A tragedy appears to have been avoided when it comes to Jason “Sundance” Head, a singer best known for having won The Voice back in 2016.
But the artist could still use a whole bunch of thoughts and prayers right about now.
Late on Friday, the star’s agent told The New York Post that Head had been shot “in the naval area,” but thankfully the wound missed all off his vital organs.
Sundance Head at the launch of DXL’s 2017 Holiday Campaign with DJ Khaled at A.O.C on November 7, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. (GETTY)
The incident took place at Head’s Texas ranch when the singer was all alone.
“This is Misty – I don’t have a lot of information but please keep Sundance in your prayers,” wrote Head’s wife on Facebook in her first update.
“Sundance has been life-flighted with a gunshot wound to his stomach per the paramedics who called me. They did get him stable for the flight (per the paramedic) We are on our way to Tyler now.
“Again this is the only information I have at the time. Please just keep him in your prayers.”
Misty Head and recording artist Sundance Head attend the 52nd Academy Of Country Music Awards at Toshiba Plaza on April 2, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
A short time later, Misty provided a follow-up message that calmed the nerves of followers and also provided many more key details.
“It was not his hunting rifle and no nobody shot him,” she posted to Facebook on Friday night. “He was out of the vehicle reaching in to grab his 22 when he grabbed it the 22 came out of its holster and hit the exterior of the Jeep just right and went off.”
Misty elaborated as follows:
“Sundance said it happened so fast and he could see the bullet dislodging. I thought he called 911 he didn’t- he put his hands in pocket for phone immediately after getting hit but phone wasn’t there just filled with blood so he took off down the driveway out to the main road to flag a car down for help.
“10 cars later someone turned around to help and called 911.”
Wow. Crazy, huh?!?
Sundance competed on season 11 of The Voice as part of coach Blake Shelton’s team, beating out rivals Billy Gilman, Josh Gallagher and Wé McDonald to claim the win.
Most notably, Head won over fans with version of tracks by such superstars as Miley Cyrus, Alicia Keys and Keith Urban.
“Well since no surgery to remove bullet (safer to leave in per trauma Dr) they are releasing him,” Misty also wrote. “Really thankful for the care I’m concerned they are releasing him so soon. He’s already bleeding out of where the wound is also no antibiotics or pain meds being sent home. Probably going to get him home and a second opinion…
“It’s so crazy 7 hours ago he was life flighted and now being released.. continued prayers for quick recovery.”
In his recent SmartCon 2024 keynote, Sergey Nazarov explored how TradFi and DeFi are converging into a single unified Internet of Contracts through Chainlink. This post is based on his presentation.
Our fundamental goal is to establish a global standard—one that works across both DeFi and traditional capital markets. These two sectors are set to converge, and when they do, we expect it will create an economic boom by combining into a single global Internet of Contracts. Chainlink’s mission is to lead this transformation by creating the standard powering this new onchain financial system.
Web3 and TradFi adoption of Chainlink standards.
Currently, these two worlds—DeFi and TradFi—are evolving in separate directions. We’ve already made significant strides in establishing Chainlink as the standard for DeFi by powering a significant portion of it, securing $75+ billion in DeFi TVL at its peak. Now, we’re also making progress in becoming the standard for TradFi capital markets.
The ultimate goal is to create applications that work seamlessly together, defining the standard for how value is transacted across the entire financial system. That’s what success looks like—building a global standard that powers the Internet of Contracts, which we expect will lead to the economic boom that will result from merging these two worlds into a single global market.
The goal is to merge Web3 and TradFi ecosystems using a unified set of Chainlink standards.
We’ve made significant progress within TradFi markets. In addition to DeFi, we have implementations in production for large asset managers, multiple collaborations with major financial market infrastructures, and we’re in various stages of implementation with some of the biggest banks and asset managers in the world. Just like we’ve successfully established Chainlink as a global standard for the DeFi community, this year we’ve made great strides toward creating the standard for capital markets.
Chainlink has been collaborating with leading financial institutions.
We’ve achieved this by providing a comprehensive set of services: data, proof of reserves, identity, cross-chain, and more—all integrated into contracts. One key lesson we’ve learned along the way is the need for a unified system to weave together these services, blockchains, smart contracts, and payment systems into a single application.
