One of the most devastating criticisms of any game is poor controls.  Whenever I read a review, no matter what the score, content, or criticisms, I take all points as subjective.  However, when the reviewer writes that a game has bad, unweildy, poor, or frustrating controls I take note, and usually my interest in the game dies right then and there.  I wonder how many others feel the same way.  We play video games, in part, to exercise control in one small aspect of our lives.  Impede or take away our control, and you take away the fun.  Take away control in a situation where a person expects control and you frustrate, not entertain.

Why is it then, that developers continue to use a “stun” effect in games?  I have never heard or read of anyone enjoying the “stun effect” in any game.   The stun, by definition, strips the player of all control of the character for a given period of time.  Usually when it happens, the player can be heard shouting and cursing in frustration and displeasure.

Three of my favorite franchises have implemented unnecessary and unwanted stun effects.  The Gears of War melee stun was so eggregious, that in my little community, house rules had to be implemented.  Similarly in Gears of War 2, the smoke grenade stun effect, in addition to the melee stun, was so devastating and frustrating, that Epic actually shortened its duration. Valve similarly implemented a stun effect as an update to the Scout class in Team Fortress 2.  I have read nothing positive about that addition, and personally hate it.  Competitive gamers have banned its use.

It wasn’t until I heard my friends echoing my own feelings when they were cussin’ and cursin’ the stun effect in Left4Dead 2, that I decided to write about it.  When playing as either the Survivors or the Special Infected, certain actions can cause the player to momentarily, sometimes for what seems like several seconds, lose control of their character.  This is intensely frustrating and completely unnecessary from a game design perspective.

Take for example, the Charger.  When the Charger misses his run, he eventually runs into a wall, or sometimes a crack in the sidewalk, and becomes dazed.  At this point, all control is lost, and the Survivors have a long moment in which they can shoot into his back and kill him.  Why not rather have the Charger experience half-health damage from smashing into a wall, and x2 damage for the duration of what would be the stun, but give the player semi-, or full control? The penalty could be tweaked so that the end result, you miss – you die, is similar, but the player would not have lost control, and not have been tempted to throw his controller in anger.

To be stunned is a realistic outcome of certain actions.  To the extent that “simulation” is a fundamental design principle of a game, the stun effect should be implemented.  In all other cases, other devices should be used to achieve similar penal results.

A wonderfully edited frag video brought to you by our good friend Seanclarity

I’d like to apologize for the lack of updates this week, but L4D2 has kept many in F! quite busy . Come back tomorrow and we’ll have tons of new features as the blog gets back on track!

Hello. It seems that I’ve forgotton about this site. Well, it is not so. It’s just that there was nothing particulary interesting to write (still isn’t actually) and I had my birthday a while ago.

Anyways, I have to tell you 3 things. First – over the last weekend I got my first 100 hours played with a single class. Aaand the winner is – soldier. Almost all the time the engineer was my most played class but that changed when I discovered how interesting it is to play with the soldier (mostly from watching Reptile play). So, when engie had about 85 hours and the soldier was my 4th or 5th most played class with ~60 hours I started to play with soldier a lot more. And look’ee here – now he’s my most played class and the first one to reach 100 hours.

Second – I finally got all the achievements for a single class – heavy. The last one I had to get was “Division of labour” which I did with a friend of mine in dustbowl’s 3rd stage. The funny thing is that when I had like 17 or 18 kills and needed only 2 or 3 more and my friend was about to uber there was a hidden spy I didn’t notice (I tend to forget that someone actually uses cloak & dagger) and the spy was about to kill me (or him, I dunno) but my friend ubered me before we went out in the open (I’m talking about the tunnel underground) and before the spy managed to kill either one of us. I scored a couple of frags, got the achievement, laughed about the spy and killed some more enemies and I died only after scoring 40 kills and even then I almost escaped – a lucky spy hit me with his ambassador while I was running behind a corner. A new high score for me – 46 points and 40 frags with the heavy.

