Writing your first mod for Counter Strike Source

Starting projects for anything new can be fairly daunting - but if you're a fan of Valve's Source games, you can be writing addons for their games within a week. Mattie's Eventscripts makes writing server addons a breeze - and if you want to see the kind of things you can create, look no further than my post on CS Source Mods.

Eventscripts actually comes with two languages built in - I've chosen to write about Python because in my opinion it's both easier and more readable than the inbuilt shell language - and if you're coming to it without knowing either, you might as well begin with it. If you already have experiences with interpreted languages, you'll find Python infinitely easier to follow anyway - plus it's magnitudes faster than the built in language, and has more power.

Crayon Physics

Play this game now. It's incredible; you draw two dimensional objects in-game, and they interact with everything else, in a way that fulfils a childhood fantasy I'm sure everyone had. I played through the full thing about five times in a row, and I'm still not bored of it.
http://www.kloonigames.com/blog/games/crayon/
You'll love it.
Best thing is, he's […]

Top Ten Science Fiction Novels

"A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight." - Roberston Davies

Here is a list of my top 10 Science Fiction Novels. It's purely subjective, based on what I have enjoyed most over the years. These are the ones that stand out for me as all time classics, that are worth reading and re-reading. In fact each time I read them, I discover something new.

CS Source binding reference

Keys, weapon names, and radio command names for Valve’s CS Source console.

The Fountain

I'm not usually enticed into watching artful films, but I made an exception for this after several rave reviews from friends. I loved it. It's truly unique, not just in its story, but it is one of the most beautiful films I have ever watched. Immensely thought-provoking, at times dark and mysterious and with more themes than I can communicate in this article, it is truly a film that will live with me forever.

Five great CS Source mods

I'm always talking about Eventscripts for Source games; anyway, I've decided to group together some of my favourite CS Source mods that are written for it. There are over eight hundred available, so these are narrowed down a fair bit - but they're all immensely addictive, and great fun. I've provided a link to servers running each mod, so you can quickly and easily jump on one and try it out.

Sam and Max - Free Download

As part of the promotion for season 2 of Sam and Max, Telltale Games have decided to release episode 4 of season 1, Abe Lincoln Must Die, as a free download.

If you've never played any Sam and Max before, this is a great place to start. Its a fun little adventure game, with some comedy thrown in. Although this is my favourite episode of season 1, the rest are great too, and are available through Steam if you want to download them.

Half Life: Decay

I'm surprised I hadn't heard of this before today - I've followed the Half-Life series quite closely, and I had no idea they had an officially released game on the PS2 that wasn't available on PC.

Anyway, this is being ported to the HL1 engine, for the pc, by a team of modders - and it looks like they're expecting to release soon. The game will feature multiplayer coop (since Decay was originally a coop game) and nine levels. They're releasing it in just a few weeks' time.

Dollhouse – Joss Whedon

Joss is back on TV but I’m not exactly thrilled.

Perhaps I am just bitter because Whedon once claimed that he would never work with Fox again (which at the time seemed the primary reason why we would never get anymore Firefly), or maybe it is because I’m not a huge fan of Eliza Dushku. Anyway, Joss’ new show is called Dollhouse and stars, as you may have guessed, Eliza Dushku. It has been given a seven episode commission by Fox, who are looking for a Spring 2008 premiere. I’m not saying that I won’t watch it, I’m just not as optimistic as I expected to be. Then again, it is Joss and the best news is that Tim Minear will be back, so I have faith that they’ll make it into something fantastic.

Gish

"Life isn't easy when you're a twelve pound ball of tar"

Another awesome game for you to try out. I'm not normally a fan of platform games, but Gish is really the exception to the rule. It's dead simple: you're a ball of tar, you can be sticky, slippery, heavy and you can jump.