His name is not as well known as Cliffy B, Peter Molyneux or hell, even the useless Derek Smart, but Minh Lee is one of the more influential game designers on the planet. He made a little game a long time ago called Counter-Strike, the most successful mod ever, one that was purchased by Valve and released as a product.  To put it bluntly, Call of Duty, Modern Warfare, even Bad Company 2, would not exist if not for Counter-Strike, a game that ushered in tactical multiplayer combat for the rest of the industry to exploit. Despite the time that has passed since Counter-Strike made its debut, few, if any games, have yet dethroned it’s perfectly balanced game system.

With all this in mind, you should be very excited to learn that a closed-beta of Lee’s latest game, Tactical Intervention, will be accepting applications tomorrow, May 14. I have no idea what the game is or how it looks, but we’re in good hands here.

Head here for more information.

I saw a lot of game journalists playing the beta of Halo: Reach over the weekend, though I didn’t detect much in the way of excitement. Not that it matters, as Halo and its sales are critic-proof, nor is it ever reviewed with anything close to a critical eye, seemingly immune to criticism lest magazines and websites upset their vociferous and loyal fan-base. Me? Previous Halo games have been boring and empty. Should be called Hollow.

Now that you’ve completely disregarded my opinion, why not read the opinions of two hardcore Halo freaks as they discuss the pros and cons of the new Halo: Reach beta:

Sascha Lichtenstein: Let’s make this conversation quick, because I’d much rather be playing this beta than talking about it.

I’m having a blast with Halo: Reach. Arena and Invasion are both locked out until the official start, so it’s a little light on new features, but I like the way the combat has evolved. The four armor abilities all bring different strategic elements to the game, and their value changes depending on the map and the game type.

Kyle Wattenmaker: I like it, and I’m saying that with tempered enthusiasm. I’m not nearly as enthusiastic as I thought I might be, but there’s still plenty I haven’t seen. Balance is iffy, but it’s a beta. Armor abilities are awesome.

SL: I was worried that the armor abilities would be completely unbalanced, that some would be incredibly powerful and others would be completely useless. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of an armor ability that I haven’t been able to use with great success, save for maybe armor lock…and that’s only because I keep forgetting I have the ability with the battles start getting heated. I always die and say “Dammit, I could have used my ability!” But I’ll get used to it.

The rest of this excellent feature can be found here.

Blizzard is rolling out a new patch for the StarCraft II beta and, like most Blizzard patches, it takes a jackhammer to various skills, in some cases removing entire entire skills from units considered overpowered. Changelog below:

Balance Changes:Terran:

• Viking:
  • The armor value for this unit in Fighter Mode has decreased from 1 to 0.
  • The damage done by this unit in Fighter Mode has changed from 6 (+8 armored) to 10 (+4 armored).
• Reaper:
  • The damage done from D-8 Charges has decreased from 40 to 30.
  • The delay between attacks for D-8 Charges has decreased from 2.5 to 1.8.
• Orbital Command:
  • The build time for this upgrade has decreased from 50 to 35.

Protoss:

• Observer:
  • Gravitic Boosters: The cost of this research has decreased from 150 Minerals and 150 Vespene Gas to 100 Minerals and 100 Vespene Gas.
• High Templar:
  • Phase Shift: This ability has been removed from the game.
  • Feedback: New Ability. Drains all energy from the target unit and causes damage equal to the amount of energy drained.
• Colossus:
  • The building pathing radius for this unit has decreased from .75 to .5625.
• Mothership:
  • Vortex: The energy cost of this ability has increased from 75 to 100.
  • Vortex: The target radius of this ability has decreased from 3.0 to 2.5.
  • Temporal Rift: This ability has been removed from the game.
  • Wormhole Transit: This ability has been removed from the game.
  • Mass Recall: New Ability. Teleports all of the player’s units in the target area to the Mothership.
• Gateway:
  • The build time of this building has increased from 50 to 65.

Zerg:

• Infestor:
  • Fungal Growth: The damage done by this ability has decreased from 48 to 36.
  • Fungal Growth: This ability now prevents affected units from burrowing.
  • Neural Parasite: Functionality changed. The Infestor now channels this spell, which lasts 10 seconds or until the Infestor is destroyed. You can now target all units with this ability.
  • Terran Infestation: The ability’s energy cost has reduced from 50 to 25 and Infested Terrans now spawn 1 at a time.

Bug Fixes:

• Addressed an issue causing people to receive an “Internal Battle.net Error” message with their game client.
• Muting your microphone will no longer cause your microphone to be turned off in the operating system once the program has exited.
  • Please note that the voice chat functionality has only partially been implemented. There are many known issues with voice chat that we expect to address in a future patch.
• The “Medium” graphical settings were reconfigured to work better on appropriate machines. The video settings “auto-detect” functionality has been reset as a result.
• Added a frame rate limiter to the game menus to prevent some graphics cards from running at higher frame rates than necessary.
• Added GRB rating tags to the login menu for the Korean version of the Beta client.

Long ago, Chris Sawyer created a little economic simulation game called Transport Tycoon, sort of a blend between Sim City and a business simulator. Transport Tycoon proved itself a minor hit at the time but has withstood the test of time as a certified classic. Chris Sawyer went on to create Rollercoaster Tycoon, which proved far more lucrative.

Now an open source version of Transport Tycoon (OpenTTD) has been released and the result is pretty exciting. Better yet, it’s available now and for free, so if you’re already bored of your Christmas presents then you have a solution.

What’s the scoop on Transport Tycoon?

