The Air Strike – The Mother of All Snowballing

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What happens if you push a snowball down a hill? It gets bigger the further down it goes. In theory. Snowballing is used similarly in video games, particularly the idea that once someone has started getting strong, they get stronger and stronger and stronger. And stronger. Almost to the point where there’s no stopping them. This phenomenon is something most often seen in RTS and MOBA games but snowballing has never really been that big an issue in Team Fortress 2. Enter the Air Strike. A quick look at the stats. In exchange for a much faster firing speed while… [Continue Reading]

For Those New to SPUF (NSFW)

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Like all bodies of humanity, SPUF has developed its quirks, in-jokes, and commonly-referenced events. New users on SPUF might not recognize these, so this quick guide is designed to give them a stepping stone to understanding the insanity a little better. lodsofemone – Referencing some British comedian, stands for “loads of money”. Usually pointed at Valve either after they’ve made a particularly unsubtle money grab, or the hypothetical situation would result in such. “Soldier Update Confirmed” – Poking fun at Valve’s tendency to give soldier way more weapons than anyone else, even on updates named after other classes, anytime the… [Continue Reading]

A couple of useful sites…

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For a change, I thought I’d do something different and sell my soul and advertise a few things point out some useful sites for TF2 players to use. Everyone’s heard about the official Team Fortress 2 Wiki, which I will not shorten to TF2Wiki so you don’t get the wrong idea, but there’s a billion other useful sites around. Today, I’m going to point out four of them. Gamebanana – tf2.gamebanana.com Gamebanana is heaven if you want to customize your game in any way. It’s got the majority of skins, textures and all sorts for pretty much every moddable game in… [Continue Reading]

Theories on TF2’s Crazier bits

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Respawn. That (and the fact that you can have up to 32 of the same merc on the field at once) is the major question that gets most debated by those nutters who care about canon and storyline and those sorts of ridiculous things. You know the type. They’re all over SPUF. “Why is the RED Scout talking about saving Smissmas in the new comic when it was BLU Scout who killed Nicholas Crowder in A Smissmas Tale?” they may ask. Or “Why does the Engineer Update state that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John ‘Tower of Hats’ Booth when the WAR!… [Continue Reading]

Engie’s secret best friend

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Howdy! Today we’re gonna do things “Texas style,” or at least what new players such as myself like to do, which is find as many interesting new weapons as possible and leave our stock loadouts behind. Yeee-haw! Oh… dead again. But I was so sure my Crusader’s Crossbow would do the trick. Now we start again. Since I know Medic quite well, I hear a lot about how it’s bad to just equip new items as soon as you get them. Assuming a new weapon is better than the stock equivalent usually ends in a horrible death and/or ragequit. This… [Continue Reading]

My Favorite TFC Glitches

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Recently I talked about the infinite hand grenade exploit in Team Fortress Classic. Well I thought I could take some time to go over some other awesome bugs that you can toy around with. Some are useful, some are fun, and some are simply bizarre. And no, bunnyhopping is not eligible for this list. Not opening that can of worms. 1) Caltrop-jumping. Thanks to the physics engine, you can jump with a significant supply of caltrops in the same place, as this video shows: This particular mobility tool is unusable any more, due to changes in the programming nature of the… [Continue Reading]

Mod Showcase: Jailbreak

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Welcome to Mod Showcase. I’m Brickinator and today we’ll be discussing Jailbreak, the prison simulator that thankfully omits showertime. Unlike entertaining gamemodes, Jailbreak elects to do away with foolish notions of gameplay and instead dumps you in a server filled with pre-pubescent prison officers and criminals who have been detained for crimes against eardrums. The players are split between two teams; one team are the guards who get weapons and authority complexes. The unlucky sods get to play the hapless prisoners to bow down to the every whim of their overlords. One of the guards is designated as the warden.… [Continue Reading]

Are Unusuals Worth It?

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The scenario is simple. You’ve just acquired your very first unusual. Or maybe it’s your second unusual. Or your third. Whatever. The point is, was it worth all the effort trying to get an unusual hat? Or is it all pointless? Let’s start from the beginning. There are only a few ways in which you can acquire an unusual hat. The first and technically the simplest way is to unbox an unusual, with that one-in-one-hundred chance to get something worth more than the key used to open it. Of course, this is a rare occurrence and it’s the only source… [Continue Reading]

IT’S ALIVE!

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It’s here. I’m late, I know. I think everyone expected the update to be much longer, like 3 days or so, instead of 2 days. Oh well, here’s all the fancy stuff from this update.   Love & War Update Added 5 new weapons, 15 new taunts, and 43 cosmetic items for the Love & War update Partner Taunts can now be performed with the opposing team Added a new Taunt Loadout with 8 slots so multiple taunts can be equipped at the same time Taunts are no longer equipped in the Action Slot Pressing the Taunt key in game… [Continue Reading]

Expiration Date – The longest TF2 short to date

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So, it turns out that we are getting an update. It’s called the Love and War Update and it’s a multiday one, the sort of update we haven’t had in a while! Although, to be fair, this is the first big update we’ve had in a while anyway. The star of the first day of the update though was the 15 minute long (alright, 14 minutes and 59 seconds) Team Fortress short Expiration Date, featuring all our favourite mercenaries and the lovely Miss Pauling. I’ll give you a brief talk over what happened, with some of my own comments, after… [Continue Reading]