Introducing the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE)
Looking back at the history of financial applications, each economic boom has been driven by the simplification of new technologies. In the 1970s, the introduction of COBOL as a runtime technology simplified interactions with databases and created the first electronic banking transactions. Similarly, in the 1990s, the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) simplified the interaction between new database technologies and the Internet, paving the way for online banking.
Every 30 years there is a new runtime powering the financial system.
Now, as the world’s value migrates across hundreds of chains and thousands of oracle networks, the opportunity to unify these systems into a single application has emerged. The goal is to allow developers to create advanced applications much more quickly than before—within days or even hours. This simplification is what has driven economic booms in the past, and it’s what we aim to do now with the Chainlink Runtime Environment.
The Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE) is designed to play the same role that COBOL and JRE played in previous economic booms in the last few decades. The CRE will coordinate blockchain technologies, oracle networks, and smart contracts into a unified application. By simplifying the complexities of interacting with multiple systems, the CRE will provide developers with an environment to easily integrate existing data, systems, and new blockchain technologies into a single application—this is the next step in simplifying blockchain application development.
The CRE will emerge as the next runtime to power the financial system.
We’ve already seen this work with the Swift network. Through the CRE, we integrated Swift messages with multiple blockchains to create a seamless transaction flow. A small amount of engineering resources was needed to achieve this, demonstrating the CRE’s power in simplifying complex systems. This solution was showcased at Swift’s Sibos conference and received a strong response. The ability to coordinate Swift messages and blockchain events securely and efficiently is just one example of how the CRE will simplify cross-chain interoperability and make complex systems more manageable.
The adoption of the Chainlink Runtime Environment is a critical piece of our vision for the future. It’s designed to unify these complex services into one cohesive application, allowing developers to write code in languages they’re already familiar with, such as Go and TypeScript, with other languages like Rust under consideration. We believe this will lead to widespread adoption and make it easier for developers to build applications that integrate smart contracts, blockchain technologies, data, and payments—ultimately leading to the creation of a global, interconnected network of contracts.
The CRE enables secure data access, cross-chain interactions, and unified smart contracts with APIs for data, payments, and more.
Privacy Is the Key to Unlocking Institutional Adoption
As we continue to innovate, we are also addressing privacy in blockchain transactions. For institutional transactions, privacy is essential, and that’s why we’ve introduced the Blockchain Privacy Manager. This tool helps manage privacy across various chains by defining what information can and can’t leave a chain. We’ve also applied this tool to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) to create private transactions, essential for institutional users.
The Blockchain Privacy Manager enables secure offchain data retrieval and writing with privacy management for blockchain applications.
Additionally, we’re releasing tools like the DECO Sandbox, which allows developers to apply zero-knowledge proofs to any API and prove data information without revealing sensitive details. This is a significant advancement for privacy, especially in sectors like identity management and proof of funds, where confidentiality is crucial.
Proof of identity onchain with full data privacy using Chainlink’s Deco verifier and zero-knowledge proofs.
SmartData Leads to SmartAssets
We also recognize the importance of creating data standards. Chainlink is rapidly becoming the standard for proof of reserves, a critical element in the reliability of stablecoins and commodity-backed assets. The work we’re doing with the SmartData standard will further expand the types of data that can be reliably transmitted onchain, leading to the creation of SmartAssets that are enriched and controlled by highly reliable data feeds.
SmartData enriches tokenized assets to create SmartAssets, ensuring data synchronization, yield, reserves verification, and protection across chains.
The Next Evolution of Chainlink CCIP
Finally, our vision extends to the continued evolution of CCIP. With features like Programmable Token Transfers, CCIP is being adopted by major blockchains as their canonical bridge solution, providing a reliable and secure way to transfer tokens across chains. The ability to conduct transactions and manage payments seamlessly across multiple blockchains will play a key role in the growth of this technology.
CCIP capabilities, including elf-serve deployments, token developer attestation, programmable transfers, and more.
