For those people who have written to me asking if I'm going to produce a Counter-Strike Source version of Rats!, the answer is.. probably.

I have no time at the moment to even play CSS, or Half-Life 2, but I have bought the game and played with the new editor a little. I have looked at converting de_rats to CSS. Apart from getting used to the new features of the CSS engine the main task seems to be retexturing the entire map, which may take a while.

To create a fully-fledged CSS version of the map will take even longer but I will probably work on producing a simple conversion first with everything as close to the old version as possible, including the original low-res textures. If I get that done I will see about producing a high-res version, perhaps with more detail and new models etc.

I should stress again that I have almost no time to work on this stuff so even the first conversion is going to take me some time. I will post again here when I've made some progress.

I'd just like to clarify a few points here:

• I'm not mapping any more. Maybe when Half-Life 2 is released I'll start again but it's not certain. Sorry.
• To those people that write to me asking if they can have the source files for my maps, the answer is NO. I do not want people modifying the maps that I created. On the other hand, if you want to create a similar map yourself that's great and I wish you all the best - you'll enjoy it!
• When I created my original mini-map I spent quite a while thinking up possible names for it before I chose "Rats!". Nowadays people talk about "Rats" maps as any map using the same trick of scaled-up rooms, which is fine. What I DO NOT appreciate is people taking my naming convention for their own maps and sticking a new number on the end to make it look like an official sequel (e.g. Rats4) or a new version of one of my maps (e.g. de_rats_2004). That's just theft. If you create your own map, come up with your own name please!

If you have problems downloading my maps feel free to get in touch. You can still contact me at the address mentioned on the Contact page.

I just watched the Half-Life2 gameplay movie that's carried on FilePlanet and I have to say it's stunning. The facial animation shown in the first segment, the environment rendering and realistic physics shown in the next part show that their new game engine is truly remarkable.

The actual HL2 gameplay shown in the rest is at the same time familiar to existing Half-Life players and full of new ideas. The interactive physics of the environment and the improved AI appear to replace the need for lots of scripted sequences which should make gameplay less linear. Also, the more powerful engine allows for expansive outdoor areas which can only open up gameplay further.

This movie shows that the new game has amazing potential for mappers (and mod makers) but at the same time the fact that the engine allows incredibly detailed and extremely large maps will make amateur level design even more of a challenge.

If you have the bandwidth to be able to download this 500Mb+ 25 minute QuickTime you can get it here.

There's plenty of nice high-res screenshots from Half-Life2 out there now so I won't bother to reproduce everything here. PlanetHalfLife's new HL2 pages have everything you should need, as does HalfLife2.net. Be sure to check-out the

It's interesting to see the first good-quality in-game shots from Half-Life 2 in this article on CNN.com. Apparently the release date of the game is September 30 but who'd like to bet it will come out on time?

In this one you can appreciate the quality of the high-poly models and from the background it's clear that the new game engine at least supports curved surfaces. There's also a rather dodgy-looking steam effect visible at the top of the screen which is hopefully just an oversight.

This shot of Gordon looks like cover or cut-scene art rather than a game-engine shot but you never know.	This series of shots of the Alyx character shows the impressive quality of the facial animation system of the new game.

Valve have now formally announced that they are indeed working on Half-Life 2. Not only that but they intend to show it at the E3 trade fair in L.A. (13-16 May).

Apparently magazines (print and on-line?) will be authorised to write about it from 28 April. The website of Belgian games magazine PC Gameplay is already showing this interesting image from the game as the cover of it's upcoming issue...

Annotated screenshots from the upcoming issue of PCGamer magazine posted briefly on Planet Halflife (now withdrawn) showed a level set in a prison where the player (Gordon presumably) appeared to be fighting alongside prison guards against aliens. The annotations highlighted the particle effects (smoke, fire etc.), the fact that bullet marks appeared on models as well as walls, and noted that the monster/ally AI is even more effective than in Half-Life.

Valve claim that the game will be available by the end of this year, which most likely means we'll be seeing it in the shops in 2005, but we can live in hope...

No news to report as I'm still temporarily retired from the mapping scene. I just thought it's worth noting that I probably won't be mapping again until inspired to do so by a major game release.

What games are there in the pipeline that may inspire me to start mapping again? Well here's a few possibilities...

Counter Strike : Condition Zero : E.T.A. - Q2 2003. That's about now, but don't hold your breath. My guess is we'll see at least one new version of Counter-Strike before this is released.

Team Fortress 2 : E.T.A. - ????. Supposed to be soonish but has been endlessly delayed.

Doom 3 : E.T.A. - ????. Since there isn't even a page at Doom3.com it may be some way off still.

