The M.M.O.7 has now gone live on our Game Shark store and will be available in other good retailers shortly. Thanks to all the patient Cyborg fans out there, your wait is now over. Good things come to those who check Facebook on a daily basis!

So, you’ve read the feature lists, and you’ve seen the fancy videos, so here is the rest of the vital information you need before embarking on that 36 hour session! 

Let’s start with drivers and software. The download page has been updated with MMO7 goodness. So, whether you are a Windows, or Mac user, the latest versions are available to get you up and running.

For all you WoW players, the custom add-on for the MMO7 can be downloaded from curse.com from this link: 

http://www.curse.com/addons/wow/cyborg-mmo7

To save you some setup time, every profile in our Profile Library (available from our downloads page) has been updated to include support for the MMO7. 

If you need some extra help with software functionality, we have also produced video tutorials for the programming software and the WoW add-on.

For the programming software, click Here

For the add-on, click Here

I think that’s everything, happy grinding!

When it comes to online games, I want something with staying power, something fun, and something so ferociously addictive that I am prepared to forsake all others in order to play. For me, there is only one game that fits these criteria. I am of course talking about Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

This game rocks more than fifty large boulders falling off a mountain and smashing into a load of other large boulders. Coincidentally, that’s also an apt description for how the game sounds. Playing my previous favourite, Day of Defeat: Source, seems empty and hollow to me now. I can’t go back.

The quality of the game lies in the time and effort that has gone into making a balanced experience. DICE are not new to this type of game, and everything they learn from previous titles goes into making their next experience that much better. Yes, some of the guns have been nerfed, but it’s all in the interest of making things more enjoyable. It’s like playing a prettier, louder and shootier version of Rock Paper Scissors. Everything can be trumped by something else, and this very simple mechanic plays out brilliantly.

If you are new to the game, there is a lot to learn, and there are some well researched and detailed strategy guides out there. As an introduction, here are my tips for being a productive member of the battlefield. 

1.    Battlefield Awareness – As well as being aware of what the players around you are doing, try to build an awareness of the wider battlefield, and how things are panning out. This will help your combat decisions and hopefully prolong your kill streak.

2.    Listen – DICE spend a lot of time getting the sound in their games right. It’s not just to get things sounding great on your speakers. Gunfights and enemy comments can all be accurately positioned if you keep your ears open.

3.    Play as a squad – Battlefield doesn’t always favour the lone wolf approach. Having a squad gives you real tactical advantages. You can flank and attack as a single unit, spawn on squad mates rather than back at base, and you also get more points for being a team player.

4.    Concentrate on the task in hand – Although being aware of the battlefield around you is important, don’t be distracted from the job that you and your squad are doing. Leaving a cap point to go and assist another squad can play right into the other team’s hands. Also, don’t be drawn by a single enemy darting in front of you to chase him down. Remember, his mates could spawn on him and then you’re in for a whole world of pain. Hold your position and lob a few nades in his general direction for good measure.

5.    Treat Medics as you would like to be treated – Medics are awesome. They have great weapons, and the ability to make or break a round. However, if you’re going to revive someone, give your reanimated colleague a chance, and lay down some covering fire (just until that post-50,000 v to the chest grogginess wears off). If a medic gets killed, press E to get his gear and bring him back from the abyss. It could prove vital.

6.    Spot! – If you see an enemy, press Q. The dividends for your team and your points tally will soon become clear.

7.    Stay with your tank – A good captain always goes down with his….tank. Even if it looks like a single grain of sand could end its operating life, stick with it. The last thing your team needs is the enemy getting hold of it and taking away a possible advantage.

8.    Be generous with your packs – There’s nothing worse than going toe-to-toe with a tank, bringing it to its knees, only to realise that you’re out of rockets. When battles get messy, a liberal sprinkling of ammo and medic packs can make all the difference.

9.    Defend a planted M-COM – As an attacker, when that charge begins to twinkle, unleash hell on the surrounding area. Mortars, nades, C4, get it all in there to stop the defenders undoing all your good work.

10.    Play nice – Obey the server rules, and have fun. Nobody likes the guy who thinks he’s the best thing since broadband, and punctuates every sentence with the F word.

