The Respawnables – Mobile App Review

Last year I vacationed in Scotland with my family, and it was an awesome trip! I got to see so many amazing sights and take a break from all the routines I’d settled into, but some habits didn’t die easily. I confess I suffered minor withdrawal from not having any Team Fortress 2 to play for three whole weeks, especially when stuck in a hotel room after an exhausting day of hiking the highland countryside. Luckily I found a free-to-play cartoony mobile shooter called The Respawnables, and it scratched that itch until I was back in the states. As that title screen… [Continue Reading]

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Why You Should Make GIFs

It’s fun to watch the internet evolve. Back in the early days the best way for gamers to show each other sick plays was through screenshots or YouTube videos. The problem is that screenshots aren’t terribly good at displaying exciting events like headshots or near escapes, and videos often require the viewer to navigate away from their current social media of choice to go watch the video. I know when I’m surfing reddit I often don’t have the attention span to click a link to YouTube and wait for the video to buffer in order to see the content. So… [Continue Reading]

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Lucio Added to Heroes of the Storm!

Lucio is the single most fun I’ve ever had playing a support class in a multiplayer, and now he’s bringing his area-of-effect heals over to Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard’s mashup MOBA starring characters from all over their various franchises. He’ll be joining Zarya and Tracer as the third hero to represent Overwatch.  (Which does bring up the question, will the next immigrant be a Defense hero? My money’s on Torbjörn.) Most of his kit has been preserved, albeit molded to fit the MOBA gameplay. His wallride lets him bypass enemies and avoid stuns, his various healing and sound barriers are still as powerful… [Continue Reading]

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Tips for Beating Left 4 Dead 2 and Payday the Heist on the Hardest Difficulty

This article is a combination of two similar posts I made in the Left 4 Dead 2 and Payday subreddits. Both threads were basically the author asking for advice on beating every map in the game and rating them easy to hard. To add some color I also included random screenshots from my Steam folders. Dead Center: Pretty easy. The maps are very controllable and bright and lots of corridors to control the oncoming infected. Solo is a nightmare because bots don’t grab cans for the finale. The Passing : Harder than Dead Center, mostly because each map is really… [Continue Reading]

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Widowmaker Vs. TFClassic Sniper: Who Would Win?

So I was talking with a friend about hypothetical cross-franchise class matchups, in the vein of Scout vs Tracer, Medic vs Sona, Engineer vs Nuparu, Heavy vs Braum, and Pyro vs Toa Vakama. It’s a pretty popular concept on our blog and I realized we hadn’t covered one of the most obvious, that of TF2’s favorite Kiwi versus Overwatch‘s favorite cheesecake. But after ruminating on the idea, I had trouble even starting due to the nature of TF2 Sniper’s unlocks. Do I treat TF2 Sniper as his stock class (which means Widow wins easily) or as an amalgamation of his unlocks, which turns him into a horrifying combination… [Continue Reading]

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The M14

The term ‘battle rifle’ refers to any military-grade rifle that fires a full-power cartridge. They’re heavier than assault rifles, have stronger recoils and often default to semi-automatic, meaning that their usage has died down considerably and they callback to the WWII era of weaponry. That being said, they’re still found in all branches of the American military today, and with the M14 being one of the most famous battle rifles, its lengthy career has made it a standard sight in the arsenals of various first-person shooters. Due to its roots as a battle rifle, it’s a popular choice for filling the “semi-auto… [Continue Reading]

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The Daily SPUF Thread Hits 10K Replies!

It’s an achievement 3 years, 3 months and 26 days in the making…the Official Daily SPUF thread just received its 10,000th reply! That’s 1213 days in total, which coincidentally is the name of the first indie adventure game I ever played and highly recommend to any fans of the genre. The 10,000th post came on the 667th page (assuming you’re using the archaic ’15-replies per page’ default setting. It’s 2017! Bump that bad boy up to forty!), just passing the Number of the Beast. This makes the Daily SPUF thread the only current thread in the main SPUfspace with a quintuple-digit reply count,… [Continue Reading]

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Why Rotom Is Best Pokemon

I already wrote an article on Rattata, my favorite Pokemon, but I also have a favorite ‘useful Pokemon’, ie my favorite who is actually viable in combat and can slot into teams with a goal of helping beat the game. It also happens to be the Pokemon I would pick if I got to keep one in real life. It’s Rotom! Rotom originated in Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, and could only be obtained after beating the Elite Four. The Old Chateau is a haunted mansion with a dark and troubled past, and a single Rotom would attack you if you mess with… [Continue Reading]

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A Farewell to my AlphaSmart

A while ago I wrote an article about my most sentimental possession. A word processor that I’ve used to write almost every single article you’ve read on this blog, not to mention dozens of short stories, scripts, NaNoWriMo novels, journal entries, college essays, and other writing easily totaling in the millions of words. I bought my AlphaSmart freshman year of college eight years ago and it’s been with me through some of the most important years of my life. But recently it’s started skipping letters while I type with it, which means it’s time to retire the oldest piece of… [Continue Reading]

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Overwatch – Advanced Lucio Tips

After 300 hours of Lucio and 200GB of recorded footage, I’ve finally finished my compilation of highlights from my Lucio career, and I can’t be more excited it’s finally published and out for everyone to see. I’ve come an extremely long way from when I wrote this article, and I feel prepared to bring you four new tips for improving your Lucio play. These are more advanced than the ones I gave before, and are intended for those who already know Lucio’s fundamentals. 1. Bunnyhopping. Due to Lucio’s skates, Blizzard gave him different acceleration/deceleration values from the other heroes, and… [Continue Reading]

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