SpawnPoint

Street Fighter 4 has been announced. Capcom did so at a Gamer's Day event in London, and already (as one can see) everyone is buzzing about the news. Committed fighting game sites such as SDtekken.com have already carried the news, and the appropriately named Shoryuken.com has dedicated a subforum to speculation on and anticipation for the game.

It's been eight years since the last SF game, Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, came out and roughly six since Capcom's last original game, Capcom vs SNK 2, arrived which leaves me wondering who is going to be developing this one. Capcom of Japan supposedly disbanded their coin-op division a couple years ago, so unless they're looking to rebuild that empire I can't imagine this will be done in-house, and I don't think they'd farm this out to Capcom USA (although USA is responsible for Super Turbo HD). My guess is that this will be done like Devil Kings, with an outside designer, and then published by Capcom. However, I would love to be wrong.

The other option is to do a console-only release, which I hope they don't do. Street Fighter defined arcades in the 90s, and to do a console-only follow-up in a series arcade-goers have been waiting nine years to play again doesn't make a lot of sense.

World Population - Top 5 Countries
1. China     1,324,156,256
2. India     1,135,086,136
3. USA     301,914,413
4. Indonesia     235,512,950
5. Brazil     190,561,626
World     6,624,388,656

World Coal Reserves
 1. USA   246 Billion Tonnes
 2. Russia 157 Billion Tonnes
 3. China  115 Billion Tonnes
 4. India   92 Billion Tonnes
 5. Australia 78 Billion Tonnes
World   909 Billion Tonnes (USA has 25%)

Worlds Largest Corporations                                2004     2005

1.	ExxonMobil (USA)	263.99	328.21
2.	Wal-Mart Stores (USA)	285.22	312.43
3.	Royal Dutch/Shell Group (Netherlands/UK)	265.19	306.73
4.	BP (UK)	285.06	249.47
5.	General Motors (USA)	193.45	192.60
6.	Chevron (USA)	142.90	184.92
7.	Ford Motor (USA)	170.84	178.10
8.	DaimlerChrysler (Germany)	192.75	177.04
9.	Toyota Motor (Japan)	165.68	173.09
10.	ConocoPhillips (USA)	118.72	162.41
11.	General Electric (USA)	152.36	149.70
12.	Total S.A. (France)	131.64	144.94
13.	ING Group (Netherlands)	92.01	137.11
14.	Allianz Worldwide (Germany)	112.35	124.41
15.	Citigroup (USA)	108.28	120.32
16.	AXA Group (France)	97.92	115.20
17.	Volkswagen Group (Germany)	120.71	112.61
18.	American International Group (USA)	95.04	106.98
19.	Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (Japan)	106.30	100.82
20.	Carrefour Group (France)	88.66	98.60

Digg founders published a road map today detailing surprising plans to scan submitted titles from stories and to strip the word ‘awesome’ from them. The news comes after recent complaints that the word is being misused.

Jeff Makeshift, a Digg spokesperson commented:

“The decision was taken due to the amount of stories that reach the front page with the word ‘awesome’ in their title. Some stories do feature awesome content, but the majority of them are not really awesome, causing the meaning of the word to become diluted. At Digg, we do not want to be held responsible for the word …

Team Fortress 2 Guide

Each game of TF2 pits two sides against one another. The two teams are identical aside from their colour schemes. Discerning the colour of your team, and thus deciding who to shoot can be confusing at first, but it’s actually very simple. Your HUD is painted in the colour of your team so keep that in mind and you can steer clear of embarrassing friendly fire incidents.


Team Fortress 2 Guide  - Character Classes

While TF2’s sides don’t differ from each other, each player can select from one of nine different types of character. These nine classes are designed to fulfil a basic purpose, either functioning as swift attackers, stalwart defenders, or as support units for the other players.

