Hey there TF2 Fans!

I’m back with a new masterpiece. A followup of the Heavy pinup, The SCOUT!

The Scout Pinup

Yo yo gamers!

I recently picked up the Orange Box cuz a friend asked me to join their team, and also because i was itching to see what it loks like after seing a couple of clips. Well i love it ! I love that cartoony graphic ..

So the other day i was browsing Deviant art and i sumble on a pic (not a very good one) of a pinup of the Spy and that got me thinking … i should dust off the old drawing skills …

This is what i came up with .. A Heavy Pinup with an added tattoo of his beloved chaingun Natasha

Heavy Pinup by Chani

1024×768 wallaper size for yer desktops.

Nada que ver pero se ve chingona esta torre

Un hombre llamado Randy Pitchford que no es otro que el CEO de Gearbox a comentado lo siguiente para la revista OPM (Oficial Playstation Magazine) criticando la postura de de Doug Lombardy (miembro de Valve) hacia la programacion de PS3.

“I read it the same way I read fanboys,” he added. “Like there’s a guy who bought the Sony platform and he’s a Sony guy, so he decides he’s going to spend a certain percentage of his time bashing Microsoft. And there’s a guy on Microsoft doing the same thing. Those guys are childish and narrow minded; It’s the same kind of thing.”

Que traduccido vendria a decir mas o menos esto:

“Leo las declaraciones que hace Lombardy (Doug Lombardy de Valve) del mismo modo que leo a los fanboys. Es como el típico crío que se compra una plataforma de Sony y pasa a ser un Chico Sony, así que decide gastar cierto porcentaje de su tiempo insultando y desprestigiando a Microsoft. Y luego está el chico Microsoft haciendo lo mismo con Sony estos chicos son infantiles y cerrados de mente; con Valve pasa lo mismo.”

Tambien critico lo sucedido con la version de PS3 de orange Box (que es notablemente inferior a la version de 360 ) y el poco soporte que valve dio al juego “team fortress 2″ en su version de PS3 (donde el online es una verdadera basura) ya que hasta la fecha no cuenta con ninguna actualizacion.

Creo que definitivamente el dinero manda ya que segun las declaraciones de que en PS3 es mas complicado programar y cosas asi es una estupidez ya que esta demostrado que muchas compañias (un ejemplo es borderlands o incluso Batman Arkham Asylum) pueden hacer juegos multiplataforma con la misma calidad grafica en cada consola.

Pero bueno ustedes que opinan overdrivers ¿se les atravezo un billete a estos de valve o son el sequito del tio bill?

Ai Valve… O quanto nós te amamos (suspiro).

Agora com a Pre-Order do Left 4 Dead 2 na Steam a Valve oferece-nos o chapéu do Bill (do primeiro L4D) para o Team Fortress 2, não esquecendo o desconto de 10% na pre-order.
Aqui fica o “poster” do anuncio.

by: ACTI.

По случай Хелоуин, Valve пуснаха поредната смазваща оферта за “Team Fortress 2“! Без излишни увъртания, в момента, TF2 струва само 2,49€ което както и да го погледнеш си е има няма 5 лева. Ако не си бях купил играта много отдавна, сега щях да си я купя със сигурност!

Отново по случай Хелоуин, в играта има нови шапки и няколко много специални ачийвмънта. Абе на това му казвам на далавера!
Всичко което ви интересува по-темата, може да бъде намерено тук – store.steampowered.com

UPDATE: Жалко… офертата свърши Който купил, купил.

One of my friends asked me last night if I was going to trade in Halo 3: ODST now that I had the 1000 in it. He was saying it gets something like $35, which is pretty good considering we ended up getting it for around that (or even less) when it first came out. In the past, I used to trade in practically any game I got all the Achievements I wanted in and moved onto the next game in my queue.

