What the KOTH?

I love me some King of the Hill. It’s a very simple game mode, it’s seen in a lot of games. The concept is incredibly basic, you hold a specific area until time runs down or a certain event happens. KOTH maps are generally smaller than your average map and can fit anything from 8 to 18 players. KOTH also gets played in almost all competitive forms apart from dodgeball and basketball. It gets played in Ultiduo, 4v4, 6v6 and Highlander! Alright, not so much in the latter two, but seriously everyone, koth_Viaduct_pro is carrying all the weight. Good map,… [Continue Reading]

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TF2 Update – Map Workshop Beta

Hey, look, an update! With a blog post to go with it! It’s only been three months since we had the last announcement on the front page! Except that one was for the fricking Taunt workshop, and while that’s fun and all, we’ve not seen a single new taunt released. But now Valve have decided to one-up themselves while at the same time destroying the community-driven tf2maps.net site by announcing a map workshop! Yeah, a map workshop. In beta. It’s basically like the Garry’s Mod workshop. You find a map you like, you download it. If enough people download a… [Continue Reading]

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Fighting Back against those Metal Bastards!

Mann VS Machine is nice. It’s a twist on normal gameplay, where you can make yourself an ultra strong monster of a mercenary, while defending a hole in the ground from a horde of robot monsters. Normally, you’re defending a control point from the enemy mercenary team, who are approximately the same strength as you, unless you’ve gone and stacked 7 sentries and a bunch of Demomen on Snakewater Last. The thing is though, Mann VS Machine is RED defending from BLU, because Gray’s robot army is weirdly tinted blue. So where is our game mode where BLU attacks RED,… [Continue Reading]

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One Night on Orange

It was around 7:30 P.M, Eastern Time. I was bored and in need of something to waste a perfectly good evening. That I immediately started TF2 should come as no surprise. That evening, I was in a feisty mood. Upon entering the title screen and selecting “servers”, I entered the “crits” parameter. I was promptly presented with several servers. After some deliberation, I selected cp_orange. Who doesn’t like oranges? ‘Twas my first time on an allcrits server, and it wasn’t pretty. Shortstop Scouts, Enforcer Spies, and Sniping Snipers were several of the more frustrating opponents. After stints as Spy, Scout,… [Continue Reading]

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Fun things about the Grappling Hook

I’ll be frank, I don’t like Mann Power, because it utterly sucks if you’re not one of the 9 people with a power up. You just get your backside handed to you unless you’re clearly skilled enough to outplay them. But on the other hand, the Grappling Hook, the second stock all-class action item after the Spellbook Magazine, is tons of fun. Why? Because everyone can use it whenever they want, as long as the server allows it. And I, being the antisocial offline player that I am, decided to experiment round with it. First off, to enable the hook,… [Continue Reading]

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Demoman got nerfed, but FAIRLY this time! – Smissmas 2014

After EotL, there wasn’t much hope in the TF2 community. But Valve brought a small amount of hope back with the 2014 Smissmas update. And what did it contain? Those promised Demoman changes from the Love and War update! You all remember that, right? The changes that broke him and made Engineers run rampant that they thankfully reversed? This time round, Valve actually thought about it AND listened to the community! First off, here’s the patch notes. I warn you now, it’s a biggie! All Players who play TF2 during the event will receive a Gift: a Stuffed Stocking! Stockings… [Continue Reading]

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Why I like Helltower

In the days leading toward the sixth annual Scream Fortress event, Valve have been kind enough to give us easy access to past events. Yesterday I played on Helltower with two decent teams and, for the first time, some idea of what I was actually doing. My team lost, but it was fun anyway. I’ve seen enough articles about Hightower already. Personally I think it’s a rather boring map, good for training in propelled jumps and sniping but little else. Snipers can be so annoying. But the Helltower version? Much more interesting! I know people are complaining that Scream Fortress… [Continue Reading]

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Junction, Junction, Junction

A long time ago, back when I proudly wore my Mercenary badge, my favourite map wasn’t Dustbowl or 2fort or any of the normal stereotypical noob-friendly maps. Nope, I was a fan of Junction. At the same time, I was also not a Medic main. I know, shocking, especially since my name is Medic now. I’m not quite sure what appealed to me when it comes to Junction, because I look back at it now and I sigh and roll my eyes. Maybe it’s because I got my Gibus on Junction, dominating a Heavy as a, um, Medic. Or maybe… [Continue Reading]

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A hop, a skip, and a (normal) jump away

I’ve always had a curious affinity for the tops of resupply cabinets. Whether it’s during my weekly quasi-idle sessions in Offline Training, or at the tail end of some test or other conducted to investigate weapon properties, I find myself gravitating toward the nearest one, hauling myself onto it, and engaging in highly meaningful activities along the lines of “see how many times you can shoot the cabinet before the old bullet holes disappear” or “make smiley face patterns with melee hits :)”. But, like many illustrious scientists in history — to whom I am entirely comparable — I’ve encountered… [Continue Reading]

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