Each class excels in at least one area, at the expense of one major weakness. The most obvious examples of this are the Scout and Heavy. The Scout has incredible speed, but his weapons are tricky and he has a low amount of health. The Heavy is well armed and armoured, but inaccurate and slow moving. A successful team requires a good mix of classes and players who can work together to amplify their strengths and offset each other’s weaknesses. Countering an enemy rush takes a different mix of classes than it does to disable enemy defences and gain ground, for example.

When you select your class, the screen will tell you how many of each class are already playing on your team. Use this information to pick your class to work well with both the mix of other classes, and the role your team has on the map.


Team Fortress 2 Guide - Game Play and Game Style

There are two types of TF2 game: one in which the sides battle for control of the map, via control points, and a 'Capture the Flag' mode, where victory is grasped by taking the 'Intelligence Briefcase' from the enemy's base.


Team Fortress 2 Guide -  Control Points

Control points are designated areas on the maps which your team must capture or defend. As in other games such as Battlefield 2, the more members of your team standing on a control point, the faster you'll capture it. If an enemy player makes his way onto a control point, the capture will stall until the enemy is killed or retreats. Some maps lock control points from play, focusing both teams to concentrate on specific areas on the map.


Team Fortress 2 Guide - Intelligence Briefcase

The intelligence briefcase serves as a ‘flag’ in the game’s Capture The Flag (CTF) mode. At the moment, the only CTF map is ctf_2fort. In this level, both teams must fight their way through their enemy’s base, access the control room, grab the intelligence briefcase and return it to their own control room.

The player who carries the briefcase leaves a trail of paper, which remains visible for a few seconds after they pass. If the carrier is killed or enters his team’s resupply room, the briefcase is dropped to the floor. Although a team can’t recapture their own briefcase, it will return to their control room if it’s allowed to stay on the floor for 60 seconds.

If your team’s briefcase is dropped, it’s a good idea to take an assault team, supported by a medic, to guard it until the 60 seconds is up. To make the intelligence easy to find it has a large timer roundel, which will remain above it until it’s returned or picked up.

The position of the briefcase is always shown in your Heads Up Display (HUD). A compass shows the direction of the case, and an icon displays its current status: a house for when it’s safe, an exclamation mark when it’s being carried, and an inverted arrow when it’s lying on the floor.


Team Fortress 2 Guide - Resupply rooms

Each map in TF2 contains at least one resupply room per team. These rooms are inaccessible to the opposing team, and if no medics are available or you’ve run out of metal to upgrade a turret, then a trip to the nearest resupply room can save your life. Inside each of these safe havens is a cabinet, which instantly refills your health, ammo, and metal supplies. You can also use resupply rooms to change class without needing to commit suicide. These perks are restricted when the game enters the sudden death round...


Team Fortress 2 Guide - Sudden Death

At the end of an unsuccessful round - where no team has won outright - TF2 enters Sudden Death mode. As the name implies, there’s no respawning, no health pickups and the lockers in the resupply rooms will not resupply you.

At the start of the round you may change class, while you remain in the resupply room, so it makes sense to choose a robust class. A heavy, soldier, or medic are strong survivor classes for the task.

While your chance of getting kills, or capturing Control Points is higher as a fighting class, Engineers are extremely useful in Sudden Death. As long as the Engineer constructs structures away from the front line, preferably choosing to hold a rear Control Point, surviving isn’t too hard, and if you play the role of repairman, and stay wary of spies, you can create an invaluable safe haven for players. There’s only one important thing to remember as an engineer in Sudden Death – build a dispenser first. If you forget, finding metal to build structures, or to upgrade and repair your sentry can be highly problematic.

Team Fortress 2 Guide - Item Pickups

Ammo

Ammo Containers hold (wait for it...) ammunition, rather unsurprisingly, but they also have metal in them, which engineers need to build structures. They come in three different sizes. Small boxes contain a couple of clips and a little metal, the mid sized packs contain enough to replenish around half your ammo and half your metal, while large crates contain enough booty to fully restock you. Dropped weapons will also yield ammo and metal. It doesn’t matter what the weapon on the ground is. Run over it and refuel. Engineers can also collect metal by running over the debris from a destroyed structure.