Half-Life 2 : E.T.A. - ????. The sequel to the best game ever. Not officially announced yet but rumours are beginning to surface...

Nearly 4 months without an update? Well, sorry about that but for the time being I'm afraid I'm a semi-retired Half-Life mapper. I must admit that at the time I released Edge of Darkness (over 2 years ago) I thought that Half-Life was bound to be replaced any day as the top first-person shooter.

The only original map I have really created since Rats3 is a Counter-Strike map called cs_Malibu which is based on elements of the abandoned sequel to my Edge of Darkness single-player pack. I worked on this map on-and-off for many months without ever really finishing it and in the end I just stopped working on it completely.

I've decided that although the map is not finished in the way I would like it is better to release it as is than to throw it away. The map is perfectly playable although r_speeds can be high. So, here's a few screenshots from cs_Malibu...

Here's the download links...

cs_Malibu

6 Oct 2002

2746Kb

View TXT file

download

In addition to this new map I also created 32 player start Counter-Strike versions of my Rats, Rats2 and Rats3 maps. These maps don't have any other major changes apart from the extra player starts. Here's the download links...

de_Rats_2002	CS	6 Oct 2002	976Kb	View TXT file	download
de_Rats2_2002	CS	6 Oct 2002	730Kb	View TXT file	download
de_Rats3_2002	CS	6 Oct 2002	794Kb	View TXT file	download

Another day, another version of Counter-Strike... Hot on the heels of version 1.4, we have... you guessed it! Version 1.5, along with the associated 1.1.1.0 version of Half-Life itself. Get the files here:-

Counter-Strike (Mod) v1.5 full download (121.5Mb) [File Planet]
Counter-Strike (Mod) v1.4 to 1.5 (6.5Mb) [File Planet]
Counter-Strike (Retail) v1.005 full download (115.0Mb) [3D Gamers]
Counter-Strike (Retail) v1.004 to 1.005 (19.0Mb) [3D Gamers]
Half-Life any version to v1.1.1.0 (82.0MB) [3D Gamers]
Half-Life v1.1.0.9 to v1.1.1.0 (12.2MB) [3D Gamers]

Ninety percent of all the e-mails I'm receiving at the moment are infected with the W32.Klez virus which means that a lot of people who play HL/CS obviously have this virus on their PCs without realising it.

Even if you don't think you have it you should probably download and run the free Symantec W32.Klez Removal Tool just to be sure. It's a very small download and when you run it it will scan your whole PC and let you know if anything was found (it will also remove it of course if it does find the virus).

Counter-Strike (Mod) v1.4 full download (115.8Mb) [File Planet]
Counter-Strike (Mod) v1.3 to 1.4 (23.4Mb) [File Planet]
Counter-Strike (Retail) v1.004 full download (105.2Mb) [File Planet]
Counter-Strike (Retail) v1.003 to 1.004 (35.1Mb) [File Planet]
Half-Life any version to v1.1.0.9 (77.2MB) [File Planet]
Half-Life v1.1.0.8 to v1.1.0.9 (11.7MB) [File Planet]

Important news today if you make maps for Half-Life or one of its mods. Valve have released a new version of WorldCraft (v3.4), which they have decided to rename the Valve Hammer Editor (don't laugh!).

You can read all about it at the Valve ERC site and you can download the installer directly here: Download the Valve Hammer Editor v3.4.

I've just been going through my mail - something I don't do that often I'm afraid, and wanted to thank the people who'd pointed out that some of my level download links were no longer working.

I don't know why Rats2, RatsXL and my Quake2 map pack Forces Of Evil have all disappeared from FilePlanet but I have now updated my download links to point to copies on my own server.

By the way - if you write to me and don't get a reply I do apologise but sadly I don't have too much time to trawl through my messages. This evening I went through 149 messages of which 54 were junk mail, 76 were viruses (mostly Klez.E) and just 19 of which were genuine messages to me. :(

A quick update to say that in the next month or so I will be producing new Counter-Strike versions of Rats, Rats2, Rats3 and RatsXL with 16 player starts per team.

These 32-player maps probably won't include any other significant changes - although it's true I never did release my own CS version of Rats2 so that will be new in a way.

In order to pick up on spawn-point bugs I will probably release beta versions of all these maps first followed by final versions a short while later. If you have a server with plenty of players that runs Rats! CS maps and would like to help-out with beta testing you can write to me in about two weeks time.

Sorry about the lack of updates - I'm afraid I don't have any news to post. Instead, I'd just like to wish anyone who's played any of my maps a happy new year. I'd also like to thank the 144,000 people who downloaded one my maps from FilePlanet during 2001. Now if I just had a dollar for each download....