Author: aabicus

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On Crouching

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“Pro tip: Some platforms can only be reached by staying ducked while jumping. That had me stumped for a while at first. You’re welcome.” I’m definitely showing my age, because when I read this sentence in SilverWolf’s recent article on Refunct I thought, “Wait, are there people who didn’t grow up on Source games?” Because years later I’m still struggling to unlearn the muscle memory of crouching during a jump for a free height boost. In modern games that tends to lead to crouch overriding jump and gluing you back to the floor. But that got me thinking about crouching as a… [Continue Reading]

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The Gun That Won the West

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I wrote a few articles in the past talking about some of my favorite firearms in video games, and after replaying Half Life 2 and seeing Father Grigori using the Winchester rifle I realized I needed to dedicate an article to the Wild West classic that didn’t stay dead. The Winchester rifle is an iconic firearm in western period pieces, designed for horseback riding and utilizing a lever-action reloading system that, while used by many guns at the time, nowadays is almost synonymous with the Winchester name itself. It’s a high-powered single-shot rifle with an iconic appearance, and that’s more than enough… [Continue Reading]

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How to Design Enemies That Are Truly Scary

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There are many, many enemies in video games designed to be scary, and I wanted to take some time to talk about ways to make enemies that fulfill this trope without resorting to “cheap” tactics like jumpscares or making them speedy OHKOs. Note that this article is mostly interested in “normal” enemies, not single boss-like monsters (like Spider from LIMBO) or full-fledged NPCs (like Pyramid Head from Silent Hill). Also I’m not an art major so my focus is on game mechanics and AI behaviors, and less on appearances. One of the scariest monsters I’ve had to fight in any game was… [Continue Reading]

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Fixing Killing Floor 2’s PvP Mode

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About a month ago I received this shifty-looking email: There were more than enough red flags to just delete it, but I agreed despite not knowing who they were. I’m glad I wasn’t my normally-apprehensive self, because it turned out to be Tripwire and now I’m signed up to playtest the much-maligned Versus Mode in the near future. I’m looking forward to getting to weigh in on a mode that I’d really like to succeed. And I thought I could take some time and write an article on my current thoughts of Killing Floor 2‘s Versus mode and what problems it… [Continue Reading]

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A Tribute to Rattata, My Favorite Pokemon

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I was in high school when Pokemania swept the country back in the 90s. I first learned about it when I was walking through my hometown’s shopping mall and Nintendo had a massive expo setup to promote the new movie Pokemon 2000: The Power of One. You got a free Pokemon card just for stopping by, and that was where I received my first Pokemon ever:   I fell into buying the playing cards and watching the TV show like every other kid, but I wasn’t allowed to play the games so it wasn’t until college that I finally got to play… [Continue Reading]

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Overwatch’s Tracer is Gay

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The latest Overwatch comic came out (meanwhile us in the TF2 fandom forgot that was even possible…) and it shows the heroes going home for Christmas to spend time with their loved ones or lack thereof. The main story involves Tracer trying to reach the shops in time to buy a present, and the rest of this article is going to assume you’ve gone and read the comic. While its not the only major reveal in Overwatch canon that came out with this comic, it’s the one that’s got all the gaming news sites talking about it. The forums are also ripe… [Continue Reading]

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Killing Floor 2 Update: New Zed, Map, Multiperk Weapons

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A new balance patch has come out for Killing Floor 2, and it’s awesome. First things first, the Gorefiend is the newest addition to the Zed hordes, looking like a Gorefast but with two makeshift swords instead of one. He’s got this helicopter attack that’s scarily effective at shredding through a player’s HP, he’s immune to being bashed, and he’s probably the most effective glass cannon among the Zed hordes. At the moment, he only spawns on Hard, Suicidal, or Hell on Earth difficulty, which I don’t like. Every other Zed spawns on every difficulty, and I don’t think he… [Continue Reading]

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Great Moments in Soloing Multiplayer Games

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As I’ve mentioned before several times, I love watching people solo multiplayer games without bots, especially Left 4 Dead 2. There’s nothing more badass than taking on hundreds of max-difficulty enemies without even the developer-expected teammates backing you up, and some godly players take it a step further and restrict themselves to melee-only or pacifist runs or even invisible special infected with no HUD. But for this article, I just wanted to highlight some of the coolest moments in specific runs that I’ve watched, moments that really highlight how quickly a truly good player can react to a sudden threat and still… [Continue Reading]

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Overwatch and Payday Christmas Events are Live!

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Today was a big day for gaming announcements! The 4th Annual Payday Christmas event was announced yesterday, and it involves the return of everybody’s favorite Escort NPC, Vlad’s drunkard step-brother who screws up another mission and requires the Payday gang to rescue him! In addition to the new heist, we got a new pulse-pounding song from studio musician OVERKILL_Bubba and two masks inspired by the Paycheck gang, a reddit in-joke making fun of the many, many bootleg clown masks from cheap third-party websites and dime stores. But wait…who’s that mysterious man looking away from the camera? We didn’t have to… [Continue Reading]

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KF2 – The Power of Modding

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Much like a certain other zombie-based horde shooter, Killing Floor 2 has a thriving modding community that’s warmly endorsed by the developers. Its Workshop is full of modifications and skins and maps that exponentially increase the amount of available content, and today I wanted to talk about a few that really showcase just how much potential Killing Floor 2 has as a modder’s paradise. First we have the map “Insurrection“, which is currently the only map on the workshop that uses “Objective” mode, which adds goals for the players other than to just kill zombies. Objective mode was a thing… [Continue Reading]

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