Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Infamous art rage-quitter Van Gogh sure knew his way around a paintbrush, and he ended up creating some of the most valuable pigment-based luxuries in the world. One of his most celebrated masterpieces, Starry Night, has now been turned into a Counter-Strike map. Imagine how proud he’d feel. Yeah, you can get the map here, and watch a video tour ‘neath the cut. (Via Offworld.)

As an aside, I’ve always felt there haven’t been enough RTS games based on the works of Hieronymus Bosch. Sacrifice seems like a lonely compromise. What long-dead artistic visionary would you base a game on, readers?

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We’ve heard back from the people behind the Western release of Cross Fire – the online multiplayer game that bears a striking similarity to Counter-Strike. A similarity that appeared a little too striking when readers found videos of the game containing at least one map lifted directly from Counter-Strike.

Clever Communications, providing the PR for G4BOX (a Canadian company apparently nothing to do with G4TV), got back to us today with a statement to say that the map was included in the Asian version, but will not be present in September’s US/UK release. Statement below.

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I mentioned this in a throwaway bit below, but it seems it might be worthy of further enquiry. The forthcoming Cross Fire, which today released its first batch of screenshots for this Autumn’s UK release, at first glance looks similar to Counter-Strike. Look closely and you’ll see the models, textures, etc, are all different. But it’s obviously a similar game.

It began with the Asian version (only works in IE). After launching in Vietnam, it’s been out for about a year and has picked up, they claim, over a million players in Korea. But things get weird when you look at the video below, claiming to be from the Chinese Cross Fire: it’s clearly de_dust2. It seems completely improbable that the game would contain maps from another game, and most likely this is a user mod, importing a favourite map into Cross Fire’s engine.

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PC Gamer’s Craig Pearson happened upon an interesting question. Why is it when you’re browsing for servers to play your bestest online FPS, there are so many with just one player sat in them? Craig decided to find out, and has published the results of this hard-hitting investigative journalism on the PCG blog.

Craig: Hello. Can I ask you a question?
Gunneri SGT Hartman killed Craig with mp44.
Craig: I’m not here to fight,
Craig: Can we talk for a minute?
Craig: Mr Hartman?
Craig: Can I ask you a question?
Craig: Why are you here on a server on you own?
Craig: Hello?
Craig: Do you speak english?
Gunneri SGT Hartman killed Craig with spade.

Having finally got my computer working after some memory went kiizzzzzzpip! I needed some soothing. Hence, as humans have done through the ages, I turn to the power of art. Nullpointer forwards some links to Jim, who gives them to me. So I found myself reading the developers of Braid talking about landmarks in games, where they link to this:

And a smile starts to cut through the scowl.

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