The goal is to create a unified standard that spans both the DeFi and TradFi worlds. Through the Chainlink Runtime Environment, we are bringing that vision to life. We’re laying the groundwork for an interconnected global economy driven by smart contracts, and as we continue to develop these technologies, we believe Chainlink will be at the epicenter of the next economic boom.
Solving a mystery is a challenging endeavour. Police officers emphasise the importance of patience, due diligence, and meticulous examination of all facts, no matter how peculiar. It’s crucial to avoid premature conclusions until the truth is irrefutable.
The Case of the Golden Idol presents an unusual murder mystery spanning multiple chapters, each with its own intricate web of deaths and secrets to unravel. In this game, you assume the role of an unnamed, unseen detective. Does it matter? Not one bit.
There’s a case to solve!
The game plunges you directly into the mystery without introductory cutscenes or explanations. You begin with a murder, and your task is to solve it. Set in a fictionalised 18th-century England, the narrative revolves around the Cloudsley family and the unfortunate events that plague their lives, as the game’s visual style draws inspiration from old newspaper cartoons. For instance, the opening scene depicts a clifftop with one person falling to their death and another seemingly responsible for the push. Though presented as a static image, the scene is subtly animated, and clues are scattered throughout, inviting you to piece together the events.
The narrative and world-building are superb. The game weaves a tapestry of strange mystic idols, Masonic rituals, and family drama, creating a universe that is ripe to explore. The characters are well-developed, and the mythology is both intricate and intriguing.
Gameplay consists of two distinct phases. The first involves gathering information. Clues are hidden within objects, characters, and documents and clicking reveals valuable information that can be used as evidence. Each level requires you to collect a specific number of clues, which can be items, names, or even words within a sentence. Once you’ve gathered all the evidence, you move on to the deduction phase.
Scour the scene.
This is where your detective skills are put to the test. Your objective is to solve the crime by filling in the blanks in a statement. For example, you might encounter a statement like, “______ killed ______ with a ______.” Using the collected clues, you must fill in the blanks correctly to solve the case. There are also bonus objectives for those seeking an additional challenge, such as matching character names to their portraits. This core mechanic is both addictive and rewarding, making you feel like a true detective piecing together a complex puzzle.
The Case of the Golden Idol’s visuals are distinctive, resembling 18th-century newspaper cartoons. The level of detail is impressive, with numerous objects and characters to examine, whilst the props and costumes are well-designed and imaginative. The game excels in its more surreal moments, and the brief cutscenes between chapters are visually striking.
In addition to that, the sound design is functional, with background music that, while not particularly memorable, complements the atmosphere.
Well worth the investigation
The Case of the Golden Idol is an original, brilliantly strange game. The detective gameplay is both challenging and rewarding, and the narrative is intriguing and filled with unexpected twists. Further, the visuals are unique and effectively convey the game’s atmosphere.
If you enjoy solving intricate mysteries and appreciate unconventional game design, The Case of the Golden Idol is worth investigating.
Unwrap a Murderous Mystery: The Case of the Golden Idol Now on Game Pass – https://www.thexboxhub.com/unwrap-a-murderous-mystery-the-case-of-the-golden-idol-now-on-game-pass/
Buy The Case of the Golden Idol – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/the-case-of-the-golden-idol/9NBH78WD7XPQ/0010
Forget a Bitcoin reserve—what about a Dogecoin government stash?
That’s the idea of the former-joke-now-serious-cryptocurrency’s founder, Billy Markus, who floated the idea on Twitter (aka X).
“Why not national Dogecoin reserve tho [sic],” he wrote on the platform Friday.
Markus was responding to a post by prediction market Kalshi about bettors seeing an increasing chance of President-elect Donald Trump creating a strategic Bitcoin reserve.
Trump previously said that when in power, he would let the U.S. government buy up Bitcoin as a reserve asset. The U.S. already has assets like land, Treasuries, and gold in its reserves.
Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming exclusively spoke to Decrypt this month about how such a plan would work.
As Bitcoin gains momentum, floating such an idea isn’t as crazy as it sounds. With a market cap of $1.8 trillion, the orange coin is currently the seventh-biggest asset in the world, after this month overtaking both silver and Saudi Arabia’s petroleum and natural gas company, Saudi Aramco.