Over just this past year alone, I’ve started winding down on my gaming tendencies (yes, it’s hard to believe but I’m less hardcore today than I was years ago), and actually started missing games I had gotten rid of. So I started rebuying games that I knew I would want to replay again at some point, just for fun. Looking at my 360 collection today, I’ve realized that more than half of the games I currently own I’ve sold and reacquired.

Nowadays, I’ve decided that no matter how good of a deal it is to trade in/sell a game that I enjoyed, I won’t get rid of it since the amount of work it takes to reaquire the game just doesn’t make up for the nice little “deal” I got when I sold it. What majorly sucks is that several of the games I end up wanting to reacquire turn into Platinum Hits titles, and I hate that design. Therefore, I’m forced to scour used game bins or find people online to buy from that can get me non-platinum hits versions that are not all scratched like crazy. I feel like I’m in some sort of game rebuying netherworld where I’m paying for my mistakes. I owned these games in mint condition and now I’m spending time trying to track these same games down that will no way be in as good condition as when I owned them. Why couldn’t I just have been happy with my original copies and not sell them in the first place?

Currently, I’ve been spending the last few weeks trying to rebuy the following games:

Mass Effect – I actually want to replay through this before playing the sequel coming out early next year, but the tough part is of course finding a non-platinum hits version in great condition.

Assassin’s Creed – Like Mass Effect, I do want to play this game again before the sequel releases next month but have to find a non-platinum hits version in great condition.

Fable 2 – Platinum hits was announced to be released in January, so I still have time to reacquire this game and I know I will want to play through it again before Fable 3 releases.

The Orange Box – I actually have cravings from time to time to play Team Fortress 2, and while I own it on the PC, people on the PC are too hardcore (clans and whatnot) so I just want to play it casually with my 360 controller. Plus, I figure I will want to play Portal again from time to time.

Once I successfully repick up these titles, I’ll only have a few left to go. Good thing I didn’t sell Halo Wars since I do have cravings to play that game too. In any case, that’s my simple warning to you – if you feel like at some point you may want to replay a game (just because it was amazing, you’ll miss it, or a future sequel gets you to want to replay its predecessor, etc.), consider holding onto it. I want to spare you this ordeal that I’m going through today…

Valve is a bit of an enigma in the PC gaming industry.  As developers, their track record is nearly flawless, they created Steam, the most important method of game distribution on the PC, and through Steam, they have become uniquely able to profit off their competitors’ products.

And they’re beginning to piss me off.

It began in February 2006, when Valve announced  that they would be hopping on the episodic gaming bandwagon.  My anger wasn’t targeted at Valve specifically, but toward the idea of episodic content that was being pushed by Valve, Telltale, and the guys behind Penny Arcade Adventures and Sin Episodes (yes, I know they’re different devs).  I continue to maintain that episodic content wrings consumers out of more money than they’d be paying for a full game.  Three Half-Life 2 episodes, for example, cost $60, excluding the tax on three different games, as opposed to $50 for a game of around the same length as the episodes.

As if this weren’t irritating enough, Valve has completely botched the concept.  Episodes were meant to be released every 6 months to a year – already a long time for about 6 hours of gaming – but Valve has lengthened that cycle.  Episode 2 came out a year and four months after Episode 1, in October 2007, and as of today, it’s been just over two years since the release of Episode 2.  Episode 3 is predicted to come out in 2010, but by the time of its release, it will have been (HOPEFULLY) two and a half years since Episode 2.  Stellar.

Left 4 Dead left a sour taste in the mouths of many people.  It was one of the most highly-anticipated games of the year, but given its function as mainly a multiplayer game, it fell ever so slightly on its face.  Though the included campaigns were long, the depressingly low number included resulted in the game getting very old, very fast.  Of course, gamers were promised DLC to a degree similar to that of Team Fortress 2, so no one complained too much.

