The new Half-Life / Counter-Strike / TFC / etc update is coming this Thursday and things look to be running pretty smoothly with the playtest I just participated in. Here are a few of the major changes from the official change list. The new versions will be available via Steam2.0 which we will have available for download on Fileshack this Thursday.

- Added two new rifles, the Galil and Famas.
- Added a Riot Shield for the CTs.
- New version of de_inferno.
- New version of de_aztec.
- Added new map de_airstri.
- Increased Glock damage slightly.
- Added widescreen view modes for hardware that supports it.
- Changed so the bomb and hostages use T and upside-down T in the radar like players do (to indicate above/below the player).
- Added zoom & health in HLTV.
- Improved load times to join servers.
- Engine supports masked and additive textures modes on models.
- Added widescreen monitor support (16:9 and 5:4).
- [snip]

The widescreen is now limited to 1920x1080, earlier in the playtest 1280x768 was available which most anyone could use and just squish their screen. I've bugged Valve a couple of times about putting it back cuz it's neeto, but I doubt it will happen.

Something not indicated in this change list is the drastic change to the smoke grenade. The smoke now puffs out instantly instead of slowly streaming out and waving around, and is in fact really quite useful now and easy to place accurately. Everyone can eagerly anticipate being spammed with smoke grenades on pubs for the first few weeks.

update: Here is a video walkthrough of the new map, de_airstrip.