Dogecoin (DOGE), on the other hand, is the sixth-biggest cryptocurrency—and has a market cap of just $55 billion. The coin was created as a joke and is based on a popular Internet meme of a Shiba Inu dog.
Still, it gained momentum in 2020-2021 after Tesla CEO and upcoming U.S. government employee Elon Musk constantly talked about how much he liked the virtual coin. The tech entrepreneur and world’s richest man has also (seemingly) seriously spoken about how the asset could be used for payments.
And Wall Street analysts toldDecrypt that it might not be long before the asset becomes available to traditional investors via an exchange-traded fund (ETF). Meanwhile, crypto analysts also told Decrypt that DOGE could easily smash through its all-time price record from 2021, with plenty of room to run.
Things are suddenly getting very serious with the leading meme coin. But until a Bitcoin strategic reserve actually becomes reality, the notion of a Dogecoin one is likely to remain little more than a funny idea. Stranger things have happened in crypto, though.
Edited by Andrew Hayward
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Butter Chicken is one of the 4-star Entrée Meals added with the A Rift in Time expansion. Players can make this meal for themselves to restore energy or gift it to villagers to increase their Friendship Level. However, this recipe is exclusive to the owners of the expansion. This guide will help you cook a Butter Chicken in Disney Dreamlight Valley.
Required Ingredients to Make Butter Chicken in Disney Dreamlight Valley
Players can make a Butter Chicken entrée meal with the following ingredients.
Poultry is a meat ingredient that you can purchase from Gaston’s Stall for 500 Star Coins. Goofy sells Tomato at his stall in the Dazzle Beach (Valley) and Wild Tangle (Eternity Isle) biomes for 33 Star Coins. Butter is a dairy product and you can purchase it from Chez Remy restaurant for 190 Star Coins. You can harvest Lemons from the Lemon Trees in the Forest of Valor (Valley) and Glade of Trust (Valley) biomes. Lastly, you can forage Cumin from the ground in all the areas of the Anceint’s Landing (Eternity Isle) biome.
NOTE: If you do not find Tomato at Goofy’s Stall, you have to purchase the seeds and grow them on your own. It takes 25 minutes for Tomatoes to grow and requires 2 waterings in total.
How to Cook Butter Chicken in Disney Dreamlight Valley
After gathering all the ingredients for the Butter Chicken, go to any Cooking Station to start making it. Go to any cooking station in the Valley/Eternity Isle and interact with it. After that, put the ingredients into the Cooking Pot individually and then select the “Start Cooking” option to cook the Butter Chicken Entree Meal.
Use of Butter Chicken
Players can choose to eat the Butter Chicken to restore 2,142 Energy, gift it to another villager to increase their Friendship Level or sell it to Goofy for 1,200 Star Coins.
Davina McCall is in intensive care following “textbook” brain surgery to remove a tumour, her boyfriend confirmed last night.
Fans and friends of the star were relieved to hear the news as they flooded the TV legend’s comment section with well-wishes.
Davina McCall undergoes brain surgery to remove tumour
Yesterday (Friday, November 15), Davina, 57, revealed to fans that she was going to be having brain surgery.
In a video posted on her Instagram, Davina explained that the reason behind the surgery was because a tumour was found on her brain.
“Hi, so I’m posting this, it will be Friday morning. I’m posting it because a few months ago I did a menopause talk for a company and they offered me a health scan in return, which I thought I was going to ace, but it turned out I had a benign brain tumour called a colloid cyst, which is very rare,” she said.
Davina then said that she’d put her “head in the sand” about it for a while. However, after visiting various neurosurgeons, she received multiple opinions and realised she had to undergo surgery to remove it.
“It’s big for the space – it fills the space. It’s 14mm wide. And it needs to come out because if it grows it would be bad,” she then said.
Davina McCall update following brain surgery
Last night (Friday, November 15), Davina’s boyfriend took to her Instagram account to issue an update.
“An update from me, Michael,” he captioned the post.
“Hey all. Davina is out of surgery and according to the surgeon, it was textbook!” he wrote.
“She’s currently recovering in ICU as a precaution, as you can imagine, she’s utterly exhausted,” he then continued.