Third – I am putting together some filmed material that has not found its place on my computer over the past years – just some stuff I found interesting enough to record with Fraps. I’ll probably finish it and upload today. Hopefully youtube won’t have a problem with the audio as they have had problems before.

Oh, and another thing – I’ve started playing Overlord. Cool game. By the way – if any of the developers of this game reads this (which is VERY probable), then you have a bug in the game when I go get the green minion’s hive. While they brought it back I went out of the cave and a) lost minions b) had to start everything over again. That sucked. But the game overall looks interesting, though I’d like it more if it would be more evil. Now I seem more like a savior rather than a destroyer.

I really hope I will force myself to write something here while I’m home and provide this page with more visual material. I’ll try today but I don’t promise anything.

Oh the irony. I get a working computer and blogging is the last thing I want to do. How strange, because it requires a computer at least capable of internet surfing.

In other news, I’m learning C / C++ now! I think I’ll use this as a sort’ve tracking spot for progress on that. Should be fun!

I’m also making a TF2 map! For more info on that visit here: http://home.comcast.net/~cubkyle/tf/demodownload.html

Cubkyle is AWESOMELY hosting the server for our weekly playtests, and he is recording these awesome demos of the game for us! Check it out if you missed it, it’s awesome, plus it’ll be a neat place to watch developments on the map, in addition to what I post here, of course That’s what’s goin on for me, we’ll see what I can get together for keeping you updated on stuff.

First up are these weeks gaming TF2 kill notices

EA closes down Pandemic Studio which they had only just bought in 2007. Nick Earl, EA Games Label Senior Vice President, wrote in a memo on Kotaku “I want to make it clear that the Pandemic brand and franchises will live on… In the months ahead, we will announce plans for new games based on Pandemic franchises.”

Major Game Release this week:

Two AAA titles came out this last week although Assassins Creed 2 has been pushed back for the PC version.

Modern Warfare 2 sells 5 million copies in the first 24 hours so by now we can only guess  how many they have sold.

Update: Modern Warfare 2 has made $550 million! so far!

New Super Mario Bros. came out and secured it’s self a nice shiny red box for the Wii. Although Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said “We’ve been clear that this is kind of a one-time deal,” “Don’t expect to see a yellow box for x or a gold box for y.”

If I missed anything or if there are any story’s you think should be in the Kill Notices for next week feel free to leave a comment and I will be sure to read them all.

The Top Stories told in TF2 Kill Notices was made with mzzt.net TF2 Kill Notice generator found here

This video is a bit late. Me and a friend was playing around on I Got a Chocolate Bar server with pumpkins.
In the bonus video located at the end of the video we were using the rmf pack made by RIKUSYO. I think the
song dooesnt go well with the video but oh well.

Video info:

recorded on Nov. 1

Song: “This is holloween” from The nightmare before christmas.

Plugins used in video:
http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?p=895202
http://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?p=976177

IGaCB server ip: 24.215.135.180:27015
The server is up from time to time. If you would like to be notified when it is up then join our steam group, http://steamcommunity.com/groups/IGaCB

Hi everyone, this is your fun-filled Subway-lovin’ gamer male secretary speaking! As you all have heard, baseball is no longer the country’s national sport! We have two national sports now, and those would be GAMING and WATCHING ANIME. Don’t believe me? Well, with so many video game titles in this holiday season’s release window, I’m sure you’ll ALL be playing something.

With that in mind, I’d like to share with you all of the names of the games that we–the GHS Anime Gods–are playing right now.

Borderlands – The role-playing shooter that pits four characters in the middle of nowhere on the planet of Pandora. With plenty of randomly generated loot (about 17 million different weapon permutations) and an outrageous amount of leveling up to do, this game is considered GOLD to us. You choose from four different character classes to develop–each with their own unique capabilities.

*WARNING* This contains violent material.

Left 4 Dead 2 Demo – It’s out, and the boycott is over. Valve’s latest video game entry this year has us all clinging on to our pants and wishing we had never been born to face the zombie apocalypse. With new characters, a new setting (New Orleans), tons of new weapons and a direct AI Director upgrade, L4D2 is most definitely a delicious step up from L4D.