The only things that will stop me from playing this game are the theft of my rig, the collapse of civilization, and Battlefield 3. I wonder which one will come first…

“Okay, you pounce on him, I’ll spit on them and then you smoke the straggler to really split them up. If you can then charge in and carry one the other way then we’ll be laughing. If someone dies and then comes back quickly they might be able to puke on them all so they can’t see where they’re going which would be a bonus and if the jockey can get in on the action then so much so the better.”

No, it’s not a conversation overheard before a drunken brawl at a horse race, but of course an example of a possible conversation between the special infected during a versus round of Left 4 Dead 2. Last week I went over some tips for the survivors, so this time it’s the special infected’s turn.

The special infected have a huge advantage in this game; they can always see where the survivors are, thanks to their glowing outlines (which also tells them how badly hurt they are) and they can access parts of the map that the survivors can’t. However, if there’s no coordination between them then they become a breeze to blast through and complete the map, mostly because individually they’re quite weak.

sPwned – be careful with when you spawn into the map.  As I mentioned in the previous article, as soon as you’re live in the map you’ll be making your unique noise which can be heard by the survivors. Sometimes it’s worth waiting to spawn so that they can’t tell where you are.

Get higher baby – going toe to toe with the survivors down on the ground is usually going to result in a rapid departure to the spawning screen for any infected (especially the boomer who you only have to breathe on in order for him to explode). All the levels have some buildings in them somewhere - even the swampy backwaters of Swamp Fever – and most of them can be climbed onto using the glowing ‘climb trail’ indicators. From up there you’re usually harder to spot because the survivors are dealing with all of the normal infected that are down on the ground with them. Get onto the other side of a sloping roof from the survivors and you can then only expose your head to them, giving them less of a target to hit – smokers and spitters should be very aware of the advantage of this.

Divide and conquer – it’s simple maths really: four guns will kill you a lot quicker than two or one. If you hang back as the smoker and drag a straggler back towards you then the rest of their teammates should track back to help him out.  At this point if a charger grabs one of them and takes them completely the other way then you’ve immediately split their attention, throw in a puddle of acid from a spitter and some blinding puke from a boomer and the survivors can find themselves separated, unable to see each other and surrounded by a horde of normal infected that are pummelling them and preventing them from moving anywhere to even help their teammates.

Choke it up – all of the levels have natural choke points which should be learned and acted on. It’s far easier to trap someone in a pool of acid if they’re in an alleyway and only have two ways to go: out in the open they can get out of it much easier. There are also several points in the levels where the survivors have to drop down somewhere and have no means of climbing back up. If you manage to catch one, or even two stragglers with a hunter and a smoker and catch it just right before they drop down then the other survivors who have already dropped down may have no choice but to carry on and leave the stragglers to die. It’s pure evil and has resulted in more than one ragequit incident, but it’s a prime example of how much of an advantage the special infected have.

Finally, communicate! Use a headset! I probably didn’t make enough of this in the previous article but it’s essential – a lot of the team action mentioned above is only possible through either luck or communication and I know which one I’d trust each and every time.

Or, more pertinently, when do I need to charge? We are of course talking about the R.A.T.9’s battery and whilst we do indicate that the battery is running low by flashing your DPI LEDs, a fair few of you have asked for another form of indication. So for your delectation and delight, please click the link below to download the R.A.T.9 battery charge indicator.

Download Here

Installation

Open the zip file, extract the two files within, then run the setup.exe file and follow the onscreen instruction to install it. Once installed you’ll need to run the R.A.T.9 Charge Indicator icon that you’ll find on your desktop – this will open the indicator which you should find hovering in the top left corner of your screen. This can be dragged anywhere you like on your desktop and you can even right click on it and set its opacity. If instead you’d prefer that it runs in your system tray (the icons next to your clock) then just click the minimise button and it will relocate there instead.

The installation adds the indicator to your Startup menu under Start>Programs>Startup so if you ever want to stop it automatically starting just delete the entry from there.

You’ve all seen me write before about how much I love Left 4 Dead 2 – it’s still the lunchtime game of choice here in the development office – and I thought it was time to provide a few tips and tricks.

Survivors

Keep all of your angles covered – keeping clear of the normal infected is always important because of their ability to stop you moving when they hit you.  You’re not going to be able to step out of the way of that charger if you’re getting pummelled by even just a single infected.