“Thanks so much for all the love on here…it’s powerful stuff, we are super grateful, Michael,” he then added.
Davina’s fans showed their support (Credit: ITV)
Fans send their support
Davina’s fans and celeb pals were quick to flood the comment section with their well-wishes.
“That’s so good to hear… thinking of you both,” Holly Willoughby commented.
“Such a relief, I’ve been thinking about her all day and all of you,” Amanda Holden wrote.
“So relieved to hear it went well. Thinking of you all and sending love for the speediest of recoveries x,” Kate Thornton said.
“Sending love from Australia,” Ant and Dec added.
“Sending so much love,” Claudia Winkleman also said. “So bloody pleased @davinamccall all has gone well. You’re a strong women take good care of yourself and make sure you have a good recovery,” another fan said.
“Good news! sending healing vibes,” another wrote.
Read more: My Mum, Your Dad host Davina McCall admits ‘struggling’ in heart-to-heart about her kids leaving home
You can leave us a comment on our Facebook page @EntertainmentDailyFix and then let us know what you think of this story
To celebrate that Half-Life 2 has turned 20, Valve has made it free to claim and keep for a limited time. Not only that, but Episodes One and Two are now included.
Pretty nice deal for people who still somehow haven’t played it or purchased it. Until November 18 if you add to your Steam Library, it’s yours for keeps.
What else is new? They also got the original Half-Life 2 team back to record brand new commentary tracks for the whole game. There’s also now built-in Steam Workshop support, so you don’t even need to leave the game to add more content into it. Steam Game Recording is also now supported with event markers too, Steam Deck and Gamepad updates and lots more.
On top of that, the game as a whole has been treated to an update to fix many issues.
Content
Added 3.5 hours of Developer Commentary by members of the Half-Life 2 team.
Half-Life 2: Episode One and Episode Two are now playable from the Half-Life 2 main menu.
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast has been added to the Extras menu.
Added Steam Workshop support. Play entire campaigns or replace weapons, enemies, UI, and more with content created by the community.
Added custom Steam Game Recording gameplay events and phases throughout the game.
Rendering and Graphics
Fixed issues causing props or entire maps to be fully bright or fully dark depending on settings.
Added bicubic filtering for lightmaps to produce smoother shadows. It can be enabled by setting Shader Detail to Very High.
Fixed missing grass detail sprites in many maps.
Added settings to enable Classic Effects that were originally in Half-Life 2. These effects can also be enabled using r_classic_blood or r_classic_fire.
Added support for radial fog.
Specular reflectivity has been adjusted throughout Half-Life 2 to better match the original release.
Updated models for the Crossbow and RPG weapons to support ultrawide displays.
Fixed camera clipping into vehicles at high FOV settings.
Fixed lambda cache indicators and other decals vanishing when backtracking through map transitions.
Setting Model Detail to High will now always display the highest detail version of a model and never swap for a lower level-of-detail.
Set Antialiasing to 4x MSAA by default.
Fixed teeth shader rendering fully white on some GPUs.
UI and Options
The UI now scales to support higher resolutions.
Launching the game in Steam Big Picture mode will now use the gamepad-friendly UI previously available on Steam Deck. You can also launch this mode with the “-gamepadui” launch option.
The High Dynamic Range setting has been moved to the main Video settings page.
Commentary mode can now be enabled on the New Game screen.
Fixed display of greyscale art for locked achievement icons to match their behavior in steam.
Improved legibility of gamepad button icons.
Button hints will now prefer to display standard face buttons and trigger icons only. This behavior can be disabled with the “sc_prefer_basic_origin_hints” convar.
Replaced instances of system fonts like Verdana throughout the UI with a new font, GorDIN.
Added a new font renderer that provides more consistent rendering between platforms.
Fixed edges of certain font characters being cut off with antialiasing enabled.
Fixed scrollbars and button animations using inverted colors.
Removed the non-functional “Use ‘bloom’ effect when available” setting.
Added Rich Presence info while playing Half-Life 2.
Input
Updated the default Steam Input configuration.
Added a Gamepad settings menu.
Added the ability to select a weapon selection UI style while using a gamepad.