First Aid

First Aid pickups are scattered around the map, and come in various sizes. How effective they are varies according to the class of character you’re playing, but the general rule of thumb is that the small box restores a quarter of your health bar, the mid-sized pack about half of it while the big hampers reward you with a full health bar. When there’s no medic, or they’re busy healing someone else, health kits can be the key to slowing an enemy rush or just staying alive a quarter of a second longer. If you’ve just come face-to-face with a Pyro and you’re heading towards a crispy death, a First Aid kit of any size will extinguish the flames allowing you time to find a medic or trudge to the nearest resupply room.

The Orange Box is a video game compilation created by Valve, which contains Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. The Windows version was released on October 10, 2007 as both retail boxed copy, and as a download available through Valve's Steam service. The package retails for $49.95. The Xbox 360 version was also released on October 10, 2007 and retails for $59.95. A PlayStation 3 version is slated to be released in November or December 2007.

The Orange Box comes packed with the latest version of the company's smash-hit Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal. Players who want a discount on the super compilation pack can pre-order the game directly through Steam or at retailers nationwide.

With news that the developer had banned playing BioShock until the game was completed, we had to ask if the company also banned Halo 3. "We might need to cut folks off of The Orange Box," was the only reply.

YOU ARE WELCOME!!

To all of you Canadians celebrating ThanksGiving.. Thanks for Giving you America.. today.. you have a heartfelt welcome.  We American's are happy to spend our hard earned dollars on the military that defends you, the science research that enlivens you, and providing the source for global warming that is warming up the planet and thawing out your little white butts!

A new Update for Team Fortress 2 Has been released. This update is all about bug fixes, and one little addition.

Team Fortress 2:

Bug Fixes:

    * Fixed certain crashes with paged pool memory
    * Fixed some prediction errors with player avoidance
    * Fixed columns and row bunching up in server browser
    * Fixed a rare bug where the wrong launcher.dll was being used to launch the game
    * Fixed teleporter/spawn doorway exploit

Changes/Additions:

    * Added a warning for when paged pool memory is low

The Orange Box is almost released, these must be some of the final Touches.

One of our beloved staffers Atrus just wrote a lengthy and well written piece on the Future of Gaming and the relationships to my.. or your wallet in regards to the cost of maintaining all this glittering new hardware!!

Check it out- 

http://atrus.spawnpoint.com/post/850/The_Future_of_Gaming

You don't have to be a computer, math, or biology geek to appreciate this simple little 'game'.  In reality, more of a learning tool and excercise - but vastly playable and addicting. 

Life - Cellular Automata - is a game I have been playing with since the early 1980's.  An early version I played with on my PET2c GreenScreen-Tape-Drive-only PC back in 1982.  Other variations I have played with include on for my Commodore Plus 4 and Commodore 64/128.  More versions became available for my Amiga.. my Trash 80.. My Tandy.. and eventually Windows 3.11!!   To this date, you will find versions of this game on all of my PC's.

Check out some of the versions we are hosting here

he earliest results in the Game of Life were obtained without the use of computers. The simplest still-lifes and oscillators were discovered while tracking the fates of various small starting configurations using graph paper, blackboards, physical game boards and the like. During this early research, Conway discovered that the F-Pentomino
failed to stabilize in a small number of generations.  

What are you talking about? Check it out - Try it out!!!
Check out some of the versions we are hosting here

Valve have a pretty unique development process and not relying on publishers means that they can pretty much do whatever they want. I don’t play many pc games, and I play even fewer online games - but Orange Box is looking better by the minute. I think I may have to pick this one up!

Check out this wacky little game - fun to play!

http://www.copy-and-paste-it.info/2007/09/game-reaction-time.html