Meet your Match update – Called it.

I fucking called it. See, I said it in this article. Unless the ‘Neato’ update comes in the middle of next week (which, knowing my luck, it will), all of next week’s articles will be a bit different in some way. Anyway, yes, competitive has been released, unranked gameplay is no longer the casual slogfest it used to be and copies Overwatch and every other matchmaking system, at least on Valve servers, Pass Time is out of beta and OMG WHAT THE FUCK THEY FINALLY MADE SUNSHINE OFFICIAL OMG FUCKING FINALLY. There’s also Metalworks and Swiftwater, two major competitive maps… [Continue Reading]

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It all dies in the end…

When was the last time you played something other than Payload, Attack/Defend, Capture the Flag, King of the Hill or Control Points? Was it a while go? Probably. You might not have touched some of the letter game modes in years. Not that I blame you, there’s a lot of excitement right now for matchmaking, everyone’s all geared up for it. The chosen maps are mostly 5CP, with the odd other random map thrown in. Apparently Viaduct is in there somewhere. I like Viaduct, always been a fan of King of the Hill. Normal Viaduct isn’t the greatest map, the… [Continue Reading]

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Why Does CSGO Purge Perfectly Good Content?

Coming from TF2 and into CSGO, this question has been jarring me a lot. A couple months ago the Operation Wildfire pass went live, bringing some new maps into Valve’s most successful shooter and letting everyone enjoy the work of several community mapmakers. While only Cruise really left a lasting impact on me personally, I still appreciate new content, but it did cause me to wonder what was going to happen to the maps once the Operation ends in a week. So I checked it out and learned that Valve traditionally deletes all the maps from an Operation once it’s over.… [Continue Reading]

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All aboard! …or not

As I wrote before, Left 4 Dead 2 and Payday the Heist are very similar games in a number of ways. From the obvious ones like weapon preference, gameplay style, and even the template for the map-specific movie posters, these games are so heavily intertwined they almost feel like they could be part of the same franchise. But of all the unexpected coincidences, there’s one that stands out the most to me because it makes me doubly sad: both have a cancelled cruise ship map. In 2011, Kotaku covered a series of prototype Left 4 Dead 2 posters, made before the devs decided to… [Continue Reading]

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Windows in TF2

No, not that Windows. I’m talking about the ones that even Mac and Linux players have to deal with. Many maps in TF2 feature glass windows, which surprisingly are something of a new feature for the TF series. Going back into Team Fortress Classic, I can’t find any examples in official maps of transparent screens allowing the user to look but not interact with further parts of the map. They were consciously included in TF2’s design, as the Gravelpit developer commentary explains: “Height is a useful feature when designing defensible buildings. For instance, the cap B building needs to be defended from… [Continue Reading]

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Sniper and The Stealth Buff Nobody Spoke Of

Recently-ish on SPUF, having no more need to complain about the now bus-sized mini sentry, and arguing random crits to the death, we’ve come back to one of the classes that has been complained about throughout the ages, from the earliest days of first person shooting, all the way through the rail pad on q3dm17 (also known as the longest yard) to these modern days, where one will instant kill you with a quickscope, often through 8 walls: The marmite-like sniper. You either play sniper, or you hate them, and even if you’re in the first category, they’re still annoying.… [Continue Reading]

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Landfall: The Newest CTF Map

The new maps in Tough Break feel super generic, but they’re at least very well made. And after the oddity of themes like aliens, halloween and PASS Time, maybe its good for TF2 to take a step back and support some tried-and-true game modes with new gimmick-free maps. Nevertheless I’m surprised to find myself liking ctf_landfall as much as I do. It’s Capture the Flag after all, a legendarily poorly-designed game mode. But somehow, Landfall does a really good job of balancing the concept and avoiding perpetual stalemates. The map has a wonderful three-dimensional design with two designated layers of… [Continue Reading]

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Here’s to 2015

It hasn’t been a great year for Team Fortress 2. Not a bad year either, but definitely not a great year. Not even a good one, to be honest. And with SPUF currently not working very well, I’m not exactly a happy little Medic. Actually, I’m a sad little Medic who’s considering going and getting a beer right now. I don’t even drink. I have hated 2015, for many reasons. But this article’s about 2015 and TF2, not my life. The first half of the year was devoid of life. Nothing at all of interest happened until half way through… [Continue Reading]

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A late look at pass_pinewood

I have had a hell of a time finding a decent game of PASS Time recently. There’s currently a bug that allows a single player to crash a Pass Time server, and Valve’s tardiness at fixing this bug is causing the playerbase for this game mode to wither and die. The few times I’ve succeeded, the map either changed immediately to pass_warehouse or somehow was already on pass_warehouse despite what the server browser would have you believe. It is genuinely possible that people just can’t wrap their head around pinewood, because it’s a more advanced map for sure. It takes… [Continue Reading]

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Crimefest burns on…

Welp, Crimefest, the yearly big, free, 10-day update for Payday 2, is trundling along, and still on fire. Considering all the grinding that’s gone on, the first four days of Crimefest have pretty much crashed and burned. While Day 2 brought in a bunch of masks and Day 1 brought in crates and cosmetics that affect gameplay, things have quickly gone rather quiet on the Payday front. Day 3 introduced the Aftershock Heist, set in the middle of an earthquake. If you’re thinking of the film 2012 or San Andreas, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. From gameplay… [Continue Reading]

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