My Favorite Moments in TF2 History

TF2 was the first game I really immersed myself into, meaning that a lot of my earliest internet memories come from this game. And through all the years, all the updates, all the thousands of hours of playing this game, there are a few memories that stand out to me the most. In the spirit of Love and War Part 2, I thought I’d take an article to recall my fondest memories as a TF2 fan. Especially since my more traditional “what I love most” article already exists. In no particular order: 5. STAR_ wins Mixup 2013. It was possible for you to… [Continue Reading]

Read more

Thoughts on Matchmaking

While I missed the first matchmaking stress test, I was awake and ready for the second one! Sorry EU fans, maybe one day Valve will have one at a time that’s not horrible for you guys. I don’t have enough to do commentary on 16 minutes of footage, so I’m just making an article. I loved how easy it was to queue up; just click the button and you’re off to the races. I played 6 matches and won 5 of them, so the players seem really competent for the most part. There were usually 2-3 people with mics on our… [Continue Reading]

Read more

Practical Advantages You Can Gain With Taunts

Taunts are a silly yet fun addition to TF2 that have have grown more and more pernicious as time goes on. Nowadays they’re hard to avoid with very attention-drawing musical jingles, unusual effects, and contagious dances. But like everything other seemingly-pointless just-for-fun game mechanic, I’m here to nitpick the hell out of the entire concept, wringing out every possible competitive advantage. 1. Generic all-purpose third person. The first and most obvious, taunts give you an ability to look around corners and get a more broad screenshot of the map around you, with the only downside being the few seconds of… [Continue Reading]

Read more

CS:GO’s New Coop Game Mode

I know I said it’d be a while before I made a new CS:GO article, but I forgot to mention probably my favorite new addition from Operation Wildfire: co-op mode! Yes, CS:GO is getting some sort of game mode revolving around fighting NPC enemies with your friends, and a lot of the coming maps haven’t been seen yet since people with the Wildfire coin have to get far enough along to unlock them. At 2:18 in the video the videographer clearly winds up in the apartments from Left 4 Dead 2‘s Dead Center while Payday the Heist menu music plays in the… [Continue Reading]

Read more

aabicus tries to CS:GO, part 4

Big milestones today! Most of what I describe in this article I recorded on video, but after recording, when I try to open said video I get this: So RIP a little bit of aabicus’ CS:GO history. Because this included a few big milestones; my rank up to Silver 3, my very first competitive match, my purchasing of the Wildfire coin, my first game of Deathmatch, and my first time on a bunch of the new maps. Part of me is a little glad my last Silver 2 matches weren’t saved, because they were downright abysmal. I basically did nothing… [Continue Reading]

Read more

New CS:GO! New Nuke!

UPDATE: Going to video settings and dropping everything to low/disabled makes it possible to play on AMD graphics cards! Whatever the problem is, it must be the same one that was plaguing ctf_2fort_invasion when it first came out. Please ignore how salty I was in this article.  Operation Wildfire just went live for Counter Strike: Global Offensive! The new Wildfire campaign comes with single and two-player missions, as well as bonus Blitz missions “for performing specific actions during global windows of opportunity”. Whatever that means. I’d love to tell you but apparently people with AMD graphics cards crash immediately upon joining… [Continue Reading]

Read more

The Deadliest Ringer

The Dead Ringer is a bizarre watch. Taking the feign death concept from Team Fortress Classic and really running with it, this watch has been the source of more bugs and issues than any other aspect of the most buggy class in Team Fortress 2. There’s also the question of just how a watch can get away with so many bizarre long-standing machinations like the few in this list. Even in a world where cigarettes can summon disguises and piss can selectively extinguish, it’s still pretty hard to rationally explain how a watch can: 1. Regenerate health. If you intentionally start taking… [Continue Reading]

Read more

Payday 2 and Old Memories

Overkill’s monthly side job has updated for the new month, and this time it’s a brand new challenge. Old Memories reads: “Dallas is thinking about the good old days and he would appreciate if you did too. Complete Rats job on Overkill or above, using AMCAR and Chimano 88 with no skills and 2-piece suit.” This is a pretty clever reference actually, because Overkill knows players are going to speedrun the map in order to minimize the risk of going in nude, which is exactly what people used to do back when Rats was a treasure trove of XP in the… [Continue Reading]

Read more

Painted Weapons: A Sordid History

For 99.9999% of TF2 weapons, paint doesn’t enter the picture. You paint cosmetics, not weapons, because paint would absolutely destroy the ability to recognize weapons on sight, right? But what the hell, let’s just add it in by this point. There’s gotta be a way to make Decorated weapons paintable. After all, that remaining .0001% of weapons consists of an elite few weapons that have in one way or another been painted. The most famous of course are the painted Cow Manglers. Two Team Spirit and one Balaclavas are Forever, they all came into existence in 2011 during an extremely short… [Continue Reading]

Read more

4 Even MORE Reasons to Bind a Key to Suicide

When I wrote “4 Reasons to Bind a Key to Suicide“, I was certainly expecting that to be a one-off article. When I surprised myself by finding 4 more, I once again figured that had to be it. How many different competitive advantages could TF2 possibly have for dropping dead on the spot? Well, as my recent video shows, the new weapon-pickup mechanic has introduced a whole host of new ways a player can have fun with their loadout slots by granting themselves multiple copies of weapons to pick up. As its preceding article noted, two major exploits involve the Demoman… [Continue Reading]

Read more