*WARNING* This contains violence.

Team Fortress 2 – Yes. Still.

Honorable Mention: We’re also playing Batman: Arkham Asylum, DoTA, Saints Row 2, Risen

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

With that said, I thought it would be interesting to include this month’s release window; here it is:

MODERN WARFARE 2

RD: November 10, 2009

Platforms: PC, PS3, XBOx 360

Metascore: 89/100

This highly anticipated shooter boasts new perks, new killstreak options, more weapons, and a short but thrill-filled campaign mode. Although the game has been stripped of dedicated servers and stripped of the original 30+ max player limit AND its lean function for the PC, this game continues to surprise people as it climbs the sales charts. For a graphics comparison between PC, 360, and PC, go here: http://www.gamespot.com/features/6240138/index.html?tag=topslot;thumb;5

DRAGON AGE: ORIGINS

RD: November 3, 2009

Metascore: 91

From BioWare–the makers of Mass Effect and the famous KOTOR games–comes this new fantasy epic RPG. The plot is rich, and the background story is even more so. Dive into the land of Ferelden to fight the Darkspawn and you won’t be disappointed. You’ll likely be playing this for more than 50 hours, at least.

STAR WARS: THE FORCE UNLEASHED SITH EDITION

RD: November 3, 2009

Metascore: Terrible is all we know.

Though this version of the game was made only for the PC and definitely looks better on the PC, it is a terrible port. Maybe it should have boasted its technical problems instead.

ASSASSIN’S CREED 2

RD: November 17, 2009

Metascore: N/A

My name is Desmond, so you could imagine how scared I was when I played the first game and found out one of the main characters’ name was also Desmond. In this chapter of the Assassin’s Creed series, you play as Ezio–a noble-turned-assassin who seeks revenge in Italy during the Renaiisance. New gadgets and weapons will be available in this non-linear game. Bigger missions and improved “blending” techniques in crowds have been added.  This is good, because we go tired of the first Assassin’s Creed really fast.

THE SIMS 3 WORLD ADVENTURES

RD: November 16, 2009

Metascore: N/A

This. Is. right. Up. My. Alley. For anyone who loves The Sims and has The Sims 3, you have to get this. This expansion lets you travel to different landmarks to discover treasures and learn martial arts, among other things. It’s like traveling and experiencing different cultures without ever leaving home. What’s better?

So, without any further ado, START GAMING!!11!!11!!!!!!1!111!11!!

There has been a lot of speculations on almost every TF2 forum of a Soldier update announcement on November the 11th (yesterday). There are a few reasons for the forums to think this, one being November 11th is Veteran’s day, suited to the Soldier’s persona. Also during the “Meet the spy” video the soldier punches in “1, 1, 1, 1″ in the key pad to unlock a door, and during the Medal give away, valve gave away 11,111 medals. November being the 11th month, making every thing fall into the “1111″ motif, it just seem to make sense.

Alas, there was no announcement, no update, no Easter egg found, nothing. It was what it was… just speculations.

Luckily for us, the TF2 community doesn’t take disappointment sitting down, instead, made their own soldier update and we’re here to share it with you!

View the full community Soldier update after the break!!

The most interesting aspect of this fan made update is that the creator used community input to create it, making this a true community creation.

[Update] Seems like this update is still a work in progress. The steam forum mods has closed almost every 11/11 thread on the official TF2 forums, even this constructive non-trolling thread. yharrothar has informed me that he will be recreating a new thread, taking more community input as he expands his update even further. Stay tuned for updates!!

Created by: yharrothar

Via: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1021908

TF2 was originally sold as a package deal with the Orange box. What this mean is that it never had it’s own TV spot, and had to share the spot light with the likes of a mute physicist, and a soft spoken murderous computer. A fan realized this and has justly pieced together his own TF2 TV spot based on the latest L4D2 TV spot. It’s very well put together, enjoy.

