Mod Showcase: Randomizer

Welcome back to Mod Showcase. Brickinator here. Today’s article is about Randomizer-  a plugin that combines the carefully crafted and immensely intricate balance system of Team Fortress 2 and defecates all over it. Any sort of tactics or strategy you had for each class has now gone out of the window because, in a Randomizer match, everything is down to chance. Using the word ‘chance’ to describe core multiplayer gameplay is like using the words ‘bloody and viscous’ to describe a urine sample, but Randomizer manages to pull it off. The first thing you need to realise with Randomizer is… [Continue Reading]

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Playing the Sniper Rifle in Team Fortress Classic

Aabicus, don’t you mean “Playing the Sniper”? No, I mean playing the sniper rifle. Because that is your job. Your life. That gun is a battlefield-stomping menace that boasts more flexibility and versatility than anything in Team Fortress 2. I know you think you’ve fought sniper rifles in TF2, but you haven’t fought a gun that can: *Charge and headshot from the hip *Charge-up damage infinitely *deal slowdown on bodyshot that never goes away (unless healed by a medic) *Deal knockback to friendlies, leading to the comical-looking but super useful “Sniper Jumping” technique *Gib on fully-charged headshot But believe it… [Continue Reading]

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Medic Tries To Explain Things…

There’s a lot of unexplained stuff in Team Fortress 2, a lot of which probably never will be explained. There’s also a lot of stuff that wasn’t explained and then was explained years later, or stuff that we thought we knew then turned out we didn’t know. The list of things that we don’t have an explanation for could fill hundreds of articles and the great thing is, you can make up your own explanations!… Wait, I think I’m on to something… So now we have Medic Tries To Explain Things! A quick note, none of this is official. Number… [Continue Reading]

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The Badlands aren’t that bad…

In previous articles, I’ve whinged and moaned about how I don’t like particular maps, while aabicus has gone on about how much he loves Doomsday and others still have tried to talk about other maps still. Today is about a map, yes, but this time, I’m not whinging. Well, not completely. Badlands is considered one of the best maps around. It is by far one of the most loved maps for competitive play, as each area has its own weaknesses and strengths, much like our favourite mercenaries. The map comes in three lovely flavours, although two of them are very… [Continue Reading]

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Getting Lost in Steel

Steel is one of those maps that has a hit and miss effect on the community. A lot of people really like Steel and wish it could be played on more servers. Others utterly hate the map and refuse to play on it. Personally, I’m not sure, but I find myself veering towards disliking it. Let’s start with the good stuff. Steel is a very nice-looking map, set in that Dustbowl-like environment, dry with a hint of vegetation, some grass, but with lots of indoor areas and quite a few tight corners, more like Turbine. Both types of environment look… [Continue Reading]

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ESEA-Invite Season 16 Week 7 Standings and Playoff Scenarios

We’re almost two-thirds of the way through ESEA Season 16 with only one last Invite game remaining in Week 6 on Granary, so it’s time to look ahead at Week 7 and the current standings in Invite. At this point, we’ve finally got teams clinching their spots and booking their tickets to LAN, while others are on the brink of seeing the dream disappear. [Continue Reading]

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The Family Business – The one weapon that SHOULD be multi-class!

The Family Business is nothing new. In fact, it’s one of those really annoying +stat/-stat weapons that most people despise and say it should be reworked and complain that it’s boring and stuff. But for someone like me, it’s great and I wish more people could use it. A quick reminder of the stats, the Family Business is your standard shotgun. It is currently equipped by the Heavy in the secondary slot. In exchange for an extra two shots in your clip, you get a nice 15% damage penalty. Doing the maths, it does a tiny weeny bit more damage… [Continue Reading]

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A Tale of Two Communities

Lately, SPUF has gotten a bit cabin-feverish, and I can’t say I blame them. The anger seems to be directed at Valve’s repeated promises of “great stuff on the horizon!” and the actuality of the extreme drought of new content for TF2. Recently, even the throwaway crap such as blog posts, cosmetics, and localization-file-only updates have dried up. I can understand why SPUF is upset. But I disagree with how a large amount of this anger seems to be directed at Dota 2, Valve’s newest cash cow and spearhead of the MOBA genre that is clearly getting the lion’s share… [Continue Reading]

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“Oh god, not Gullywash…”

I don’t know why, but I hate Gullywash. Every time I see it pop up in the map rotation, I roll my eyes. I roll my eyes even more if there’s more than 7 players per team and this map comes up. Actually, I do know why and I’m about to tell you in a moment. Let’s clarify something first. I like 5cp, or symmetrical control points or whatever you want to call it. It’s a lovely back and forth game mode, and most 5cp maps are nicely balanced to make sure you can’t camp on the last point forever,… [Continue Reading]

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