With the never ending battle of phishing, spamming and scamming being fought throughout the eGalaxy, more and more crafty attempts at being made at taking advantage of ignorant users. It was reported that the newest scam revolves around a person recieving an email from a very convincing email [email protected] directing them to what appears to be a steam community page and offering a free copy of Far Cry 2 as a gift. As you may have already guessed, once they log-in to the fraud steam page, the account details are then transfered over to the scammers.

On one hand this a very intelligent design, but in reality something of this nature could be better suited in a positive manner. It really is a shame that people are still stooping low to get something that doesn’t truely belong to them in the first place. Keep on the look out for this eMail and also check out the official Steam community at https://steamcommunity.com for more details on this matter.

Source: Kotaku.com

With the world-wide known event KODE5 breezing its way through multiple countries, one of its highest anticipated stops is the cold tundra nation known as Russia.  The first event will be held on February 1st at the T-32 in Bryansk and it will continue on through April, heading into May for the Grand Finale event in Russia’s largest gaming center — Playground.ru. The event will have a total of 8 qualifiers with the winner of the KODE5 Russia Regional Final advancing into the KODE5 Global Finals.

The following are the stops for the event:

Event: KODE5 Bryansk
Dates: February 1st, 2009
Venue: T-32 Internet Café
Game: Counter-Strike 1.6
Notes: Top 2 advance to KODE5 Russia Regional Finals

Event: KODE5 Ufa
Dates: February 8th, 2009
Venue: Godlike Internet Café
Game: Counter-Strike 1.6
Notes: 1st place advances to KODE5 Russia Regional Finals

Event: KODE5 Volgograd
Dates: March 7th to 8th, 2009
Venue: Nachestvie Internet Café
Game: Counter-Strike 1.6
Notes: Top 2 advance to KODE5 Russia Regional Finals

Event: KODE5 Ekaterinburg
Dates: March 14th to 15th, 2009
Venue: B100 Internet Café
Game: Counter-Strike 1.6
Notes: 1st place advances to KODE5 Russia Regional Finals

Event: KODE5 St. Petersburg
Dates: March 21st to 22nd, 2009
Venue: Terracot Internet Café
Game: Counter-Strike 1.6
Notes: Top 2 advance to KODE5 Russia Regional Finals

Event: KODE5 Nizhny Novgorod
Dates: March 29th, 2009
Venue: IpClub Internet Café
Game: Counter-Strike 1.6
Notes: Top 2 advance to KODE5 Russia Regional Finals

Event: KODE5 Omsk
Dates: Coming Soon
Venue: Delta-X Internet Café
Game: Counter-Strike 1.6
Notes: Top 2 advance to KODE5 Russia Regional Finals

Event: KODE5 Moscow
Dates: Coming Soon
Venue: Playground.ru Internet Café
Game: Counter-Strike 1.6
Notes: Top 4 advance to KODE5 Russia Regional Finals

Event: KODE5 Russia Regional Final
Dates: Coming Soon
Venue: Playground.ru Internet Café
Game: Counter-Strike 1.6
Notes: 1st place advances to KODE5 Global Finals

Source: SK-Gaming.com

After what would seem to be a mediocre year for ReiGn in 2008, SK Gaming has decided to part ways with its Warcraft 3 team member “Seo-Woo ‘ReiGn‘ Kang”. The decision came about after a top three finish at a local event and a 3rd place finish at the AWL Season III with many other events missed altogether.

Team Manager “Min-Sik ‘reis’ Ko” had this to say on the departure of ReiGn: “During his time in the team he was a really hardworking player and I could always count on him…” he added “For me ReiGn is the strongest undead right now alongside TeD and it is just sad that he does not get invited to tournaments because I believe he thoroughly deserves it. Hopefully tournament organisers will realise in the future that a player of his ability is worth an invite.”

The following is the current roster for SK.WC3:

June “Lyn” Park
Daniel “miou” Holthuis
Dong-Hwan “violet” Kim

Source: SK-Gaming.com

After a less than stellar performance in the last seasons EPS, where the team placed below the ability to make playoffs, rumors began circulating that there would be changes within the roster for the upcoming 2009 season. With departing members Max “OdiE” Knappe, Christopher “cash” Steen and Kim “vio” Schumann, the organization was ready to bring on fresh talent.

Completing the roster they have decided to bring on Knut-Ole “tronix” Mohr, Julian “hool” Walter and Sebastian “zorn” Weber. Sebastian is coming from GAMED.de, with Julian and Knut-Ole coming from Hardware4u.

Below is the current roster set for mTw.de for 2009:

Arnt-Peter “night” Schuldt
Dennis “rez0r” Bethke
Julian “hool” Walter
Knut-Ole “tronix” Mohr
Sebastian “zorn” Weber

After announcing on January 18th, 2009 that N!faculty would not have any roster changes for the upcoming 2009 season, players: Gerhard “gerdi” Grimm and Daniel “Frigh” Enderle have departed. The team began to meet about replacements and have come to a conclusion and decided to add Christopher “cash” Steen and Max “OdiE” Knappe from Team mTw. There we’re apparently some conflicts between cash and the mTw organization which involved cash having to play the benchwarmer for the majority of the season.

N!faculty will be participating in the upcoming KODE5 Online Qualifer on Saturday January, 24th.

The roster for n!faculty is as follows:

Bastian ‘b4d’ Gaffron
Christopher ‘cash’ Steen
Christoph ‘chrizzo’ Krämer
Max ‘ODiE’ Knappe
Jérôme ‘shiddy’ Tóth

According to Gotfrag.com, GreenBerets have picked up Evolution for the next CEVO season:

Scott “Evolution” Cavallero formerly of Frag Dominant will be joining the Green Berets for the upcoming CEVO season. Cavallero will be sitting in for Dara “phrozen” Nhep as he takes time off to focus on school. When asked about his feelings towards joining the Green Berets, Cavallero went on to say:

“I feel confident about the move and the that this is a great way to keep my skill up without falling too far behind the curve.”

The roster count currently stands at six, with Dara “phrozen” Nhep remaining a backup player. The team heads into CEVO-Main Season 10 with a strong lineup which looks to cause damage.

James “Jame^s” O’Connor noted the talent of his team’s pickup, “Scott is an all around player who’s skill and experience makes him a rare commodity. He will bring the much needed depth to our lineup”.

When asked if this is a permanent move or just a temporary fill in for Nhep, Cavallero responded “We’re just going with the flow for now.”

GB’s current roster is:

 James “Jame^s” O’Connor
 Ted “LuckeyTed” Weinrich
 Josh “pinekone” Springer
 CJ “peachie” Spilewski
 Scott “evolution” Cavallero
 Dara “phrozen” Nhep

Source and image: Gotfrag

Apparently our friends in the frigid north are snatching up video games at a record pace.  Canadian game sales have cracked the $2 billion mark according to Kotaku:

Our neighbors to the north are spending more on video games than ever, according to the NPD Group, over $2 billion in Canadian dollars last year. Even compared to our $21.33 billion it’s still impressive. NPD pegs Canadian console sales at 1.9 million for the year, with 1.2 million portable gaming machines snapped up by the Canucks.

Source: Kotaku