"We have a lot of anti-cheating, anti-boosting stuff going on behind the scenes, so we are monitoring that," Bunting assured us. "We're going to have a very heavy hand in the online security of our game."

"We're taking it very seriously. We had an engineer dedicated pretty much from the storat of the project to it."

Cheaters won't be able to hack their hardware to get around this either claims Bunting, "If people hack their hardware, we've got the ability to detect that and report them to Sony or Microsoft."

- Reinstated ammo cost.
- Added client ConVar cl_autobuyammo ( default 7 ) which determines how much ammo to attempt to buy with guns.
1-7: The ammo buttons in the Buy menu are hidden. ConCommands buyammo1 and buyammo2 are still active.
0: Ammo is not automatically purchased and the ammo buttons in the Buy menu are visible. They now buy single ammo boxes.
- De_Inferno bug and exploit fixes. See http://forums.steampowered.com/forum....php?t=1406537 for details.

Doggie Bag Pack
Take on new heists and unlock new Achievement points with two never before seen maps and five exclusive weapons for Multiplayer and Arcade modes. Dockyard and High Rise maps, plus the Radio Tower map (previously available through pre-order offers) provide new opportunity to increase your wealth. And with the inclusion of five new weapons, including the DD 33, KL Viper, RTS, SMi 69, and the TOQ Model Four S the odds are in your favor of pulling off a successful heist.

Retail price:
Xbox 360 - 560 Microsoft points
PS3 - €5.99 (Europe) / $5.99 (US)
STEAM - €5.99 (Europe) / $5.99 (US)


Alliance Weapons Pack
Increase your weapons arsenal with seven powerful new weapons for all Multiplayer modes and Arcade mode. A mix of handguns, shotguns and assault rifles the new weapons include: Doretta Silenced, Steele 870, TOQ SBR, Kaliningrad 47, PAC 10 silenced, N 77P Silenced, TOQ Elite. (Weapons previously available through pre-order).

Retail price:
Xbox 360 - 240 Microsoft points
PS3 - €2.99 (Europe) / $2.99 (US)
STEAM - €2.99 (Europe) / $2.99 (US)

Multiplayer Mask Pack
Conceal your identity and avoid revenge attacks with 8 costume masks stolen from a Chinese gift shop, for all Multiplayer modes and Arcade mode. You never want to be identified, especially if you are a traitor! (Masks previously available through pre-order).

Retail price:
Xbox 360 - 160 Microsoft points
PS3 - €1.99 (Europe) / $1.99 (US)
STEAM - €1.99 (Europe) / $1.99 (US)

- Added 'teamsize' options in team gametypes. Players can now 'callvote teamsize #' to adjust the size of teams in team gametypes (TDM, CA, CTF, FT). Issuing 'callvote teamsize 4' will result in a 4 available player slots per team, team sizes are now shown on the scoreboard.
- Added cg_drawCrosshairHealthArmor (Default 1, min 0, max 1) Displays a teammates health and armor below their name when you hover your crosshair over them.
- Added cg_drawCrosshairNames 2 (Default 1, min 0, max 2) The new '2' option allows you to draw crosshairnames only for your teammates, enemy names will not pop-up. This option is available in the in-game menu under HUD Options->Target Names.
- Added cg_drawCrosshairNamesOpacity (Default 0.75, min 0, max 1) Controls the opacity of the player names displayed when using cg_drawCrosshairNames 1 or 2.
- Added cg_playerLean (Default 1, min 0, max 1) Scales or disables the player lean effected caused by high velocities.
- Added 'gamepad' configuration control section & basic Microsoft XBOX 360 Controller support.
-- In the console set 'in_joystick 1' to enable gamepad support.
-- If you experience that you are unable to move, set 'in_joyballscale 1'.
- Added Discover card support for every region that uses USD. (We know, we know, PayPal support work is underway!)
- Fixed a problem causing standard Linux users to sometimes crash on startup.
- Fixed missing weapon icon on teamoverlay.
- Players removed from clans will no longer still bear the clan tag previously associated with them.
- Fixes for clantags from not getting properly cleared when a player leaves the server.
- Fixed some problems that would occasionally cause the browser-side error detection to cuase client performance problems.
- Fixed reported switch/quit match stat errors. Changes have been made to the backend to better handle team switches and quits; additionally players that rejoin after having dropped from the server should now show up on the scoreboard instead of on the quit list. Oddities may persist in Freeze Tag and will be addressed in the near future.
- Fixed missing Vertical Vengeance & Industrial Accident reports. Changes have been made to the backend to ensure that matches occurring on these two maps will now report match stats.
- Updated IEM5 Map tags to reflect the recent Intel Extreme Masters 5 map pool changes.
- PRO: Fixed 'Start a Match' map cycles. A bug was preventing user spawned servers from cycling past the first map; map cycles now work as expected.
- PRO: Freeze Tag matches started with Instagib mode will now run without spawn armor, and with thaw time set to 1 second.
- PRO: An arena will be selected by default for each gametype in the Start a Match interface.
- PRO: You can now choose the number of players allowed per team when starting a team game.

There are rumblings around the office that Tripwire has been hard at work getting something big ready for this Thursday in anticipation of PAX. We look forward to showing it to you in person to those who can ...attend. So make sure and keep an eye out Thursday, and make sure our booth (#3646) is your first stop Friday!

The game's more or less complete - albeit with lots of tweaking to go - right up to the Xen levels. We could have jumped into any part of the game, but really, you have to start at the classic starter level, Inbound.

Wow.

The combination of attention to original detail, and new material provided by the modern team is impressive. If you've ever tried to go back to Half Life you'll know the old engine really isn't aging well; this, however, makes the game fresh and up to date.

It's also fiendishly self-referential - there's a newspaper on one of the chairs in your carriage called the Inbound Times... The Half Life sense of humour is very much intact and expanded upon.

But apart from that, this is all new material - new textures, new animations, even new voice work. It's all lovingly based off the original, but with a few twists that keep the story in line with the now much more expanded universe that subsequent releases have given us.

Full use has also been made of the Source engine's implementation of Havok physics. Most items can be picked up and thrown around, and the explosive action is much more chaotic than ever before.

Jimmy's Vendetta takes players into an alternate perspective of the mob through the eyes of Jimmy, the guy the other guys call when they need to finish the job. Players will get their hands dirty helping Jimmy clean up other people’s messes as they deal with the Italian and Irish mobsters that reside in Empire Bay. As players progress, a slew of new quests are unlocked, including assassination and timed vehicle pursuits ending in dramatic shootouts and explosive car chases. Execute with deadly head shots or charged explosives, and rack up points for precision-timed vehicular power slides, lofty jumps, and supercharged velocity. Multipliers and combos add bonus points to overall scores that will be immediately posted to thenew online leaderboard system, providing extensive re-playability as players work to rise to the top of the ranks.

Dedicated Servers (CS:S, DoD:S, TF2)
- Fixed a case where servers would lock-up while writing .dmp files.

Counter-Strike: Source
- Fixed some minor smoke grenade bugs.

Team Fortress 2
- Fixed a bug in the Steamworks internal stats reporting.