a whine about lost FPSs in no time.
Sorry, i can't help myself. I always get a kick when i see some of the stuff the "CS pro" comunity does
People (like my flatmate!) who where duped into buying condition zero deserve a FREE COPY when it is released, not just a beta!!
Man was that a travesty of a FPS or what?!?
Since when did Beta releases become such a big deal anyway? Aren't they just advertising? Why the hell are they restricting it????
Perhaps they are following the MS/MMOG example and consider a Beta an actual product?
Valve/Steam is really kind of an interesting thing to watch right now. My personal belief is that they are going to end up losing more than they gain in their quest to become the AOL/Time Warner of the gaming world but it is an interesting struggle. Within the community itself lies a huge percentage of people complaining about the system or lack of availability even on the HL1 platform. Now they will introduce (I'm assuming) several hundreds of thousands of new users to the system. I'm not saying it will fail or it will pass but it will be fodder for all of the game tech news sites once again and for quite a while I assume.
:-P
One day we'll look back on this and tell our grandchildren, "Oh yeah? I lived through the Half Life 2 transition. All 20 years of it."
-= Why can't I add 'Anonymous Coward' to my list of Foes? =-
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!