Counter Strike fans should be keeping an eye in the sky this evening as well replaced rumours have Valve launching the long awaited sequel to the series in the first quarter 2012. The very same rumour mill says that official confirmation is en route from Valve HQ within the next 24 hours.

ESEA who have had a very large and successful history within eSports are said to be involved in the development and have posted news of their owners' visit to valve HQ. The rumours cite the following updates:

Features

• Planned to be released Q1 2012
  
• Focuses on 5v5 competition
  
• Press release within 24 hours from Valve
  
• Plays on an updated source engine
  
• Individual & Team rankings
  
• New Guns added
  
• New Grenades
  
• Dust & Aztec major revamp
  
• Spamming still viable
  
• Ammo is free

ESEA Source

Update Its Official - Hit readmore for the press release:

It was quite the weekend for the Anexis Mulitgaming Organisation who claimed gold in both SAGE competitions. In both cases their side flew through the winner bracket into the finals and took all the money they could get their hands on!

Enemy Territory

Anexis (2000 Euro)
Dignitas (1000 Euro)
NEVO (500 Euro)

Full Bracket - SAGE Teams

Call of Duty

Anexis
Winfakt
eSuba

Full Bracket

Congratulations to everyone on what appears to have been a very successful weekend! I'm sure everyone would like to thank Seanza, Merlinator and their team on what will have been a life changing experience for them.

Brinks player numbers are depreciating faster than assets on a Greek balance sheet, however for those that did play the game players are being warned to change their passwords as Bethesda and Brink specifically has been hacked wide open.

Visitors to the popular Torrent site the Pirate Bay website can download the entire game source code and database passwords for the Brink site. Whilst user data has not been uploaded the hacking group behind this have claimed to have access to them.

According to Steam Brink currently has just 689 players online right now, ranking it below games many years older than it.

Source

Activision have done everything in their power to milk their bastard child of a game COD for more money and today they've taken that to a new level with Pay Per Play subscription gaming announced for Call of Duty Elite.

Whilst little is known about what features will be locked to paid customers and generally what the subscription entails the service will be there to rinse you of your hard earned cash for something they're still going to release a new version as soon they can. The price point for this service is rumoured to be under the $7 mark.

It will be launched for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and be labeled the "Elite" subscription option. No this doesn't mean they're likely to migrate back to the 1337 gamers that haven't touched the series since CoD4, but it does mean for those gamers focused on facebook achievement stats you'll be over the moon.

You can read more about it HERE

An interesting idea has passed through the lips of Valve's top dog Gabe Newell suggesting that popular gamers (he obviously was referring to Krosan) should be allowed onto games on the Steam platform for free. He states that current payment methods such as purchase, pay per play and in game micro transactions are inherently flawed!

The ESL have announced a mammoth tournament for BRINK culminating in a grand final at one of the ESLs Premier events at Gamescom. The tournament starts ASAP as the Gamescom clock is ticking (its in August) with signups already open for teams to get into the tournament. Qualifiers will start on May 23rd with the group stages getting underway in earnest on June 13th.

Here is a quote from the official ESL Press Release:

"We proudly announce that we will start a European Brink Championship, the day this new title will be released! €15.000 are waiting für Europe's best teams! The big final will take place in August 2011, at the Gamescom in Cologne. Prepare for the battle now and maybe you will be on the stage while about 4 million people are watching you, at the world's biggest fair for interactive games!

Brink is the brand new post apocalyptic tactic shooter by Bethesda! It will be released May 13th 2011. On the day of the release we will start several opening cups, release cups in different modes and of course the Brink Championship with €15.000 prize money. Celebrate BRINK with us in this firework of fun events and serious challenges!"

Source

If last nights thriller at Stamford Bridge wasn't enough midweek entertainment for you then tonight's ET match should be just the trick. Poland and Germany renew rivalries in this clanwar between To Make Odds Even and Speedlink.

The match is the grand final of the ESL 5on5 Winter League and is the second time the two sides have faced off in the tournament. Back then it was tMoe who came out on top putting them in the winner bracket for tonight's game. SpeedLink will need to squeeze out two wins tonight if they're to be crowned champions of ESL. tMoe don't fear that happening as fanatic was full of confidence for tonights game:

Quote by fanatic

It won't be our 1st game against speedlink (counting both offi and praccs) so we are quite aware of our opponent's quality. I think we prepared well for the game and we are ready to take on stars like snoop and gifty. We will take it in 1 game without losing a map.

Teams: tMoe vs Speedlink
Time: 21:15 CET
Shoutcast QuadV
ETTV: GamesTV.org

Perhaps a touch slow to the post, but GameTrailers have released some ingame Brink Footage this past week. The footage was from PAX 10 which was at the start of September. The game was available for public playing at EuroGamer this past weekend in London, Crossfires very own Waki was there and gave the game mixed feedback (I'm sure he'll go into more detail in the comments).

In this video you can see a couple of interesting points, firstly it looks like SplashDamage are moving further towards fortress functionality (where SD came from) with more integration of more complicated functionality in the classes and the use of deployables. There are appear to be two methods of reviving which come at either the slow speed or one revive looks instant. Aside from that there do appear to be a number of XBOX COD Player centric features such as golden gun etc. Other points, you can change classes by going to a command centers instantly rather than respawning, 40 second Dyno's & 20 second respawn time.

Watch GameTrailers footage of Brink

Brink is penciled in for a Q1 2011 release date.

Welcome back ladies and gents, apologies for the downtime this evening. However we've had to put live a major security update to the site to protect from dark and evil forces out there on the internet.

Additionally you will see further updates such as a renewed user permissions system and a 1 day cup section. This is the beginning of a gradual update to CF as we walk down the road to CF 4. So whilst I know some of you may have been hoping to come back to a full on overhaul, its evolution rather than revolution here on Crossfire Street!

I'd like to thank Adrenaline for his coding master work on the site, everywhere you see the word 'we' you should really sub in the word 'Adrenaline' as it was his man hours that saw this through (with help from Krosan too!).

We welcome and appreciate any constructive feedback as we further fine tune this update!

Known Errors

- PM bug
- Add movie bug
- Update profile

The World Cyber Games, one of the longest running eSports organisations who are famed for running their yearly event with massive prize pools for games such as CS, Starcraft, Warcraft (and other games) have added Quakewars Online to their tournament for 2010.

Details for the tournament are few and far between however WCG and the publishers have released a promotional Youtube video which you can watch HERE. The tournament will be run in 6on6 mode and though DragonFly are the publishers (and the ones who will have pushed for it to be included in WCG) IDSoftware & Activision are listed.

They have listed the following information about the game. "Quake Wars Online synergy works between `Quake brand,` renowned as establishing the stage for network FPS genre in the early game market, and `Dragonfly Technology,` the leading FPS online developer in Korea."