The Daily SPUF – Page 333 – Brand new video game articles, every day!

Looking for a new leash on life

October 6, 2015 Medic 1 Comment cheer, class, hope

I’ve been Medic for a long time. A very long time. So long in fact that I’ve become disillusioned with the class. I have more hours as Medic than any other class, perhaps more than all 8 other classes combined. I’ve also come to some rather big conclusions as well. It’s time for me to move on, I think. Thing is, Medic is actually a really easy class to play as. All those claims that Medic as a class was overpowered? They’re completely, 100% true. But Medic NEEDS to be overpowered and simple to play, otherwise no one plays as… [Continue Reading]

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Randomness in Video Games

October 5, 2015 Gyoku 4 Comments 100% Orange Juice, analysis, random, random crits

One of the most controversial topics in Team Fortress 2 is that of its random elements, particularly of random critical hits, though random spread was another area of contention for quite some time. Why do so many Team Fortress players think that randomness is an unacceptable part of the game? It may help to look at other games to gain some perspective. In Magic: the Gathering cards like Mana Clash are reviled for introducing random coin flip elements into the game. More infamously, the Star Wars: TCG by Wizards (not to be confused with the Star Wars: CCG by Decipher)… [Continue Reading]

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A really simple way to fix class classification.

October 4, 2015 Medic 0 Comments balance, class, idea, opinion, roles, suggestion

Everything is argued about and scrutinized in Team Fortress 2. Whether it’s new hats, new weapons, new maps, old maps, old weapons, old hats or the classes themselves, they get picked over by us ravenous bastards. Even how the classes are classified and laid out is a problem to some people. There is actually a genuine argument to be had with class classification. Does each class actually fit in its given classification? Most wouldn’t really give it more than a passing thought, but there are issues with the current classification system. Let’s take Demoman as an example. Like Heavy and… [Continue Reading]

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On Left 4 Dead and how it was all ported over

October 3, 2015 Medic 0 Comments criticism, l4d, left 4 dead, non-tf2, sequel, zombie

There’s something about the original Left 4 Dead game, how it still feels better than Left 4 Dead 2. But this isn’t like the feeling aabicus has with Payday 1 and 2, or Team Fortress Classic and Team Fortress 2, this is something different. The games I just mentioned, the sequels are, well, completely different. Payday 2 gets rid of old Hoxton and replaces him temporarily until you unlock the old version by saving him and is basically a whole new game, focusing more on the constant expansions than one little thing. The differences between Team Fortress Classic and Team… [Continue Reading]

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The Future of TF2

October 2, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments community, competitive

How’s that for a clickbait title! Let’s commit clickbait suicide and optimistically answer the question right off the bat: Yes, TF2 definitely has a future. Valve has mentioned more than enough pokers in that fire, whether that future is competitive matchmaking, community updates, or something else. I just don’t think it’s going to be the same as what we’ve been getting up to now. It’s not hard to see Valve themselves is updating TF2 less and less. Looking at the history of major updates reveals a parabolic arc where 2011 was the heyday and down the line we get less every year. Valve’s… [Continue Reading]

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Dress Up Time!

October 1, 2015 Medic 0 Comments cosmetics, costume, fun, real life

The Team Fortress 2 characters are among the most common seen at gaming or comic conventions, unless you happen to live in Cyprus, where they’re practically non-existent. Scouts run rampant and Spies have been seen infiltrating any dressing up convention they can find, particularly furry ones. Unfortunately for me, opportunities to dress up are few and far between, so I end up dressing up to bake cakes and things. That being said, I’ve got a couple of TF2 costumes at my disposal. But why are TF2 characters so common? Well the obvious reason is because they’re all, to a one,… [Continue Reading]

Community Announcements Featured

The Gun Mettle Update’s End is Upon Us

September 30, 2015 Medic 0 Comments announcement, criticism, gun mettle, opinion, thoughts

So I was idly chatting with Davjo about spaghetti and games yesterday when he mentioned that the current campaigns in CS:GO (Operation: Bloodhound) and Team Fortress 2 (Gun Mettle Campaign) are coming to an end today. This actually caught me by surprise. Had it really been that long? It certainly didn’t feel that long. Has it really been so long since the Vaccinator was made shit again? Clearly so. I’d ignored the whole damn event. A dear friend gifted me a middling Medi Gun, which was lovely of him, but I refused to shell out €6 for a campaign pass… [Continue Reading]

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Mixed up Valve Timelines and You

September 29, 2015 Medic 0 Comments analysis, fun, history, idea, lore, opinion, story, suggestion

Valve are known for their strange, confusing story telling, with mixed up, confusing timelines. The question that has bothered many is whether our favourite first person shooter series is connected to the other popular first person shooter, the fps storytelling cliff hanger, the puzzle game and the zombie survival game. Are Valve’s games all connected to one another? Sadly, right off the bat, the world of Team Fortress is not connected. The catch up comic starts in the 1800s, predating really any other game. Unless Dota 2 is set in the past, but the variety of magics and technologies, plus… [Continue Reading]

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Playing with the Creation Kit

September 28, 2015 Medic 0 Comments crash, fun, game, mod, non-tf2, Skyrim

Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of Skyrim. While Medic is still at the Throat of the World contemplating his life and what he should do next (Warning, spoilers – the beginning is here), I’ve been messing around with my second most OP character – Lokmahro, the literal Dragonborn. I say second most overpowered, simply because Medic was really powerful. I didn’t tell you this when I wrote Medic in Skyrim, but I had to redo the Alduin battle because my Syringe Gun killed him in 5 seconds. I wouldn’t mind, I hadn’t even leveled up Archery that much and… [Continue Reading]

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Valve Hype: The Long Game

September 27, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments comics, killstreak, MvM, Strange

Companies have different ways of generating hype. From the dregs of astro-turfing to the apex of ARGs, there are entire industries dedicated to stirring interest in a product and spreading a social media net as far as possible. Valve is in the lucky position of owning a number of long-standing franchises that have years and years of development time invested into them almost entirely in-house, and this lets them splurge on the most niche level of hype: the hidden foreshadowing. Whether intentionally or for testing/convenience’s sake, Valve has a number of cases where they’ve added something into a game that seems innocuous… [Continue Reading]