aabicus

I write articles! I also make games, release videos, voice act and lots of other cool things.

Playing Dell’s father (possibly)

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Is the Team Fortress Classic engineer Dell’s father? Personally, I’m unsure. It would be cool to think that missing link between Radigan and Dell Conagher was also a Mann-employed combat engineer, but on the other hand that means Dell is about to fight his father in the coming comics. But even if he’s not related biologically to Dell Conagher, the TFC Engineer is definitely related in gameplay. They are very, very similar. The first thing aspiring TF2 migrants are going to have to terms with is the upgrading process. Here it is: You need to put all 200 metal into… [Continue Reading]

The Civilian:That Which Doesn’t Kill You Probably Missed

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The life of a Civilian is short and terrified. With half as many health points as a Scout (only 50), no armor and the entire enemy team composed entirely of Sniper rifles, the Civilian must be handled with a completely different mindset from any other class. Be paranoid, be timid, and don’t move forward until its very clear that your bodyguards have cleared the next stage of the map out for you. Let me back up a bit, in case you haven’t tried or heard of TFC’s Escort game mode before. Unique in Team Fortress history (at least until MvM… [Continue Reading]

5 Things you Might Not Know were from Team Fortress Classic

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TFC is a simple game, especially compared to its predecessor. Two teams of nine mercenaries grab flags and kill each other, and that’s pretty much it. Contrast that to Team Fortress 2, where I’m hard-pressed to think of anything that hasn’t made it into the game in some fashion. But dig under the surface and there are a couple of things that actually debuted in TFC which you might not know about. Things like: 1) A bunch of popular TF2 maps. This one’s pretty common knowledge, but if you have no experience with TFC you may not know that a… [Continue Reading]

“Demoknight, Thou Shalt Not Increase Thine Turn Radius”

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The balancing eyes of Valve, having recently fixed the first of two ways to increase your shield charge degree, have now gone ahead and nerfed out the ability to bypass the restriction with a controller too. This means that there is no way whatsoever to increase your turning radius beyond equipping the Ali Baba’s Wee Booties, and even then I cannot notice a difference with those things on. This has basically removed what little skill indexing Demoknight has. Many people (myself included) never saw why increased turning ability was somehow overpowered, considering you’re giving up the ludicrously powerful Sticky Launcher… [Continue Reading]

Eyelander Eyestravaganza results!

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Eyelander Eyestravaganza has ended, and everyone had a blast! Ultimately, AdolfKirby took first, VenomousPastry took second, and Lord Yimzo took third! There were a LOT of heads rolling around in the end, and a number of people had moments of glory as a single beheading granted them 100+ heads in one go. The much-hypothesized event map turned out to be Turbine, which gave all of us a chance to try out Valve’s optimizing patches. Of special note is the little cart that allows anyone to reach that medium healthpack hiding on that ledge near the flag spawns, thousands of players… [Continue Reading]

Eyelander Eyestravaganza!

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================IMPORTANT INFO================ Where: The SPUF server When: Saturday 7:30 pm GMT =============================================== As you may have noticed, Demoknight recently received a painful blow in the mobility department. In honor of our fallen friend, the SPUF server is having a hack-n-slashathon starring everyone’s favorite haunted sword! RULES 1. Everyone who joins the server must play Demoman. It’s first-come-first-serve. 2. Map is a secret. Time is exactly 25 hours from the moment I posted this announcement, at 7:30pm GMT. 3. The only allowed weapons are Ali Baba’s Wee Booties, Bootlegger, Chargin’ Targe, Sticky Jumper, Eyelander, Nessie’s Nine Iron, and Haunted Headless Horsemann’s… [Continue Reading]

Playing the Sniper Rifle in Team Fortress Classic

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Aabicus, don’t you mean “Playing the Sniper”? No, I mean playing the sniper rifle. Because that is your job. Your life. That gun is a battlefield-stomping menace that boasts more flexibility and versatility than anything in Team Fortress 2. I know you think you’ve fought sniper rifles in TF2, but you haven’t fought a gun that can: *Charge and headshot from the hip *Charge-up damage infinitely *deal slowdown on bodyshot that never goes away (unless healed by a medic) *Deal knockback to friendlies, leading to the comical-looking but super useful “Sniper Jumping” technique *Gib on fully-charged headshot But believe it… [Continue Reading]

A Tale of Two Communities

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Lately, SPUF has gotten a bit cabin-feverish, and I can’t say I blame them. The anger seems to be directed at Valve’s repeated promises of “great stuff on the horizon!” and the actuality of the extreme drought of new content for TF2. Recently, even the throwaway crap such as blog posts, cosmetics, and localization-file-only updates have dried up. I can understand why SPUF is upset. But I disagree with how a large amount of this anger seems to be directed at Dota 2, Valve’s newest cash cow and spearhead of the MOBA genre that is clearly getting the lion’s share… [Continue Reading]

Advice for Playing Greg

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In honor of the newest comic revealing the name of the TFC Demoman, I thought I’d take this opportunity to write a guide on how to play him if you ever feel the need to give TFC a try and just embrace the grenades. Greg has so many explosive toys to play with I doubt you’ll even get a chance to try them all out in your first life before your uterus is wrapped around a tree at least ten yards away from your death’s epicenter. Just like in TF2, I main Medic and offclass Demoman,  so I’m significantly less… [Continue Reading]

Mad Metal

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  Welcome to today’s episode of Mad Metal! As always, I’m your host aabicus. Other blog posts are trying to be your friend, but THIS one only wants to save you metal. First on the agenda: botkillers. Yes, those chrome-packing strange reskins make another appearance on this program, as well as all over the place on the battlefield. I’m sure you’ve seen ’em as much as I have, dear viewers; every loadout from the Adam Smiths to the Ned Ludds have gold, diamond, and blood robo-heads waving around everywhere like the Dow Jones on a Friday night. MvM-farming and their… [Continue Reading]