Each week I plan to cover the past week's latest news surrounding the world of gaming, including major tournament results, headline gaming news & headlines and notable games releases and updates. Next Monday will be Boxing Day so I doubt I'll be able to write, so until then, Merry Christmas!

Gaming News

The most important piece of gaming news this week is likely to affect us all. SOPA, also known as the Stop Online Piracy Act. If you haven't heard anything about it then check back here on Crossfire.nu tomorrow as I'll be writing a column explaining all. A possible outcome of this bill passing would be that websites that we use would be shut down. You can say goodbye to megaupload, youporn and thepiratebay. TotalBiscuit has made a YouTube video explaining it which you can see here. The short story here is that a number of large American corporations including Sony, EA, UFC, NFL, NBA, Universal and 350+ more are supporting a bill which:

Quote

The bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement.

Of course, you will be wondering how this affects you or why you should care at all, you're not American, right? Well the problem is that all of our major international entertainment industries are American ... the games we play, the music we listen to, the porn we watch ... It's all in jeopardy. I'm honestly not being sensationalist in writing this. This isn't exaggeration for exaggeration's sake, this bill is BAD NEWS for anyone who regularly uses the internet. Simple as that. Watch TotalBiscuit's video, he explains it better than I do.

TIME Magazine has begun publishing its 'Top 10 Everything of 2011' and of most interest to you, the readers of Crossfire, will be the 'Top 10 Video Games of 2011.' TIME has a habit of producing content for the mass public so it may surprise you that their games list is surprisingly well formed. It was written by Lev Grossman, who attended PAX this year and guest spoke on the topic of writing in video game media.

Time's Top 10 Video Games of 2011

Tribes: Ascend is an upcoming multiplayer only first-person shooter and the latest release in the long running Tribes franchise. It is due for release early in 2012 and is currently available to play as a closed beta. Crossfire has 7 Beta Keys to give away through a small competition which was held over the past 24 hours.

Tribes: Ascend features a class-based loadout system. Each loudout specifies your armour, weapons, items - and ultimately, your play-style. Expected loadouts are the Pathfinder, similar to the Scout from Team Fortress 2, and the Brute similar to the Heavy from Team Fortress 2. The game currently boats 12 loadouts, including the two above and everything in-between. A picture of all of the loadouts can be seen here. The game currently offers Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch and 'Rabbit' game modes. Some maps will retain the classic nature of the Tribes franchise with large open areas and base structures, others will have a more urban feel to them, featuring buildings and streets.

The following users have won themselves a Tribes: Ascend Beta Key:

Each week I plan to cover the past week's latest news surrounding the world of gaming, including major tournament results, headline gaming news & headlines and notable games releases and updates.

Gaming News

First up, I'd like to high-jack my own weekly gaming news write-up to inform you that Crossfire has got their hands on a number of Tribes: Ascend Beta Keys. With so many Triple A shooters not fulfilling the needs of the Enemy Territory player, Tribes may offer a worthy compliment to many Crossfire users. You can check the relevant newspost here.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 has smashed even more industry records as the title reached the $1bn (£640m) sales mark in just 16 days since launch

Tribes: Ascend is an upcoming multiplayer only first-person shooter and the latest release in the long running Tribes franchise. It is due for release early in 2012 and is currently available to play as a closed beta. Crossfire has 7 Beta Keys to give away through a small competition which is detailed below.

Tribes: Ascend features a class-based loadout system. Each loudout specifies your armour, weapons, items - and ultimately, your play-style. Expected loadouts are the Pathfinder, similar to the Scout from Team Fortress 2, and the Brute similar to the Heavy from Team Fortress 2. The game currently boats 12 loadouts, including the two above and everything in-between. A picture of all of the loadouts can be seen here. The game currently offers Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch and 'Rabbit' game modes. Some maps will retain the classic nature of the Tribes franchise with large open areas and base structures, others will have a more urban feel to them, featuring buildings and streets.

