analysis

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On Fire

aabicus 0 Comments , , , ,

  Flames are weird in video games. In real-life, they’re impossibly debilitating and would make continuing to do anything, much less fighting other people, an excruciating experience. Also, real-life flamethrowers can shoot yards of deadly liquid flames that put every video-game flamethrower to shame. In video games you generally want the players to still be functional and you want flamethrowers to fill the “close-range combat” role, so these aspects of flamethrowers are often toned down. You can read more about it on the TV Tropes page Video Game Flamethrowers Suck. Monolith Production’s Blood was the first game to have afterburn,… [Continue Reading]

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That new Valve blog post.

Medic 1 Comment , , ,

Since we get incredibly long gaps between blog posts, I can still call the recent one about bad weapon ideas new and still be fairly punctual even if the blog post was released a month ago. I suppose we should be thankful about getting a blog post at all, considering what Dota 2 has had recently… Anyway, spite aside, the blog post itself is fairly interesting. It’s nice to see that there’s someone in that office, possibly talking to another person about adding weapons for Team Fortress 2. Then again, I might be completely wrong and there’s just one person… [Continue Reading]

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Featured 

The Pyro should remain a mystery.

Medic 2 Comments , ,

The tagline for the Spy was that he is a riddle wrapped in an enigma, but it turns out we know quite a lot about the Spy. He fancies Scout’s mother and he had a full miniature meal in his teeth. The only thing that we know about the Pyro is that when fire is around, he sees everything as rainbows and candy. We don’t even know if he’ s a he. Actually, I say that, there is some stuff we know about the Pyro. We know it likes puppies and we know that it can actually run a business,… [Continue Reading]

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Medic tries to explain more things…

Medic 0 Comments ,

There’s so much unexplained stuff that it hurts in Team Fortress 2. Alright, it doesn’t really hurt, but for an anal retentive OCD person, it probably does annoy them a bit. Just a bit, mind you. There’s generally more important things to be bothered about, like whether you locked all the doors or whether you turned the gas off. Today, I’m going to actually finish this article because I’ve been writing it on and off for about two months explain a few more things. Mostly taunt-related for some reason. The Medicating Melody Taunt Personally, I rarely find a chance to use the… [Continue Reading]

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On Grenades

aabicus 0 Comments , , , ,

    Let’s cut right to the chase: Grenades were famously removed from Team Fortress 2. Why? I’ll let Adrian Finol of the Hydro Developer Commentary speak for me: One of the main changes between Team Fortress Classic and Team Fortress 2 was the removal of thrown grenades. Most classes could carry a standard hand grenade along with a secondary grenade, tied more closely to the class. Team Fortress 2’s focus on unique class roles led us to notice that the standard hand grenade was a more powerful combat decider than some of the primary weapons. This made the classes… [Continue Reading]

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Poor Unloved TFC Pyro

aabicus 5 Comments , , ,

So what if every weapon in Pyro’s arsenal is rubbish. So what if TFC afterburn deals 2 ticks of damage for 4 ticks, a grand total of EIGHT damage before extinguishing itself. So what if napalm grenades are the only explosive grenades in TFC with lower damage output than regular hand grenades. You know what the pyro has that nobody else has? Personality. TFC Pyro is the only class in the game with idle animations! Occasionally, he’ll sweep his hand lovingly across the top of his flamethrower, or fiddle with the sighting reticule of his Incendiary cannon. He clearly loves… [Continue Reading]

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5 Things you Might Not Know were from Team Fortress Classic

aabicus 1 Comment , , , ,

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]

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Community Announcements The Competitive Corner 

An Engineer’s Guide to Engineering

Gamemaster1379 0 Comments , , , ,

As an Engineer main who has several seasons of competitive under his belt, I am often approached by numerous newcomer Engineer players with various questions such as “What loadout should I use?” or “Where should I build in the map X?”. I would love to say I know all the answers after all my time of playing, but the reality of it is–Engineering is dynamic. It can differ from Engineer to Engineer as well as their playstyle strengths and weaknesses. It can also differ from team support and team dynamics. When it comes down to it, between variables of the… [Continue Reading]

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Second. Worst. Spy. Ever.

Medic 0 Comments ,

Unlike most people who write articles here, I’m very much a one trick pony. I play Medic well, I play Soldier at a mediocre level and that’s pretty much it. Occasionally, I’ll grab a flamethrower or maybe a gunslinger if I’m feeling depressed. So when I’m forced to play a non-Medic, non-Soldier class, I flail like a lunatic. And after Sniper, who I have gone on about way too often, I flail most as Spy. But why? First off, a hint of honesty. I’m normally good at being stealthy and stuff. I sneak my way though Portal, avoiding turrets like… [Continue Reading]

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