analysis – Page 9 – The Daily SPUF

Game Design: Differentiating Your Baddies

June 4, 2015January 15, 2017 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, design, killing floor, l4d, Left 4 Dead 2, non-tf2, On Shooters

First-Person Shooters do a great job of naming all the guns. Whether borrowing real-world names like “M14” in the name of accuracy, generic names like “sawed-off-shotgun” in the name of clarity, or custom names like “Klobb” in the name of uniqueness, I can’t think of a single instance where I was disappointed in the dev’s firearm naming efforts. But this satisfaction does not always transfer to their naming of the things being shot. In a way, I think it’s almost more important that the bad guy units in a shooter be given decent names, especially if the devs are hoping a… [Continue Reading]

Featured

Why I love the pistol so much?

June 2, 2015 sham1 0 Comments analysis, engineer, pistol, scout, sham1, weapon

So yeah, it is me writing an article for once. Well, now I am going to tell you why the pistol in TF2 is one of my favorite weapons in the whole game. 1. It is reliable One of the first things that can be noticed off of this thing is that it is very reliable. No matter if you are Scout or Engineer, you can get a lot of mileage out of this thing (the only problem regarding pistol for Engineer is not that it is bad but that it it overshadowed by many non-pistol side-grades such as the… [Continue Reading]

Featured The Competitive Corner

Conundrums of Philosophy

May 29, 2015 Gamemaster1379 0 Comments A very nicely written article, analysis, competitive, engineer, Highlander, meta

Crossposted from Steamcommunity guides For some time now I have played competitive TF2; primarily Engineer in Highlander. Not usually being on the front line has given me time to think, and time to observe the front lines. And now, I would like to share a few of those observations and beliefs. But, before I do, a quick clarification. This article is not meant to be an authority opinion on competitive play, but rather just an enthusiast. I seek to enlighten, not inform. This article is full of my perspective and opinion. Objectively speaking, none of it is right, nor is… [Continue Reading]

Featured

How to understand your Medic

May 15, 2015 Medic 0 Comments advice, analysis, class, guide, heavy, help, medic, pyro, strategy

Occasionally, a really good SPUF thread will pop up out of the blue. It’s up to us to keep these threads safe. One such thread is Understanding Your Medic by chibi_charon. While the thread covers the basics incredibly well, I felt it was worth expanding this concept a bit, especially since the thread is two years old. Although little has happened in that time, it’s always good to refresh people’s minds. Because I’m a sucker for homages, let’s stick to the question and answer thing. Here’s a bunch of ways to better understand your Medic buddies. Q. Why is my… [Continue Reading]

Featured

On Blood

May 12, 2015January 15, 2017 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, gameplay, history, On Shooters

Ah, blood. If guns are the protagonists of the first-person genre, blood is the deuteragonist, the damsel-in-distress the player needs to liberate from his opponent’s bodies. It’s a character like any other, a liquid life-force with a relationship to both the player and the world around him. The shooter genre seems almost unhealthily obsessed with it. As this mini-documentary covers in great detail, gore has been a cornerstone of gaming for decades, harking almost back to the beginning: But in this article I’m actually more interested in blood as a game mechanic. Because blood is often more than just a… [Continue Reading]

Featured

TF2 is not dying, but its spirit is tired…

May 8, 2015 Medic 0 Comments analysis, criticism, ded, theory

Team Fortress 2 isn’t dying. It has had its ups and downs, but there’s still people playing this game and it’s still up there on Steam’s top ten played games. The game still works for the most part. It’s not dying at all. There are issues though. The problem is deeper than simply a game taking its last breaths. The spirit of Team Fortress 2 is ill. What do I mean by spirit? I mean the population of TF2. Its blood and mind. The community. The middle of the road people. People like you and me. Team Fortress 2 owes… [Continue Reading]

Featured

People need guidance…

May 4, 2015 Medic 0 Comments analysis, guide, help, newbie, soldier, suggestion, tutorial

People are stupid. We’re mindless drones who will do whatever the man tells us, unless it’s something dumb like telling someone to eat their own vomit. Most people will probably not go that far. But yes, people desperately need direction, because they’re often too dumb to work things out. It’s almost certainly the case in TF2. Like every other Free To Play game out there, Team Fortress 2 has its fair share of blatant idiots who refuse to learn. It also has a lot of geuine newbies who have no idea what they’re doing, because they are, in fact, new… [Continue Reading]

Featured

Cops & Zombies 7: Melee

April 29, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, Cops & Zombies, guide, melee

And we’ve reached the last article in my Cops & Zombies series! Can I just say this was a wonderful night, and I enjoyed breaking my previous record for Most Articles Written in a Single Sitting. For the record, thanks to this video playing in the background the whole time, it appears I averaged two articles an hour. This is actually the eighth article in my seven-part series, because I’m awesome at counting like that. But I’d be remiss to end the series before talking about melee combat, one of the most exhilarating if also understated attacks in both games.… [Continue Reading]

Featured

Cops & Zombies 6: Pistols

April 28, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, Cops & Zombies, guide, weapon

Both games hold a certain reverence for pistols. It’s the first gun you’ll be seeing your character wield in the campaign/heist, it gets its own weapon slot, and it’s the only gun you can use while in bleedout. An emergency weapon through and through, no other gun is as certain to make an appearance in a given playthrough. Left 4 Dead‘s starter pistol, the M1911, is the only gun that didn’t migrate into the new game, its role instead being filled by the P220. A halfway-decent pistol with a respectable rate of fire and damage output, it can be dual-wielded at… [Continue Reading]

Featured

Cops & Zombies 5: Special weapons

April 27, 2015April 5, 2018 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, Cops & Zombies, guide, weapon

Left 4 Dead 2 has two weapons that don’t fall into the basic tiers: the M60 and the Grenade Launcher. Both guns have counterparts in Payday:The Heist and it’s honestly more for the second game that I’m writing this article. Let’s do the more obvious outlier first. The M79 Grenade Launcher is an oddity in both games; the only projectile weapon, the only explosive weapon and the only weapon almost impossible to main because it has severe ammo issues. It’s difficult to give recommendations on using it in Left 4 Dead 2 because it’s an unwieldy thing full of downsides. Your teammates won’t… [Continue Reading]