The server browser on the PC side was also a significant flaw.  PC gamers have long been used to a server browser displaying a vast list of different games to choose from.  In Left 4 Dead, Valve (or Turtle Rock, depending on how you want to look at it), incorporating the same matchmaking system used on consoles.  Players could join games their friends were in, but not create private servers or selectively pick a game.  Dedicated servers were also a no-no.

Insult to injury was given when Valve announced Left 4 Dead 2, which will be coming out around a month after this is posted.  It will be coming out only a year after Left 4 Dead, a game which, had it been given the DLC treatment it was promised, would still have a vibrant multiplayer scene.  Instead, in the year it’s been out, Left 4 Dead has seen one addition: a campaign half the length of the ones included in the release copy.  Apparently, the devs deemed it a better investment to work on a second Left 4 Dead than to add that content to the original, as was arguably promised.

I call bullshit on the entire thing.  Valve outright lied to consumers, and in the vein of the Call of Duty franchise, is cashing on an what is looking to be an annual series (something else I have a problem with, but that’s another post entirely).  Activision, however, for all its flaws, did not lie to consumers about the content of its games – which stand on their own as completed titles - nor did they make any secret about the yearly release plan with which Valve blindsided consumers.

That’s not to write off their accomplishments, of course.  Every game with Half-Life in the name has ranged from definitely worth playing to amazing, The Orange Box was a spectacular deal containing only amazing games, and TF2 has received free content updates since it came out.  On the whole, though, in the past few years Valve has adopted the greedy, money-grubbing corporate policies one might expect from Activision or EA, and it’s a lamentable turn of events.

Until I can get some new content out (it is hard to do whilst being 4800 miles away from home), here is the article that I wrote that got me the gig to do some writing for ubercharged.net.

According to the server tracking site ‘Game Monitor’, at the moment of writing this there are sixty-nine Team Fortress 2 servers that all have something special in common. What might that be? Well, these servers are the aftermath from the result of an ill-thought out reward system from Valve in order to fix an ever lingering problem that has plagued the community for many months. Valve have gone on record several times and have said that the biggest amount of negative feedback received from players regarding class packs are achievements tied to items and have looked to change it. However, this has opened the floodgates to an entirely different type of Team Fortress player. This has opened the floodgates to an entirely different type of Team Fortress server. I am talking, of course, about a certain type of server specifically made to mess up your stats and to give everyone around thirty million Force-A-Natures in the process. All of these sixty-nine Team Fortress 2 servers that I have been talking about are running some sort of derivative of an idle map (whether it be achievement_idle, or something similar). Idling seems to have come out of nowhere and has split the Team Fortress 2 community into two factions; a good analogy for this would be the “Heals for Halos” controversy that is still happening on servers to this day. I often see people (read: ignorant) still calling Halo wearers “Halo F**s”. This is interesting as there was not half as much controversy with the Gentle Manne fiasco that happened with the Classless Update, and I feel that this was more unfair than the halo system; this could be because I have seen NO ONE wearing a service medal since they were given out.

I could go on about the ethics of idling, but luckily I don’t have to. Go to Google or the Wayback Machine, wind the Steam Powered forums back around two weeks and you can read all about it until you get that nineteenth Sandman that you have been sitting around for three days to get…

And you probably have your own ideas about the ethics of idling and I don’t want to make enemies within the first four hundred words.

I could use this whole thing to talk about whether idling counts as cheating the system because it gives you weapons, or whether it doesn’t because it doesn’t cheat the system and the goal of said person is to get a cosmetic hat that serves no purpose. I could argue about such a thing until the cows come home and there will always be a group arguing the wrong way to what I am saying. The problem with a drop system for items, or any system for that matter that rewards people in any way, is that people will try to beat such a system. And the problem with arguing with people on the Internet is that few admit that they are wrong and instead turn to insulting our mother for the umpteen-millionth time. I don’t feel that this thing will go away until Valve implement a system that takes control away from a computer-generated dice roll and gives players more control (i.e.: players actually have to play well to get the chance of earning items). I think someone who plays every day for one hour has more right to items than someone who only logs in for one hour per week. This is the problem with idle servers. People can join a server, leave their computer, go and play Rock Band for a little while, watch a few movies and have a full three-course-meal and then come back and still have the same chance of getting items than a person who has been playing competitive TF2 all day and topping the scoreboards. This system will never be fixed overnight and the quicker item trading comes, the quicker we can dismiss this whole silly argument about idling. But discussing idling is not why I am here.

