aabicus – Page 43 – The Daily SPUF

6 Things I Miss From Payday: The Heist

September 16, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments criticism, mods, non-tf2, payday

This article is basically a sequel to Payday 2 and Things Lost in Translation, but it’s going to be a bit more nitpicky. Like, little things that aren’t big deals like the ones from the previous article, but they help complete the picture. I know I’m harping on Payday 2 a lot, but hell I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sequel that made so many tiny baffling changes that missed the mark. 1. The HUD Payday: The Heist has a great HUD that tells you everything you want to know without cluttering up your screen. Your health is instantly recognizable… [Continue Reading]

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Giving the Third Degree the Third Degree

September 14, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, balance, medieval, melee, MvM, pyro, weapon

Move over ladies and gunboats, it’s the only straight upgrade in Team Fortress 2! Man, considering it’s the one unlock in the entire game with absolutely no reason not to equip it you would bet it must be the high-rolling undisputed king of its weapon class, right? Right? No. Turns out the Third Degree sucks. Its only upside is pointless on a class that spews penetrating particles that engulf every enemy in melee range. You wanna kill somebody that has a Medic? Airblast them apart and go to town on the poor German sod. Pulling out your melee is only setting yourself up for… [Continue Reading]

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UFOs spotted! The End is Nigh!

September 12, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments aliens, rumor, scream fortress, update

There are aliens in TF2! There had been hints of a possible Invasion update for some time now, but Valve has actually done a great job of keeping this one under wraps, perhaps having learned from the toxic effect all the End of the Line hype had caused. Indeed, if Kritzkast hadn’t deflected the June trailer leak by pretending it was merely a community model pack, we would have had 4 months of absolutely nothing for the hype to do but fester. Well played, Valve. But now that actual UFOs are appearing in the skyboxes of the most popular TF2… [Continue Reading]

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Killing Floor 2: Now With More Fire and Stuff Blowing Up

September 10, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments criticism, killing floor, Not TF2, suggestion

I’m going to be honest, I’ve been pretty ticked at Tripwire. Ever since Killing Floor 2 was first released in Early Access back in April, Tripwire had succeeded in adding a single map and no other game-changing alterations for over four months. I hate to be one of those people who clamor for new content, but when a game is released into beta you kinda expect additions and stuff since the whole point of a beta is to allow the devs to change and tweak content without worrying about needing to commit to anything. Even the graphs where they reminded everyone that developing new content takes… [Continue Reading]

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Pestilential Pumpkin Presents Part Two

September 7, 2015 aabicus 2 Comments cosmetics, halloween, scream fortress, update

“It’s pretty safe to bet that new cosmetics will have something to do with the next generation of presents, due to a “Scream Fortress 2014″ Workshop tag being the only clue we’d received up until the recent blog post, but for more specifics, we’ll have to wait and see. I just hope Valve’s execution doesn’t cause too many complaints.” ~aabicus, as Scream Fortress 2014 approached Valve’s execution caused many complaints. Honestly it was the worst possible interpretation of the present system yet. For those who weren’t there (or blanked the experience from their memory banks) Valve’s first clue as to how… [Continue Reading]

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TF2’s Unlock System is Truly Unique

September 5, 2015July 27, 2017 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, balance, comparison, unlock, weapon

Can we take a moment just to explore how revolutionary TF2’s unlock design is? Think back to the days before the Gold Rush Update. TF2 was a complex and nuanced game, with 9 classes and 25 weapons, and then Valve announces that there will be unlockable weapons added, starting with the Medic class. What would you predict these weapons will be like? Taking the standard dev theme for designing alternate weapons for a slot, probably something like this: I’m running through a list in my head of shooters with swappable inventory unlocks, and I’m seeing a very tedious trend where the closest thing to… [Continue Reading]

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The Cutting Room Floor

September 3, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments beta, history, medic, TFC

Not everything Valve playtested for TF2 made the cut. From the moment Brotherhood of Arms and then its replacement Invasion was completely excised, Valve showed themselves committed to the possibility of axing whatever needs to be axed in the name of quality. Through avenues such as item schemas and the TF2 Beta, us players have had the ability to witness a lot of these ideas get introduced and later bite the dust. Thing is, we don’t always get to hear the rationale behind why they didn’t make the cut. For every Repair Node and Facestab Knife that got a blog post… [Continue Reading]

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Some other spots to get to (that aren’t that hard!)

August 28, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments demoknight, engineer, Filler, maps

This article’s existence is more of the culmination of a running gag than a legitimate article. It’s the Frankensteinian surgery of two articles that both sat laboriously in my Drafts folder for ages, silently judging me every time I opened up WordPress and viewed my dashboard. The earlier article began its life as “Good Offensive Teleporter Spots on Non-Payload Maps”, intended to be a sequel of sorts to this article. It’s only candidate was the first spot on this list, I added it and then continued playing TF2, confident that more would present themselves to me in time. Now here we are… [Continue Reading]

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Which Way Does the Wind Blow on Your Favorite Map?

August 26, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments Filler, spy, taunts

Cause there is wind. You may not have known that, but now you can see for yourself. That there is the Buy a Life taunt, added during the Love & War Update. Spy, being the cocky dick he is, pulls out a wad of cash and flings it derisively while taunting his poor & Irish foes. It was the subject of the highest-rated screenshot I ever posted to Steam. But what’s important is that the money always blows in the same direction! No matter what direction you’re facing, no matter how many times you crank the map up. It’s not randomized in… [Continue Reading]

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Early Impressions and Strategies for the Beta PASS Game Mode

August 25, 2015January 28, 2017 aabicus 0 Comments beta, game mode, guide, pass, pass time, strategy, tips

Let me start by saying that PASS is a hell of a lot of fun. It’s one of the first beta modes that feels like it should be in beta; it’s bizarre and completely different from anything TF2 has tried before, but it’s addicting and condones itself to all sorts of strategies and playstyles that really makes it stand out as a game mode. I genuinely hope this develops its own tournaments and things because it’s just as much fun to watch as it is to play. Everybody is still learning the ropes of this new game mode and there… [Continue Reading]