Art as Games: Counterstrike map based on Van Gogh painting

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We did gaming as art, here’s art as games. An enterprising young chap has recreated Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” painting (pictured) in the form of a Counterstrike map. It’s stunningly beautiful, and a reminder that gamers, even though we like killing things, appreciate beauty, too.

Check out a video tour of the map over the jump and marvel at amount of Van Gogh references crammed into this creation. Rock, Paper, Shotgun asks ‘What long-dead artistic visionary would you base a game on?’. I’d go for Edward Hopper. His use of light rivals anything that a modern 3D game engine could cook up.

German virus attacking UK World of Warcraft and Counterstrike players – is this WWIII?

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This morning I spoke with a French hacker-turned do-gooder, Jacques Erasmus, who uses his extraordinary knowledge over at online security company Prevx. According to Erasmus, a virus was created last Wednesday which is targeting gamers on World of Warcraft and Counterstrike.

Created in Germany, the worm is spread on MSN Messenger, where a spam message directing users to an infected site is sent out to a user’s complete contact list, in turn automatically sending itself to all of their contacts as well.

The worm then searches through the user’s hard drive, searching for log-in details to World of Warcraft and Counterstrike, as well as PayPal and Barclays Bank amongst others. The information is then uploaded to an FTP site, where the hackers can view all the details, as well as anyone else clever enough to gain entrance, such as Erasmus, who viewed hundreds of people’s details…