To win a Tribes: Ascend Beta Key all you have to do is

Update - 10.December - Playoffs added[/i]

The 2011 World Cyber Games takes place from December 8-11th in Busan, South Korea. The host city of Busan has a growing reputation for hosting international events such as film festivals and motor shows, and the WCG has decided that after 8 long years it's time to return to South Korea as it's host. Following on the from IeSF in October, it's the second major eSports event to accommodate the international audience in quick succession. At this years competition, the following PC game tournaments are being played:

• CounterStrike 1.6
  
• CrossFire
  
• FIFA 11
  
• League of Legends
  
• Special Force
  
• StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
  
• Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne
  
• World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

[/b]
The first days play is already completed so make sure you don't miss the next three days! As the tournament is being held in South Korea, viewers hoping to watch the action on livestream will have to stay up throughout the night. Local time at the WCG is GMT+9 which means that when this newspost was written (at 21GMT/22CET it is 6am at the WCG).

The three premier tournament line-ups are previewed below:

At the behest of Goku, it's my job to inform you that #ET.Gather is back! One of Enemy Territory's oldest IRC channels has returned to activity and is the ideal place to play Enemy Territory over the festive holiday period. To join in all you have to do is join the channel and !add yourself! The channel has been active again since this past Saturday under the watchful eyes of Goku and Edgar. All of the servers and teamspeak are provided by NBS and YCN-Hosting.

Everyone loves ET.Gather:

Quote by perfo

azatej, tekoa & I have been playing in #ET.Gather for almost 5 years now. It's great fun to play under new names and get accused of cheating - but they don't know they're playing against the God of ET! :D

The Grand Final of the Call of Duty 4 Corsair Vengeance Cup gets underway tonight at 21CET. The final sees LowLandLions face off against Anexis eSports for the first-place price of $6,000. LLL advanced to the final after winning the WB Final against Dignitas and so take a 1:0 lead into tonight's game. Anexis also defeated Dignitas on their way to the Grand Final, albiet through the Loser Bracket. The lineups for tonight are as follows:

For all the latest gaming news check out crossfire.nu - a gaming community.

Each week I plan to cover the past week's latest news surrounding the world of gaming, including major tournament results, headline gaming news & headlines and notable games releases and updates.

Gaming News

EA might have the worst customer support of any publisher in the world but that doesn't stop their triple AAA titles from selling! Battlefield 3 sales have reached over 8 million. And while on the topic of AAA shooters, Modern Warfare 3 has been given a run for it's money by sandbox indie game Terraria, for the most played games on steam. The following graph are the player stats for the two games, with Terraria in yellow and Modern Warfare multi-player in blue:



For those of you who are unfamiliar with Terraria, it's essentially a 2D equivalent of Minecraft, only there is less emphasis on building and more emphasis on exploration and combat, with RPG elements sprinkled in.

Crossfire 4 is approaching and as part of the new site's functionality we will be looking to integrate both Facebook and Twitter accounts to Crossfire. Crossfire 4 will have greater degrees of social-network integration so we thought it best to get that side of the site up and running now. If this is not your preferred way of consuming news then none of these updates will have any effect on you what-so-ever. Newsposts will automatically posted to the Official Twitter feed and simultaneously posted to the wall of the Official Facebook page. The Official Facebook page will be linked to CF 4 and you will be able to share your own journals, newsposts, movies and more. We are aware that there is already a Crossfire.nu group on Facebook but this is an open group and is unmoderated, as you might have already noticed by the constant cheat spam. In preparation for the new site we would urge you to follow us on Twitter and Like the Facebook page so that together we can improve your experience on Crossfire.nu and help the community to grow. With the aid of the new site and the greater degree of functionality and accessibility that it brings we are sure that there is a bright future for both Crossfire.nu and Enemy Territory.

[list][*]Official Twitter Feed
[*]Official Facebook Page[/list]