Added settings for separate Aim-Assist modes for mouse/keyboard and gamepad. The new Aim-Assist “Enhanced” mode now attempts to track enemies and snap-to-target while driving vehicles.
If using toggle crouch, pressing sprint will now make the player stand.
Legacy joystick settings have been removed from the Mouse settings menu.
Gameplay
Reduced chances of birds getting stuck in the world.
Fixed Combine crouching behavior during door assault scene.
Fixed Combine not firing in some cases during the finale.
Game sounds and music now pause while the game is paused.
Fix crash that can occur if the player gets too far ahead of the helicopter in canals.
Fixed Dr. Breen not looking at the camera in certain broadcasts.
Fixed smooth friction sounds not playing.
General Map Updates
Full HDR lighting and tonemapping pass across every map in Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch.
Increased lightmap resolution in most maps.
Adjusted rendering distances across the game so details and objects remain visible much further away.
Removed Far-Z clip plane from most maps.
Increased window and door fade distances.
Improved lighting and world detail inconsistencies during many map transitions.
Tuned fog and skyboxes for every map with water on the horizon for better horizon blending.
Replaced instances of simple reflective water with fully reflective water in nearly every map.
Fixed many instances of floating props across the game.
Sewed up holes, aligned textures, and fixed seams on many displacements throughout the game.
Swapped some distant trees out for higher detail models.
Enabled shadows on many static props that were missing them.
Added glow sprites to all lights that were missing them.
Fixed lightmapping for many large static prop structures.
Added simple rooftop geometry to background buildings that were missing them.
Added background displacement geometry to areas which are now exposed by removed the clipping plane.
Specific Map Fixes
The introduction sequence has been adjusted to closely match the original sequence, including fixing specular highlights on the G-Man’s eyes.
Fixed various texture seams on train station wall
All fences now properly cast shadows.
Fixed issues with level transitions setting fog values improperly.
Removed emissive value from base of lighting prop which was glowing in strange places.
Fixed a bug with Eli’s idle animations during the teleport sequence.
Fixed lightmapping of train cars in Red Letter Day and Route Kanal.
Fixed a rendering bug in Route Kanal where world geometry would pop in and out of view when looking down the tracks.
Aligned pipe and canal wall textures in a few areas to reduce seams and misalignment in Route Kanal.
Added and adjusted canal wall brushes where level geometry was conspicuously missing.
Adjusted brightness and falloff of ambient lights in darker sections of the canals.
Added small grates as dim light sources of ambient light in a few places in the canals.
Fixed an issue where the splash for Manhack Matt’s jump into the water would be out of sync.
Fixed a bug where the large brick smokestacks were popping in and out depending on the player’s position in Water Hazard.
Added missing cables to utility poles in various canal maps.
Fixed lighting and shadows on the dock and electric tower outside of Black Mesa East.
Added displacements and water plane to 3D skybox near the dam entrance to replace simple brush cliff face.
Fixed the lighting on the rocks and props in and around the Ravenholm graveyard.
Fixed players being able to trap themselves in the graveyard by closing the gate after Gregori would open it.
Added radial fog to all coast maps in the Highway 17 chapter.
Removed area portals from many of the smaller structures along Highway 17.
Fixed a crash that would occur if you parked the buggy in certain areas before entering the bridge level.
Fixed a bug where Vortigaunts could fall through the world.
Added simple 3D skybox representation of the next map visible from the top of the lighthouse in Sandtraps.
Fixed lighting issues during the basement flare sequence in Nova Prospekt.
Added additional geometry to various windows throughout the levels to cast more detailed shadows in Nova Prospekt.
Fixed a bug in teleport sequence in Entanglement ending too early leaving Gordon and Alyx standing around while the teleporter reached its destination.
Fixed the catwalk explosion detonating at the wrong time in Anticitizen One.
Fixed the building dome having no polygons on the outstide in Follow Freeman.
Fixed the ship visibly flying through the building dome in Follow Freeman.
Fixed Barney being left behind during a level transition or nagging the player too early to “roll a grenade” in Follow Freeman.
Improved resolution of portal render texture during finale.
