Why I’m Not Bothered By The New Medigun-Dropping Mechanic

The reaction to the new Gun Mettle Update has been refreshingly positive. Sure, a lot of people think the new skins look stupid and dislike how they’re blatantly ripped from another game, but the day I lose sleep over a cosmetic mini-game is the day I re-evaluate my life. The part of the update that mattered was all those delicious weapon tweaks. Pretty much every commonly-complained about weapon got hit with at least a minor adjustment, and a few new weapons are now seeing use in new and unheard-of ways. Two other points of contention involve what this contract system… [Continue Reading]

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TF2vOW: Scout versus Tracer

Welcome to the first-ever edition of the “TEAM FORTRESS 2 VERSUS OVERWATCH” series.  Inspired by the ongoing flamewars between the two fandoms and Screwattacks own “Death Battle” series on Youtube, TF2 vs OW is where I theoretically pit one or more of your favorite TF2 classes against their counterparts from Blizzard’s upcoming TF2 rip-off (and revenge for Valve stealing DOTA): Overwatch! We’re probably never going to be able to see this in this reality, so doing it here will be the next best thing!  I will try to go through each characters weapons and abilities as objectively as possible in order to decide who would win… [Continue Reading]

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Medic Speculates Again

I’ll be frank here, I’m a little obsessed with the TF Comic series. I really like most of it. I was not a fan of how Sniper ended up as a badly written Superman parody, since his now foster parents were REALLY nice people based on the humans in Courage the Cowardly Dog. I miss that show. But for the longest of time, there has been a lot of silence and speculation based on whatever’s happened in the past. Now we have a few more tidbits coming to light, such as an actual possible release date for issue 5. Come… [Continue Reading]

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TF2 is not dying, but its spirit is tired…

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]

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Saxton Hale – The Tenth Class

Preface You know, after all this time, I would have thought someone would have been able to come up with a legitimate class description for the one and only Saxton Hale.  I’ve searched the SPUF archives,  and while there are some interesting ideas for non–core TF2, as far as I know, there is no actual proposal for Saxton Hale to join the Nine on the battlefield! This cannot continue.  Every day I ask myself: “What Would Saxton Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-(breath)-Aaaaaaaaaale Do? (WWSHaaaaaD?)” and while the answer is usually “Grow a Moustache, you hippy!” today the answer to that question is “Try to Make Saxton Hale a Balanced Class in Team Fortress… [Continue Reading]

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Respawn Theories

In Team Fortress 2, unless you’re playing Arena mode, you respawn when you die. Respawning is a common thing in video games. Often it’s hand-waved as part of the game, you just do. It’s either that or having a limited number of lives, showing a Game Over screen when you lose them all. Some games manage to explain respawning after death pretty well – the first and second Bioshock games have vita-chambers from which you can respawn and can be turned off for Super Hard Mode; and Borderlands basically charges you money, the whole thing being a paid service to… [Continue Reading]

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Medic weapons are all strangely overpowered…

When someone says ‘ balanced weapons’, people always have the habit of turning to us Medics and our rather small inventory. Four Medi Guns, four syringe-shooting weapons and five limb-destroying melee weapons. People say to us that our weapons are all fine and dandy, the only bad syringe gun is the Blutsauger, since it promotes Battle-Medicing, and the Bonesaw, which is useless. But hang on a second. The most useless Medic weapon is the stock melee one? I thought we were supposed to be balanced? This thought made me look deeper into Medic weaponry. And deeper, and deeper. I quickly… [Continue Reading]

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Grappling Hooks would be balanced in Medieval Mode

Grappling hooks would be balanced in Medieval Mode. Seriously. Alright, why are we discussing this? Why bother considering balance in a stupid game mode? Why bother discussing Medieval Mode at all? Because 1. it’s fun and 2. it’s currently a very one-sided game mode because the only classes with mobility are Scout and Demoman, and the only classes with range are Medic and Sniper. Of course, Medieval Mode’s one single official map doesn’t help. It has giant walls. Really high walls. The RED team are locked up safe inside until they venture outside, and once they do, there’s no way… [Continue Reading]

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Return of the Beta

So 2014 was the year of the Beta. Or at least the return of the Beta. What Beta you ask? The Team Fortress 2 Beta. The birthplace of the Detonator. The testing grounds of the Overdose. That really weird thing that everyone ignored. Well, part of it is back. Interesting things lie ahead. The TF2 Beta though died a long time ago. I have a screenshot of its one year death day somewhere. But the reasons it died were relatively clear. Instead of being part of TF2, you had to download another 12GB of TF2 Beta, most of which sat… [Continue Reading]

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Why I’m not sure 4v4 works

4v4 is the third or fourth version of TF2 competitive, after 6v6, Highlander and, whether you consider it or not, Ultiduo. Thing is, it doesn’t quite work. Or at least, I feel that it doesn’t quite work. Alright, I am by no means an expert, I’ve only played a couple of matches, but since I am a somewhat intelligent person, I quickly saw the flaws in what I played. Before we start, there are a LOT of positive things behind 4v4. It is much easier to organize eight people over sixteen or eighteen people, and getting them into a server… [Continue Reading]

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