aabicus – Page 45 – The Daily SPUF

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]

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Sharks and Minnows (aka You)

August 18, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, Depth, Not TF2, shark!

Unless you play on tc_meridian, TF2 has a depressing absence of sharks. This holds true for the rest of my Steam library as well. Luckily, Depth recently had a free weekend, and I got to fill this void, just like the sharks in that game got to fill themselves up with me. I’ve always had an intense fascination with underwater combat in video games, partly because I’m mildly terrified of water in real life. I dedicated a whole article to what little of it exists in TF2, I can’t resist leaping into bodies of water whenever my gameplay crosses them, and… [Continue Reading]

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On Accuracy

August 16, 2015January 15, 2017 aabicus 0 Comments accuracy, Left 4 Dead 2, On Shooters, payday, strategy

Hitscan guns in shooters often have two major qualities that people care about; how much damage they do and how accurate they are. (How quickly they fire is also relevant but in this article I’m focusing on the first two.) Which seems simple enough, because at the end of the day you want to know how fast your guns can kill things. But lots of shooters have been making the question a bit more difficult by introducing accuracy-affecting mechanics. Ways for a player to use positioning, modifications, skills, or game mechanics to manipulate the likelihood of a fired bullet hitting the… [Continue Reading]

Featured The Competitive Corner

What the Gun Mettle Contracts Could Mean For Competitive TF2

August 5, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments competitive, dlc, matchmaking

In my recent article about the weapon-dropping mechanic and specifically its affect on Ubercharges, I mentioned that it could be seen as a sign that Valve is attempting to alter the meta of the game, probably for the sake of revitalizing competitive and keeping things fresh. Part of the reason I think this is because a lot of Valve’s recent decisions have been rumored to be competitively-motivated, and ster (also known as Niichts and STAR_) said a lot of interesting things in his July 2nd Twitch broadcast that went on for 8 whole hours. Considering I can’t ask you to go… [Continue Reading]

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The Stupidest Item Ever Added to TF2

August 3, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments cosmetics, Filler, halloween, MvM, stupid

The term “stupidest item ever added to TF2” is obviously one of the more subjective terms one could use to describe a thing. It’s so heavily dependent on personal experience, opinion, and bias that no item could truly just qualify without question as “the stupidest item ever added to TF2”. Which is why you may be surprised that there actually is an item that indisputably qualifies as the stupidest item ever added to TF2, and it’s not the one you’re thinking of. It’s not something overpowered. Overpowered weapons fill a role in TF2 by letting players who equip them perform better and thus… [Continue Reading]

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A Trip to Edge of Reality

July 30, 2015January 2, 2017 aabicus 0 Comments dead, loadout, mourning, non-tf2, real life

Loadout is an amazing game that you should still totally go try out if you haven’t played it already. I’ve written about it twice before, and when I recently moved to Austin one of the secondary reasons was a desire to meet the developers. Edge of Reality is a company that has developed both original games and console ports since 1999, and as a huge fan of their self-published shooter I drove to Edge of Reality’s studio this Tuesday in the hopes of meeting them. I had obtained their address from Google: 6500 River Place Blvd. River Place is a… [Continue Reading]

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How Weapon Dropping Improved My Favorite TF2 Loadout

July 28, 2015 aabicus 1 Comment demoknight, demoman, sticky jumper, strategy

Let’s ignore the Ubercharge bit for a moment. The weapon-dropping mechanic on its own is surprisingly ineffectual considering what everyone started worrying about when they first heard it was going to become a thing. The weapons aren’t that easy to actually pick up, the presence of nothing but sidegrades and the fact that you have to drop a weapon you actually chose to equip means that in the grand scheme of things it’s just a fun new ability that opens up rare moments of awesome, aids in allowing players to try out skins they otherwise don’t own, and causes relatively… [Continue Reading]

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The Addicting Tyranny of Idle Games

July 27, 2015November 14, 2017 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, Exploit, Not TF2

It wasn’t until this gif popped up on my Steam Community overview page that I had even heard of the thriving genre of idle games. Games designed to not be played, instead to play in the background while you go about your life. Getting work done, sleeping…in the best examples you don’t even need the game running, it’ll automatically update itself when you next crank it up. This goes beyond games that incorporate being AFK into its design, like the skill-leveling system of EVE Online, or games like Animal Crossing that guilt you with spoiled crops and sad villagers if… [Continue Reading]

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My Left 4 Dead 3 Wishlist

July 26, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments Left 4 Dead 2, Not TF2, opinion, suggestion

There have been many rumors of a possible Left 4 Dead 3 in development, but I’m not going to link to any because I think they’re all druid pocky. I’ll believe there’s a new L4D game when Valve says so, and beyond that you’re just taking the running Half-Life 3 gag and switching franchises. But that doesn’t mean I’m not excited to think of ways I’d love to see Valve evolve the gameplay and come up with ways to improve it in a sequel. I doubt they’d go as balls-out crazy as Payday 2 did in expanding upon its prequel, but there are definitely some… [Continue Reading]