Added soundscape to all menu background maps
Darkened parts of the skyboxes that fall behind Half-Life 2 logo to help with text legibility.
Added geometry to menu background maps for Ultrawide support.
Added smoke to the Ravenholm and Follow Freeman background maps.
Fixed a bug where you could hear the player’s bones break in the Citadel menu background map.
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Fixes
Fixed player model selection in the options menu.
Fixed slam not being able to be detonated if you were too close to a wall
Fixed view bob with the SMG equipped.
Fixed using the Gravity Gun to yo-yo grenades, sometimes causing the server to disconnect or crash.
Fixed missing sound effects for the Gravity Gun.
Fixed characters playing a missing animation when switching weapons while jumping and moving.
Fix weapons being invisible when being given another weapon of the same class.
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch Maps
Increased player spawn point count in many maps.
Fixed prop placement in maps that would allow players to escape the world.
Fixed floating props in dm_runoff.
Fixed the area portal on the blast door in dm_runoff causing the world to no longer render when the door was shut.
Added geometry to many maps where the player could see outside of bounds.
Fixed several areas where the player could see out of the world.
Moved the blue barrels in dm_resistance that you could pick up with the Gravity Gun through the chainlink doors.
Other
Improved quality of the Valve intro movie when launching the game.
Fixed playback of the the post-credits movie at the end of Episode One and the intro movie at the start of Episode Two.
The achievements for Episode One and Two have been added to Half-Life 2. When launching the game it will attempt to read data from installed standalone Episodes to re-grant those duplicated achievements.
Hammer: Show detail sprite preview on non-displacement surfaces.
Hammer: Fixed bug where orphaned entities added additional data on each map load.
Hammer: Fixed the ability to render cubemaps.
Hammer: Increased many limits for BSP data. Models 1024 -> 2048, Brushes 8192 -> 16384, TexInfo 12288 -> 16384, TexData 2048 -> 8096, DispInfo 2048 -> 8096.
Added save_transition_music convar that allows streaming music to continue to play in between level transitions.
Localization files updated.
Miscellaneous security fixes.
Notes
The previous version of the game has been archived to a publicly visible Beta branch named “steam_legacy”, with the description “Pre-20th Anniversary Build.” If a mod or feature is behaving in an unexpected way, you may need to run this archived build until the issue is resolved in the default build.
With the Episodes and Lost Coast now contained within Half-Life 2 itself, we’ll be reducing the visibility of the standalone versions on the Steam Store. The old standalone applications will remain available to ensure community projects that rely on them still function properly but they will now appear within the Tools menu on your Steam Library.
There’s even a whole new documentary on it, done in partnership with Secret Tape, who were also involved in the same for the 25th anniversary of Half-Life 1.
Valve are doing a new edition of the Raising the Bar book that will come out in 2025 which covers the creation of the Half-Life 2, but the new edition will complete the story for the episodes too and have “never-before-seen concept art from Episode One and Episode Two, along with ideas and experiments for the third episode that never came to be”.
See more on the special update website.
Half-Life 2 has Native Linux support and is rated Steam Deck Verified.
Half-Life 2 | Release Date: 16th November 2004
Official links and where to buy from:
In case you missed it, also check out the news about Half-Life 2 RTX.
The Kickstarter campaign for Soularis is entering its final 24 hours. This card-based fantasy game blends strategy and storytelling for 1 to 4 players, where participants take on the roles of Rebel Heroes aiming to challenge powerful Masters and collect 100 souls.
The game’s mechanics allow for both cooperative and competitive play. Players can choose one of four Heroes, each offering a unique playstyle, and decide whether to patiently collect souls by serving the Master or take risks by rebelling for greater rewards. Four different Masters add unpredictability to the game, creating exciting twists as players approach the endgame. While teamwork can be crucial to defeating the Master, only one player will emerge as the ultimate victor, fostering a competitive edge.
Soularis stands out for its player-driven choices and a narrative inspired by relatable themes of perseverance, risk-taking, and long-term goals. These elements combine with engaging gameplay to create a meaningful experience for players.
The project is the work of Aris, a first-time solo founder who has focused on every aspect of the game, from design to playtesting.