Significant enhancements from the original game include for example:

• bigger maps (up to 64 times in size)
• stable multiplayer mode for up to 255 players in 15 companies or as spectators
• dedicated server mode and an in-game console for administration
• new pathfinding algorithms that makes vehicles go where you want them to
• autorail/-road build tool, improved terraforming
• canals, shiplifts, aqueduct
• larger, non-uniform stations and the ability to join them together
• mammoth and multi-headed trains
• clone, autoreplace and autoupdate vehicles
• possibility to build on slopes and coasts
• advanced/conditional orders, share and copy orders
• longer and higher bridges including new ones, full flexible tracks/roads under bridge
• reworked airport system with many more airports/heliports (i.e. international and metropolitan)
• presignals, semaphores, path based signalling
• support for TTDPatch newgrf features
• drive-through road stops for articulated road vehicles and trams
• multiple trees on one tile
• bribe the town authority
• many configuration settings to tune the game to your liking
• save games with zlib compression for smaller sizes which does not interrupt gameplay
• big support for internationalisation. OpenTTD is already translated into more than 40 languages
• dynamically created town-names in 18 languages and newgrf support

Lots of effort has been put into giving OpenTTD a better usability. These include:

• convert rail tool (to e-rail, monorail, and maglev)
• drag&drop support for almost all tools (demolition, road/rail building/removing, stations, scenario editor…)
• sorting of most lists based on various criteria (vehicle, station, town, industries, etc.)
• mouse wheel support (scroll menus, zoom in/out)
• autoscroll when the mouse is near the edge of the screen/window
• sell whole train by dragging it to the dynamite trashcan
• cost estimation with the ’shift’ key
• advanced options configuration window, change settings from within the game

Graphical/interface features:

• screenshots can be in BMP, PNG or PCX format (select in game options menu)
• more currencies (including Euro introduction in 2002)
• extra viewports to view more parts of the gamefield at the same time
• resolution and refresh rate selection for fullscreen mode
• colourful newspaper after a certain date
• colour coded vehicle profits
• game speed increase (through fast forward button or by pressing the TAB key)
• snappy and sticky windows that always stay on top and neatly align themselves to other windows
• more hotkeys for even less mouse-clicking
• support for 32 bit graphics

Download this bad boy!

An MMO Tank Sim? Wha? Indeed. No swords and no Elves, just hulking metal and 3,000 players on a single server. The game is called Blitz1941 (one word) and comes from the same group that brought us the moderately popular Navy Field.  An open beta for Blitz1941 will begin this Friday, offering you the opportunity to explore and test this new World War II tank-battle game.

Sign Up Here!

Game Description:

Blitz1941 is a MMO tank simulation game based on the German-Soviet conflict during World War II. Use one of over 60 different tanks, fight against other players and occupy the enemy’s cities. Up to 3000 players per server can engage in large-scale combat operations at the same time.

In Blitz1941, there are over 60 different kinds of tanks. These tanks were all used by the German and Russian armies during World War II. If you gain a victory against your opponents, then you will get Exp, Bonus, Contribution, and Money. As get it, you can promote a tank commander character (an avatar). And you can also gain a combat skill, and purchase stronger tanks to increase your ranking in your country. You can buy a reinforcing item for your tanks. Unlike usual P2P games, where a player creates a room and plays against another player, Blitz1941 allows you to enter and exit easily an international battlefield (composed of 15 cities in Europe) in real time and places you into tense combat against other players to occupy a city. The winner can occupy the city and get the advantage of an economy area and the supply of needed materials.
If you improve your own tank with reinforcing items, then your tank can be more effective in combat and have different characteristics from the other player’s tanks. Perhaps you need to operate your tank properly and shoot an enemy’s tanks accurately in one-to-one combat, but you should try to make strategies to cooperate with same team’s tank units in large-scale tank combat, where over 200 tanks are simultaneously used in combat operations.

Game Background

The game’s background is based on the combat areas of Eastern Europe, which was divided into 15 cities in 1941, during the German-Soviet war: Prague (Czechoslovakia), Vienna (Austria), Budapest (Hungary), Sofia (Hungary), Odessa (Ukraine), Sevastopol (Ukraine), Warsaw (Poland), Gdansk (Poland), Riga (Latvia), Minsk (Belarus), Kiev (Russia), Stalingrad (Russia), Kursk (Russia). Not involved are Berlin (Germany) und Moscow (Russia), the capitals of both countries.

The cities are identified as either a metropolitan city, a small city, a munitions city, or a commercial city, according to characteristics of it. The structure, size, and feature of the levels of each characteristic are expressed differently. Roads connecting the cities will be configured to enable combat on the roads. Since 3D graphics can illustrate tactical movements, tank firing, and the geography of the area, players can play many different games according to geographical features.

The different levels of Blitz 1941 show different geographical features and architectural styles for each city and country. All the cultural elements and unique architecture of the cities are meticulously represented in the game to recreate Europe during World War II. Blitz 1941 illustrates hilly land, hillocks, low-lying areas, rivers, and artificial structures (e.g. bridges). The background has been beautifully recreated through real terrain processing so players can use the land tactically in combat.

Those of your brave enough to venture into release candidate territory, Microsoft has made Windows 7 RC 1 available for anyone to download. This latest version of the highly-acclaimed operating system won’t expire until March 1, 2010, so you’ll have plenty of time to test everything out and get comfortable until you have to plunk down money for a retail copy.

Venture here, follow the instructions, and best of luck!

OnLive was announced yesterday at the Computer Game Developers Conference, taking quite a few people by surprise. Some people think it’ s the second coming of video games, as it abandons the need for a dedicated console and simply streams games into your possession in real-time. Other think it is doomed to failure. Whether it truly works as advertised is open for debate, but if you’d like to check it out yourself then you’ll want to sign up for the beta, which is rolling out this summer.

Simply point your browser here, fill out the form, and hope you have good luck getting in.