aabicus – Page 33 – The Daily SPUF

ctf_Hellfire

September 27, 2016February 4, 2017 aabicus 1 Comment ctf, humor, mannpower, maps, review, totally biased tripe

Hellfire is a Mannpower map added during the Scream Fortress 2015 event. I may be writing this article on Hellfire, but I refuse to even play it because I find Mannpower stupid. For all I know it could be a great map for Mannpower, but that’s like saying “I bet nail clippers are the least painful way to snap your teeth“. I just genuinely cannot get into Mannpower in any way, shape, or form, and since Hellfire is the only map in the game that’s Mannpower-exclusive (the other maps all being remakes of pre-existing TF2 maps) it’s the one map in… [Continue Reading]

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Overwatch’s DVa

September 24, 2016October 25, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments dva, overwatch, tank

I’ve mentioned in prior articles that Soldier 76, Junkrat, and Lucio are my three favorite characters to play, and recently I’ve been attempting to find a favorite tank so I can fill any of the four roles on a team. I never thought DVa would be the one who finally clicked with me. TV Tropes has her listed under “mechanically unusual fighter” (not linking, you can thank me later) because she seems to be playing a completely different game from the other characters. While in her meka, she has a very versatile set of abilities; her boosters give her a huge speedboost, her… [Continue Reading]

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Overwatch: Low-Effort Counters to Annoying Team Builds

September 22, 2016October 25, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments bastion, overwatch, zarya

Not my snappiest title, but basically I wanted to go over some picks in Overwatch that I’ve discovered after enough times getting frustrated by silly class consistencies. These tips are mostly assuming you’re in Quickplay solo-queueing, as even in a group of two there’s usually enough cooperation on your team that natural selection should weed the silly strats out. 1. Lots of Bastions and Reinhardts. The remaining players are usually Mercy. The bastions sit in front of chokeholds, the Reinhardts stand in front of the Bastions with shields up, and it seems like nothing can even scratch them. In this situation, I switch… [Continue Reading]

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Mortal Online

September 18, 2016October 13, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments criticism, mmo, review

I originally heard of Mortal Online while doing research for my upcoming nude mod article because the game comes with full-frontal birthday suits as a toggleable option. However, that wasn’t the only reason I felt like giving it an actual try; I read that the game eschews character classes, instead using Skyrim-style leveling systems for your skills. As in, your abilities increase through actually using said ability, so you organically become the sort of character you want to play. The other selling point is a very unforgiving loot system; if you die or get murdered by another player, you lose everything you’re… [Continue Reading]

Featured Now for Something Completely Different

Bang! The Western-Themed Card Game

September 15, 2016April 8, 2022 aabicus 1 Comment card game, card games, Not TF2, review

Since majer63 broke the ice on talking about card games, I thought I’d take a chance to dedicate an article to one of my first gaming loves, Bang! Growing up, I had a huge circle of people at my house at any given time.We had the opposite problem of most gaming circles; we couldn’t play games limited to 2-6 players, we needed something up to 11 people could play at the same time. As one of the few games capable of handling that many people, Bang! was a mainstay in our repertoire, though it also works with as few as 3 players. Drawing… [Continue Reading]

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Edge-Boosting: Trimping in Overwatch

September 14, 2016April 8, 2018 aabicus 1 Comment comparison, demoknight, Exploit, genji, overwatch

Seasoned demoknights know that ‘trimping’ in Team Fortress 2 is the act of charging at an angle in such a way as to send you flying through the air significantly farther than you normally would. It’s a core ability of the demoknight that sets him apart from any other class in the game, and if you’ve never heard of it, iReima has a bunch of them in the videos on his channel: I wrote an article about trimping a while back at the behest of a fuzzy pink fluffball. While I confess I’ve never really gotten the hang of the… [Continue Reading]

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Torbjörn – Overwatch’s Engineer

August 30, 2016September 17, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments defense, engineer, overwatch, torbjorn

God help me, I’ve been playing and enjoying Torbjörn. It’s not entirely my fault, the game loves raining Torbjörn loot box rewards on me. He’s the only character for who I’ve dropped an emote, highlight intro, victory pose and epic-level skin (the Steampunk gold one). It just felt a shame to waste them, so I’ve taken to testing him out on defense when the team consistency calls for it, and I’m actually very impressed with how Blizzard fixed most of the flaws with TF2 Engineer. For one, the resource management minigame is gone; Torbjörn has only one building to place… [Continue Reading]

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M1014 – The Ubiquitous Shotgun

August 27, 2016January 22, 2018 aabicus 0 Comments Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Guns in Gaming, killing floor, payday 2, shotgun, weapon skins, weapons

I’ve written two articles on several guns that make very frequent appearances in games I enjoy playing: The SCAR rifle and the Mac-10 SMG. This almost requires that I write third third article on the final member of the triumvirate: The M1014 shotgun. (We’re not counting the AK47, its popular enough that nobody’s surprised it appears in every game ever). In most games, the M1014 fills the role of the balanced upper-tier shotgun; there’s nothing wrong with it in particular, but some other gun might trump it in certain stats. In the original Counter-Strike, the XM1014 was one of only two shotguns… [Continue Reading]

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My Favorite Payday 2 Glitches

August 21, 2016February 10, 2017 aabicus 0 Comments glitches, Not TF2, payday 2

Payday 2 is built on an outdated engine and has received years upon years of updates, new content, and balance tweaks. Completely divergent mechanics like flamethrowers, explosives, grenades, vehicles, and weapon skins have found their way into the original relatively-simple gameplay, not to mention an ambitious skill system with infinite combinations of dozens of abilities. This is a prime environment for some completely insane glitches! 5. When the Arkansas Toothpick granted 230 Concealment. I think Overkill meant to buff it from 27 to 30, but forgot to finish deleting the old value. Maximum armor, RPG, and Flamethrower? No problem, guards will never see… [Continue Reading]

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Ways to have fun in Left 4 Dead 2 Pubs

August 18, 2016September 9, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments Left 4 Dead 2, Not TF2, pubs

I love Left 4 Dead 2, its one of my top three favorite games of all time. But while I vastly prefer Campaign due to encouraging cooperation and avoiding the more toxic saltiness of the Versus community, a normal pub is just too easy for me. I know I sound a bit arrogant saying it, but I’ve soloed the game without bots, there isn’t much I’m going to fear in a Normal-difficulty campaign with three allies of varying competency. So that’s why I’ve developed a couple “mini-games” that spice things up a bit. I don’t want to do anything that negatively… [Continue Reading]