Yesterday it was announced that the Ministry of Culture (which is responsible for overseeing all video games sold in China) banned Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, Painkiller and has ordered MMORPG developer Object Software to remove its Player vs Player system which rewards players for killing other players.

At the time we launched the World Tour, Painkiller was the best choice. Even the players themselves have stated that while the game lacks in several areas, it is fun to watch in a live environment and the competitions can be intense to the last minute.

The games we select for next year will be the ones that the community of gamers want to play, our sponsors want to sponsor and CPL wants to support. We just have to do a better job in selecting countries that embrace computer gaming for its positive aspects and support our competitions.

The CPL has always had the strictest standards when it comes to M-rated games and we feel that making these tournaments available only to participants that are 17 or above and is a great way to curb the general concerns about violence and gaming.

You can catch the feedback from the CPL here, and you can read Angel Munozs interview about it, here.

After an awesome stop in Dallas, USA and a cancelled stop in Liepzig, Germany many have been waiting for the next stop that will be held in Sheffield, UK. The time has come and this weekend the greatest players will fight for the honourable #1 spot. I have prepared everything for this stop and have written a feature with all the things you will need to know about the stop. We will ofcourse fill it with more information before and during the stop. I will be attending this World Tour stop as well and once again working with the tournament and CPL.

CPL WT UK Coverage

//dREk

With the next CPL World Tour stop around the corner here is a brief guide on each of the players and their performance to far on the tour. At time of writing each of the players below are attending the world tour stop in Sheffield. The event starts on Friday and ends with the finals on Sunday evening. Be sure to check out our coverage live from the event, with pictures and player interviews during the weekend.

» CPL World Tour UK Player Profiles

The n!faculty painkiller team (n!ScooBz0r, n!AgamemnonZ & n!eSrem) attended a LAN called Drome 12 ( www.drome.nl ). Its the biggest LAN in The Netherlands with 2000+ gamers. n!ScooBz0r and n!AgamemnonZ became first and second, n!eSrem couldnt participate in the competition due to his work. The frags are from the games played during the LAN. Hope you enjoy it a bit!.

You can download the movie here: http://www.own-age.com/vids/video.aspx?id=5729

An article about the LAN can be found on the n!faculty website here: http://www.faculty.de/news_details.php?id=1148

ESReality published an interview with Vo0. Its a nice read, here is a part:

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I did take a huge risk quiting university (although only being 2 months in), but I knew I had it in me after winning my two first and only tournaments back before the WT game was announced. I’ve placed really well, only getting 2nd twice, winning $89.500 out of the possible $99.500 after 9 tournaments. I still feel I could have done better but as I said, things go as they go. The thing about people that really want to be a progamer, it is a risk. I took the risk and succeeded, but alot of people will fail and will kill a year in their life (not going to school, not winning enough money to live on). There is no such thing as a written book how to become a progamer, and it’s hard to work your way up there. It all came to me, I wasn’t expecting anything great at ESWC 2004. I can still remember after winning my second group stage “oh my god I just made at least $1000 playing a computergame”. And look at where I’m at now, I could not have made a better choise in my life than I did. But as I said, it doesn’t go this way for everyone. Maybe I was lucky that PK was the WT game with such few competitors (although really skilled, Fatal1y/SteLam/ForresT/LeXeR, all reached (near)-god status in their previous games) unlike Q3 which had a huge following. Whenever a game has a huge following it’s a lot harder to have only 1 guy winning it all, I think.
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You can read the interview here: http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=872253