マジキチソルジャーのフラグムービー第二弾が来たので紹介。

http://pldx.com/movie/922/Fragga_TF2_Soldier_Frag_Movie_II/

ソルジャーのショットガンが別ゲーの武器に見える･･･。

I know it’s a week late, but Team Fortress 2 was updated last week for the Halloween weekend. A new map was published – sort of a haunted farmyard style with lots of pumpkins and ghosts, a very spooky and autumnal feel, yet it still managed to fit into Team Fortress 2.

I think it’s great that game developers take the time to do these little updates for their community which, while individually or only small, synergistically add up to a great experience for its players. The TF2 developers are renowned for this, and I think rightly so. It is rare that any game (other than those of the MMORPG genre) get any kind of holiday event update, let alone something as spectacular as this.

Bravo Valve and the Team Fortress 2 developers, here are a few pictures.

View Full Album

You can see a purple ghost in one of the images, these seemed to appear randomly around the map, and if you got too close to one, your avatar would run around with its hands behind its head shivering, as if the ghost had scared it. Also visible is a pumpkin pickup, which when collected gives the player temporary critical hits for their weapon.

I wonder what they will give us for Christmas…

Luke

I just installed that on my Server. Looks epic.

connect 85.131.208.90:27015  

Plate has posted a very interesting and useful tutorial on the TF2 steam forums on how to create your own fully functional TF2 weapon. Currently, this  only works on your own private server, but it’s still fun to mess around with it.

Full tutorial after the break!

The following is taken from here: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=978749

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

This thread is in beta stage, so it’s not completely done. Grammar, crap, and non-sense things included guarantee!

Its easy. This tutorial will ensure you the ultimate knowledge of creating your very own WEPON.

Why you should know this? Who the ♥♥♥♥ cares?!

Just give me the darn reputation and it’s a deal!

Oh don’t forget! Every time you ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, please use the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ not the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ or else you will ♥♥♥♥.

Requirements:

Team Fortress 2

CTXhack

GCFScape

PC

IQ above 5 and the most important thing: PATIENCE

STEP 1= Install GCFScape, open it, then click File -> Open, then go to Steam/steamapps and click on Team Fortress 2 Content.
STEP 2= With GCFScape in content folder, go to tf/scripts/items.
STEP 3= You find two files, “items.ctx and attributes.ctx”right click on them and extract them to desktop in a new folder.
STEP 4= Copy both of the Ctxhack and vice.exe in folder where you placed the files.
STEP 5= Open CTX_HACK_TF2, click on decode, then click execute for every file.
STEP 6 = In the folder should appear again Attributes and Items but in .txt format.
STEP 7= Open both attributes and items with wordpad.
STEP 8= You wonder what those things are? Attributes file contains all attributes for an achievement weapon, and Items file, represents all TF2 weapons.
STEP 9= You want Natascha to make look like this, don’t you? .
STEP 10= First go in items.txt, hit CTRL+F, then search for Natascha.
STEP 11= When you find it, it will look like this:

STEP 12 = Look at all highlighted words, we have to change them!
STEP 13= Changing the name of the minigun, both

change them with the name you want. E.G

STEP 14= Now we have to change minigun’s powers. Open the attribute.txt and there you will have a lot of attributes for weapons. I’ll show you an example, how the attribute for critical boost looks like

STEP 15 = We don’t need all this crap, just concentrate on this

STEP 16 = Change the Natascha’s attributes from

, to

change the value from 1.0 to 7.0 for 7 seconds of criticals.
STEP 17= This should be enough, if you want to edit the second attribute, repeat the previous steps. Also you can add more attributes, but you must be very carefully or you will screw it up
STEP 18= To add more attributes, copy the following

, and put them UNDER

this

STEP 19 = If you are done, close items.txt, save it, go to CTX HACK, click on encode all then click for every file.
STEP 20= Both NEW items.ctx and attributes.ctx copy them in steam/steamapps/account-name/teamfortress2/tf/scripts/items. and your weapon should be done!

STEP 1 = Go to steam/steamapps/Team fortress 2 content
STEP 2 = While in GCFScape go to tf/scripts and extract the objects.txt
STEP 3 = Open it, and you will see this

Modify the highlighted attributes like you wish, doing the same thing with teleporters and dispensers.
STEP 4 = Save the objects.txt, go to steamapps/youraccountname/teamfortress2/tf, create a new folder, called scripts and paste it there.

