aabicus

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

Some Tips for Controlling Your Remote Control Sentry

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So you went ahead and downloaded this mod! But somehow you aren’t good at playing a heavy with a rocket launcher taped to his head? Never fear, this article will give you all the advice you need! Tip 1: Strafe – You don’t have to shoot the gun. It shoots for you. Instead, focus all your energy on moving around. Dodge projectiles. This is seriously the main perk you have over regular sentries. Tip 2: Get a fellow engineer to help out. A man on the front lines repairing is a godsend for a moving sentry. Repair damage, replenish ammo,… [Continue Reading]

January 7th – January 14th

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Whooee…really big week, this one is. Probably because it’s one of the first weeks of the new year, and Valve has returned from their end-of-the-year vacation ready to go fix some bugs. On January 7th, 2008 Valve patched one of the signature glitches exploited by legendary griefers Team Roomba: Jumping into the Well door as it opened let a scout lock the door partially shut, preventing teammates from escaping the spawn room. Here are some highlights from one of their videos: The same time Valve also fixed another Well exploit where Soldiers, Demomen and Engineers could reach the roof in… [Continue Reading]

A Blast From the Scottish Past: Demoknighting

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iReima (Also known as Craylash on SPUF) is a popular Youtuber most well known for his Demoknighting ability. Every time I try to go up against him as any class I quickly wind up beheaded and staring at that Princess Peach spray of his. His most recent video, How to Play the Hybrid Knight, is a great resource for people hoping to go into demoknighting effectively. Today, he’s agreed to answer some questions about life, liberty, and the pursuit of heads. 1. Thanks for agreeing to be interviewed! First and foremost; What attracted you to the Demoknight subclass in the… [Continue Reading]

On Ponies and Mercenaries

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If there’s an aspect of the TF2 Community that our blog has overlooked, its the extremely prolific video-making community. Several notable SPUFers are also Youtubers, and today we’re interviewing someone from the “mashup” community, where TF2 aspects are combined with media from another franchise. 2007excalibur2007 is well known for his “sentence-mixing”; taking TF2 audio and juxtaposing it over visuals from other media, especially the My Little Pony:Friendship Is Magic television show. ————————- Tell us a little about yourself; how you got started, how you got involved in your favorite fandoms, or how you crafted your own image in the mashup… [Continue Reading]

December 30th-January 6th

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Happy New Year everybody! Ever wondered what TF2 does to celebrate the new year? They don’t. Probably because its so close to the big Christmas update, nothing notable has ever happened to celebrate the new year. It is, however, Valve’s first week back which means they often fix notable exploits cause by newly introduced weapons. The first exploit that tragically lost its life this week was on December 31st 2007, When Valve fixed Syringe gun needles dealing harmless knockback to friendlies. This was called ‘needle boosting’ and this incredible-quality video shows it in action: January 3rd, 2011 saw the removal… [Continue Reading]

Some Weapons with Surprising Synergy

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Ever since Valve released the Axtinguisher, weapon combos have become a huge part of Team Fortress 2. From the Sandman/Cleaver to the Jarate/Bushwacka, Valve has released a number of weapons obviously designed to go together, and for that reason they do so very well. But sometimes there are weapons whose synergies are not so obvious, who were clearly built for widely different roles, and yet somehow they can combine to create a lethal combo to the keen player who can see untapped potential. Here are a few I’ve discovered throughout the years. 1. Beggars Bazooka / Righteous Bison The Beggar’s… [Continue Reading]

December 23rd-29th

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This week is our sparsest yet, and we can almost definitely chalk this up to it coinciding with Valve’s traditional vacation time at the end of the year. Since 2007, there have only been 2 updates during this week: The first, December 23rd 2010, has some interesting things. The Crusader’s Crossbow got its textures updated, and Valve revealed the stats to the Quick-Fix for the first time. This update also turned on double-drop week, the first of three times this has ever happened. This update also contained a cryptic change: “Added strings related to the Gadget Token to tf_english.txt.” We… [Continue Reading]

Advanced Doomsday Strats (and some glitches)

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Since my last article on sd_doomsday, I’ve played the map a lot more, and learned a lot more about how to maximize your presence and worth on the battlefield. I’ve also learned a couple of glitches with the map, and since I don’t have enough of either to justify its own article, today we’re killing two monkeys with one stone. Strat 1- Best rollout: This is, in my opinion, the most optimal way a single player can spend the opening minute of the round to help his team: sticky-jumping over to the enemy intel door and controlling it before they… [Continue Reading]

December 15th-December 22nd

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If you want to pick a single week to play TF2 every year, this is the week. Huge updates almost every year. Our oldest landmark patch yet sneaks in this timeframe; the last patch of the original Quake Team Fortress (which had moved over to QuakeWorld at this point) was released in December 22, 1996. Have you wondered why some friendly soldiers and demomen will start shooting themselves while you heal them during setup time? Obviously in regular play this can help you build Uber, but the Uber rate cut at >142.5% doesn’t apply to setup times, right? Well, it… [Continue Reading]