aabicus – Page 52 – The Daily SPUF

Dem Choppas

January 5, 2015February 1, 2022 aabicus 0 Comments dem choppas, Filler, Guns in Gaming, history, sniper, weapon

This article is a shoutout to my favorite TF2 Mod; dem choppas. Who wants a plinky submachinegun when they can have the most famous assault rifle in world history? There are all sorts of reasons to use dem choppas. Reason 1: They’re dem choppas. There’s no other real reason. I mean, they’re choppas. I’ve wanted to write an article about dem choppas for a while now but I couldn’t think of anything meaningful to say. But now, we’re like three days behind on articles and I need something to write for yesterday but I don’t want to publish a real… [Continue Reading]

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Taking the Fight to the Robots

January 4, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments MvM, request

When is Valve going to add offensive MvM missions? Ever since the amazing opening trailer showed BLU and RED uniting against a common foe, I’ve been wanting to see the other half of Mann Co’s defenses getting in on the action. And I know I’m not the only one. It’s not even particularly difficult to come up with the method of gameplay. One way or another, it’ll probably involve BLU team delivering a bomb to robot factories or other tactically-beneficial targets that are guarded by robots with a slightly redder hue. Most people seem to think the bomb should be… [Continue Reading]

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What if TF2 melee behaved mechanically like Left 4 Dead 2 melee?

January 1, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments balance, melee, request, scout

I had a blast recently playing ctf_turbine with Medieval mode enabled, but my internet connection quickly decided that it wasn’t pleased with the current TF2 melee mechanics. So it got me thinking about a different Source game where the melee weapons are among my favorite in the entire game. TF2 melee basically behaves like a hitscan “bullet” that flies a few inches in front of the player and stops (the swords fire this “bullet” a bit further, mimicking a range bonus.) Only if this “bullet” hits an enemy is your melee swing successful. This is where all the notorious hitreg… [Continue Reading]

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The Art of the Backcap

December 30, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments demoman, engineer, game mode, scout, soldier, spy, strategy

The backcap is an under-appreciated skill these days. It seems like nobody ever sends a brave lone gunman to scout ahead and take the next point milliseconds after you finish capping this one. And while this loss of a fundamental strategy is sad for the state of TF2’s metagame, it can be quite fun if you’re willing to be the team’s backcapper. Backcapping, as the name implies, involves racing ahead to the next control point once determining (or just hoping to God) that your team can take this one alone. The two most popular classes to backcap are scout and… [Continue Reading]

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Ways to Play Spy if You Suck at Spy

December 28, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments advice, game mode, spy, strategy

Isn’t spy awesome? I can’t help but give mad props to the character for what he willingly puts himself through in the line of duty. More than any class he relies on wits and positioning to outsmart the enemy, and all of his weapons put him dangerously close to an entire arsenal of retaliation the millisecond after he stabs, saps, or shoots. Boy, I wish I could do that. But I can’t. I really really can’t. No matter how much I try to play spy, whether I’ve equipped the most overpowered loadouts on the best spy maps against the worst… [Continue Reading]

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Spicing Up Medieval Mode

December 26, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments game mode, maps, medieval

Who remembers Medieval Mode? It’s hard to forget it, what with its unique premise, acceptable breaks from its own premise and a game balance that I don’t think anyone truly understands. But I’ve been having trouble finding populated Medieval servers, and this saddens me because for what its got, I enjoy the balance between the classes. But I think there are definitely some things that could improve the game mode. At the core of things, it could really do with some more content. Right now it suffers from a limited version of Territorial Control-syndrome, where the mode concept is fine… [Continue Reading]

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Beginner’s Guide to Loadouts in Left 4 Dead 2

December 20, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments advice, guide, Left 4 Dead 2, loadout, shotgun

It has come to my attention that very few people on TF2 SPUF play Left 4 Dead 2. This is a real shame because the game is very, very fun and in recent months I’ve found it consuming far more of my allotted game time than TF2 does. So I basically thought I’d just write a quick guide detailing two of my favorite loadouts in the hopes that this info might help you if you ever decide to pick the game up. Left 4 Dead 2 has a wonderful array of weaponry, and the best part is that all of it… [Continue Reading]

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Flaring Up

December 14, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, balance, pyro, request, shotgun

Poor Pyro can’t seem to catch a break. Ever since his Team Fortress Classic days people have derided him as underpowered, unbalanced, gimmicky, over-reliant on newb opponents…the insults are as varied as the tools Valve has bestowed upon the poor unintelligible merc. Plenty of people have written opinions on why Pyro is underpowered (here’s mine) and even more people have written theories on how to fix that problem. Before I go into that, I want to try and sum up some fundamentals that are often brought up. Firstly, Pyro’s short-range emphasis is seen as one of his major problems since… [Continue Reading]

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Dearly Departed SPUFers

December 12, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments history, recap, SPUF

As I’m trapped on a 14-hour bus ride because I missed my 14-hour train ride and now have to grapple with the financial and physical discomfort this situation puts me in, I’ve been in something of a pensive mood. As my entertainment options have dwindled to draining the power on my no-internet laptop or observing the wonderfully repetitive West Virginian nature whizzing past the windshield, I thought I might take this opportunity to talk about some SPUFers who have disappeared as the years roll by. Obviously every forumite must disappear someday, I guess the most one can hope for is that they get to… [Continue Reading]

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A Shotgun Update

December 8, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments balance, economy, heavy, MvM, request, shotgun, update

I adore the Team Fortress 2 shotgun. Sturdy, reliable, and intuitive, it’s the only weapon shared by four different classes and until the BASE Jumper was added, the only weapon to occupy different slots on different classes. I consider the shotgun TF2’s tenth signature weapon due to its ubiquity and recognizability. There is a sort of elegance in the fact that Valve has never added any sort of reskin or retexture for the shotgun. Every player since 2007 who’s wanted to make use of its six-clip buckshot backup has used the same simple gun; no golden, festive or botkiller variants… [Continue Reading]