The campaign concludes on November 16, leaving limited time for those interested in supporting the project.
Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars Reforged is a remastered version of the 1996 point and click classic. Note, however, this is not the Director’s Cut, which was released in 2009. This is important because the two versions are very different, with the Directors Cut having a lot of exclusive content. Nico Collard, instead of simply being George Stobbard’s sidekick and love interest, gets her own game play sections in the Director’s Cut. Plus there are numerous puzzles that don’t appear in Reforged. On the plus side, the story is a bit more streamlined here because Nico’s sections often didn’t quite match up with George’s story line(you essentially had two beginnings, for example).
Broken Sword: Shadow of The Templars Reforged, therefore, is the original game, just with better graphics and sound. You play as George Stobbard, an American Tourist in Paris, who witnesses a clown exploding a cafe with an accordion bomb. This sends his off on a grand with adventure involving the Knights Templar with the alluring Nico. All the puzzles are here and there are hints if you get stuck. Although, this game really doesn’t suffer from the absurd puzzles present in Sierra games. Controls are easy and logical as well.
Broken Sword is a classic series of games, with the fourth one being the only one we don’t talk about. Shadows of the Templars Reforged is a great way for newcomers to experience a solid point and click adventure. Though if you have played this before, especially if you played the Director’s Cut, there’s no reason to play this at all. Classic point-and-clicks were one-and-done affairs. Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars Reforged gets a Recommended with an eight back-end score.
Overall: Broken Sword Shadows of Templars Reforged is a great version of a classic point-and-click. But not necessary if you’ve already beaten this.
Verdict: Recommended
No eShop Page is available, as the game is not out yet and its not clear when it will be. When it does come out, I will update this review.
Coronation Street has just aired a huge Joel whodunnit killer reveal – but fans aren’t impressed with the culprit’s identity, deeming it a ‘letdown.’
Tonight’s episode (Friday, November 15th) saw Joel’s murder mystery storyline come to a dramatic end.
In flashback scenes, viewers saw Lauren be the one to hit Joel on with a rock before teaming up with Max to throw his dead body over a bridge.
Lauren struck the final blow (Credit: ITV)
Coronation Street: Lauren killed Joel
On Wednesday night (November 13), Max went to the police station and confessed to killing Joel in self-defence on the night of September 27th.
However, tonight, viewers found out that his wasn’t actually the truth. Instead, Lauren had also been at the scene of the crime and was the true killer.
In a flashback, as Max and Lauren followed Joel via the tracking app, Max told Lauren to wait in the car. During a showdown, Joel then tried to strangle Max but came to a grisly end when Lauren appeared and hit him with a rock.
With Joel immediately dying on the railway tracks, the pair then moved his lifeless body and chucked him in the river.
They then made a plan to throw the rock away and dispose of Joel’s suitcase at the tip the next day.
Back in the present day, Lauren was brought in for questioning but Max ultimately stuck to his story and took all responsibility for killing Joel. Lauren did save his life after all…
Despite Max doing his best to protect Lauren, Kit still had his doubts. He reckoned they were lying. And, he’d be right to think so…
Fans didn’t like the reveal (Credit: ITV)
Corrie fans fume over ‘waste of time’ reveal
With Corrie hyping up the big killer reveal tonight after a month of waiting to find out, fans have now taken to social media to share their frustration over Lauren being the one to finish Joel off.
One viewer went in hard on X, writing: “Quite possibly the worst episode of #CoronationStreet I have ever seen.” Ouch!
Another said: “Loooool this has been a shit show. Oh dear. Cannot watch this again.”
A further comment froma disgruntled fan read: “Let me rant for a second: I love a bit of Corrie and this Joel storyline has been so good but the reveal of who actually killed him and how was very underwhelming, personally I think they’ve ruined the story now. Her killing him was so obvious.”
Will there be yet another twist to redeem the storyline? Let’s see…
Read more: Complete Coronation Street cast list 2024 – meet them all here!
Coronation Street usually airs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8pm on ITV.
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Tavernlight Games has officially launched the $QUEST for its MMORPG title RavenQuest on April 3 via Immutable zkEVM, following the game’s public release...