Nope. The reason is this: idle servers are probably the most fun servers that you will ever see in Team Fortress. That sound was the sound of my inbox getting filled up by angry but loyal Ubercharged readers saying that I am talking out of my Axtinguisher. Hear me out, readers! What does Idling have that regular servers don’t?

A: They are almost always full of random people.
B: All of these people are working toward a common goal.
C: It is literally impossible to grief.

A big problem with Team Fortress is that people will go out of their way to annoy other players; it is human nature. This causes a large amount of negative atmosphere around a community of people. People start whining, and then their ability to play the game starts to become inhibited due to excess rage and the distraction of people constantly trying to make their game a living hell. The worst thing that can happen is that the person starts to become the thing that they hate and starts to grief themselves; they think that “getting even” is a desired behaviour and, rather and shoot down the negative behaviour, they become griefers themselves. The simple thing is that people will go out of their way to annoy one another and the reason for this is that they see the people that stand around erectin’ dispensers as just pieces of code being sent to a grey box in the middle of nowhere that then gets sent to you. It is actually quite depressing. This does not happen to such an extent on an idle server, as the person either doesn’t care (because there is no actual goal other than to sit around the base and act like a lemon) or the person is AFK anyway.

Another point about idling is that it is simple to do. The maps are simple, the objective is simple, and anything else is a bonus. The whole point of an idle map is to sit in spawn and do nothing, or go into spectator and do nothing. The maps don’t have five point contraptions that open and close certain areas when capped, or it doesn’t have a twenty-five mile long set of track to send a spy to his death to. The gameplay is simple and clean and it is amazing as to what people do. It is literally  a black canvas for any player to do what they please. Here is a list of everything I have seen on idle servers.

People being idle.
People with scripts that make them move and shoot.
People who constantly taunt.

OK. Now I have the boring stuff out of the way:

Spy vs Spy battles.
Pyros disguising as barrels.
Taunt kill duels.
Traitorous medics using spies to kill their own team.
Jarate Wars.
Scout vs Heavy.
Engineers building teleporters into their own bases for spies to go and kill idle players.

And the list goes on…

One thing may have occurred to you here. All of these events NEVER happen in normal play. There is no point to capture. There is no cart to push. There is no dispenser to erect. This whole thing is just pure and honest fun.

The problem with Team Fortress is that people no longer see the game as fun. The whole introduction of hats is a system similar to WoW; keep playing, and you will get a chance to randomly win desirable and rare items. This hooks people into playing. Suddenly, they forget that they are playing for fun and to go out and see things like people throwing jars of urine, or people eating sandwiches or drinking soda in the middle of a battlefield. They are more obsessed about the need for greed. Idle servers, ironically, don’t have this problem. The need for greed is overtaken by pure, honest fun when you press the ‘comma’ key, followed by the number ‘1′ on your keyboard and actually start playing the map. As soon as you step from behind the glass and onto the solitary locked control point, it suddenly becomes much more than some entities thrown into a stone box in five minutes in order to satisfy the wants of the greedy, the poor, and the Irish. It strangely starts to become more than that.

It is difficult to explain. Imagine buying a shiny new mirror from a store. Imagine you moving house, not finding a place for the mirror and putting it in an attic. Imagine climbing into the attic two years later to find this old, neglected mirror. When you start to wipe away the dust and dirt, it starts to shine through once more. This is the feeling I get from idle maps. This is a feeling from Team Fortress that I haven’t felt for months. This is random people (no clan stacking, usually) from around the world with a common goal to go into a small room with each other to have good, old-fashioned fun. I’ve seen treachery, truce-breaking, and a little telefragging, but it has never stopped being fun. People need to see that idle maps aren’t destroying Team Fortress; they are saving it. Fifteen minutes of idle server play has given me more of a fun factor than two years worth of playtime. And it took a crummy little map with absolutely no point and no story and no effort to help me see that.

I finished up on my Fable 2 review. Just added content and fixed up some grammar, from the older review. I gave the final game a B+. It would have been an A if it wasn’t for the cost. New Fable 2 review also has been changed and renamed under XBOX Games. Been playing Team Fortress 2 lately so maybe review that.

NOOB RANT!!

Tired of fucking Demomen being bullshit in Team Fortress 2. I always seem to die to them the most. I really want to see statistics of the kills and deaths of the game. I wouldn’t be surprised if Demomen get the most kills and Medics and Scouts get the most deaths. Such bullshit. Shit is overpowered

NOOMB RANT OVER!!!

Not that I got that out of the way. Revenge from XFire. I am also uploading the raw files to WeGame. XFire is just loaded with adds and I do no like the UI.

How does it compare to WeGame’s screenshots? Have a look…

Here is an older shots using WeGame.

Just wish XFire auto uploaded screenshots.

Testing out XFire for recording video. Bit rate is low but damn it is better than WeGame. It records sound. Check out the test video.

If nothing is showing, try the link.

Really thought it would take longer to upload. Anyway, we got are asses owned. Check the video out from WeGames. Because WordPress is gay, click the link. Also, checking out a new way to upload screenshots and video. No sound becuase they do not like Vista/Win 7 64bit or somthing. Trying out Xfire, Caboose967. Lastly, you want the latest news from me and not some bot RSS feed. Check out my Twitter account RSS feed of the blog. Ok I lied to you but it is so much better then the others. It has me. @HawaiianGamer

…For a Sandvich

Spawn camping video coming up.

Playing some Team Fortress 2 and I ran onto a server where a guy seems to have no friends. Why else would he have such a high score because all he does is play the game.

Valkyrie

Soldier – Secondary Slot
Level 12 Shotgun

+15% damage for every kill
-75% damage done
No critical hits

The Valkyrie is a longer, wider and bulkier shotgun, with a polished finish. There is only one barrel, decorated with a ferocious falcon endpiece. Crudely drawn decals are on the handle and near the falcon endpiece, resembling lightning bolts.

The Valkyrie is for the survivor, the Soldier that can head into battle, kill a whole nest of maggots, then live to tell it to any of his less courageous friends.
In the hands of the inexperienced, it is poor and unnecessary. It deals a measly 75% damage when compared to a standard issue shotgun. Those who can’t use it right will be at a handicap.
However, for every kill (whether it be a giblet-flinging explosion, a few shells to the face or a entrenchment bludgeoning that seals the deal) the Soldier achieves, the valor of your efforts – and the failure of your enemie’s efforts – powers up the falconised shotgun, earning it more power. It increase by 15% every time (until it reaches a peak of 150%, as too much greatness would overload the gun).
While useless at times, the true power of this weapon comes from some excellent sprees. If you can get this fully powered up, you will be the envy (and the main target) of the battlefield!
Just don’t give this to the FNGs. They’ll just make a fool of themselves.

Taunts: The Soldier bends low, growls, then thrusts his shotgun into the air with his right hand. A thunderclap or lightning strike is heard. The Soldier then laughs proudly as he lowers the shotgun.

Notes:
This weapon is for the survivalist Soldier, or at least the ones that don’t die every minute (unlike me :/ ).
Dying resets your boost, so those that go on straight up killing sprees won’t get too far. Not to mention that you are handicapped to begin with, so you have to do some real damage first before it’s even worth using the Valkyrie. However, if you kill off a lot of enemy team members and stay alive, you’ll be rewarded with some extra damage.
To balance it against some really good Soldiers or just the lucky ones, I also removed random critical hits. No abusing it! Your shotgun will also glow more with the amount of people you kill, so enemies and allies will know how much power you have.
I think this weapon should go well with competitive Soldiers, Soldiers who often get kritzkrieg ubercharges, or even just Soldiers that know how to stop dying (unlike me :/ ).

Basic Version:
= The Valkyrie initially does 80% damage compared to the shotgun.
= For every enemy the Soldier kills (with any weapon), the Valkyrie does +15% damage.
= The Valkyrie will do this for up to six kills, as it maxes out at 150% (75%, 90%, 105%, 120%, 135%, 150%).
= This shotgun does not get random critical hits.
= When you kill an enemy, your weapon will begin to glow your team’s colour. This glow increases with the amount of enemies killed.
= When the Soldier dies, the damage done is reset to 80% and must be regained by killing enemies.

Mortardom

Demoman – Primary Slot
Level 6 Mortar Launcher

Straighter projectile arc
120% damage done
Detonates upon impact
50% clip size

The Mortardom is a mortar launcher, with the ground grips now twisted and reshaped to fit for shoulder-houlstered use. The launcher is a large metal tube, the metal coloured the team colour and decorated with yellow stripes. Black ash marks are around the barrel.

Hey there Jimmy! What you doing?
Playing Demoman? Good choice there. Go get em’ Jimmy!
…What’s that? You’re only using the sticky bomb launcher! Ooh, people don’t like it when you do that.
Jimmy, why not use the grenade launcher as well?
…What’s that? It’s too hard to use? Doesn’t do enough damage? Well then, why not try this weapon instead!
…What is it? It’s the Mortardom! The same kind of mortar launcher they used in the pacific islands during World War II!
How it works is it shoots mortar shells at your enemies, blowing them to smitheereens!
…Why do you want to use this instead of the grenade launcher, Jimmy? Well, I’m glad you asked.
This launcher has a much straighter, much smoother projectile arc, similar to the Pyro’s flare gun. Neat, eh?
…That’s right, Jimmy! It also does that little bit more damage, so you can nail some of the bigger bullies out there in less time!
So why don’t you head on over to the local war museum and steal your very own Mortardom?
…Damn straight, Jimmy! Damn straight.
Note: Thisweaponmayormaynothaveasmallerclipsizethanthatofthe
grenadelauncher.

Taunts: The Demoman lays the launcher on the ground, shoots a mortar shell directly upwards, laughs for a bit, then picks it back up. Five seconds later, the shell will drop back down and explode, instantly killing any enemies.

Notes:
Removes that nasty projectile arc for some extra firepower. It’s actually more like a rocket launcher for the Demoman.
I never found the grenade launcher to be useful unless it was in direct combat, in which the arc made it more difficult to hit enemies and the amount of damage didn’t help much either. So I made this. WUNDERBAR.
You may wonder why detonating on impact is a bad thing. Well, with the grenade launcher, you can clear out a room by shooting all your grenades in there. You can even do this just by shooting up and into a window. If they detonate on impact, they will not roll around or be at an arc, so you can’t clear out enemy positions as efficiently as usual.
And smaller clip size because your two mortars need to hit their mark – reduce spamming and all that. Cus I hate that.

Basic Version:
= The Mortardom does 120% damage compared to the grenade launcher.
= The mortars fly at an arc similar to the flare gun.
= The mortars do not roll around if they miss – they will detonate as soon as they hit anything.
= The Mortardom has a clip size of 2, compared to the grenade launcher’s clip size of 4.
= This weapon has a taunt kill. Taunting with the Mortardom launches a powerful mortar into the air. Five seconds later, it will fall and detonate, killing any enemies in the blast radius instantly. This does not work indoors.