Useful binds:
bind “1″ “buildsentry”
bind “2″ “builddispenser”
bind “3″ “buildentry”
bind “4″ “buildexit”

For example, I’ll show you how to make a Revolver which deals 9999 damage, fires like minigun, have the accuracy of a Sniper Rifle, and extended ammo clip

STEP 1 = Open tf_weapon_revolver
STEP 2 = This appeared to you

STEP 3 = Edit the highlighted values how do you want.
STEP 4= Save the tf_weapon_revolver, encode it back to ctx and place it in steam/steamapps/your-account/teamfortress2/tf/scripts.

STEP 1= In tf_weapon_revolver you should find something like this :

STEP 2 = Go to a weapon that you want to shoot it like it, example lets take Rocket Launcher projectile:

, so replace the

with

.
STEP 3= Save the tf_weapon_revolver, encode it back to ctx and place it in steam/steamapps/your-account/teamfortress2/tf/scripts.
Example of minigun shooting rockets -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=233YO8US6Jk

STEP 1= With GCFScape, go to Steam/Steamapps/Team fortress 2 content
STEP 2= Open Team Fortress 2 Content with GCFScape, then tf/scripts/playerclasses and extract them all
STEP 3= Using ctxhack (which you can find it on my previous threads) decode all ctx files.
STEP 4= Let’s make soldier speeds same as scout and his hp 450.
STEP 5 = Open soldier.txt, and it should pop this:

STEP 6 = Modify

to 450 (is scout’s speed, you should try higher value, I don’t often test in TF2 because my crappy laptop) and for HP

to 450, and your done!

Original Poster: Plate

Visit the original thread for more details: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=978749

Great gaming, guys! It was another intense and exhilarating Festival of Death.

I have discovered something about Valve games. Not only do they have cliff-wall like initial learning “curves”, which once scaled, open a whole new world of gaming, but they continue to provide the “climber” with new challenges. The boys used to play TF2 all weekend, every weekend, and on Sunday night, there would be a debriefing time on Dad’s bed, where with great excitement and animation, stories would be told of a new technique learned and mastered. “Dad, this week I learned how to play the Soldier! I can rocket jump anywhere now!”, or “Dad, the Spy is my new favorite class. I got three backstabs in a row – just like rED!” (at which point, each backstab would be described in great detail).

So it is with L4D. The current favorite class is, of all things, the Hunter. You have to remember, this is the class that was despised almost universally. “WTF, the Hunter again?!” How many times have you heard that? Well, over the past two weeks, Zos, rED, and Grymm have taken us all on a journey so very high, where the air is thin, and the shelter scarce: where you look up to jump down, and where your leap always ends with a thud, CRUNCH.

There is hardly a round now in which the maxed pounce isn’t earned by someone. “The Hunter is now my new favorite Infected!” I heard this from more than one person last night, and in hindsight, I am surprised I didn’t check to see if it was Sunday night with me sitting on my bed. lol

So, without further ado, I give you the FOD Awards:

The Free Bird Award – Soar and get a 25 point damage pounce as a hunter.

To Grymm, for not one but two 25 point pounces on the same group, in the same location, before they could even move to get away. Runners up, include almost everyone else.

The Sherman Tank Award – The most memorable Tank.

To Tim on Blood Harvest, for incapacitating all four dumbasses in just one or two tree trunk melees. Actually, I had a Tank that was pretty memorable too, in a bad kind of way. I swear, I was in the other room when the Molotov was thrown, and it was 3 green silhouettes that I saw in front of me, not two! I have no idea how that guy warped behind me to fill me with buckshot! LOL

And that is it. We need to develop those awards a bit more.

Well, we could create a Dumbass award. My team earned it at least twice as we ran inside when the Tank music started. Again, at least twice I found myself lying beside my three, soon-to-be-dead partners in a tiny room, while a Tank was thumping his chest in great victory. You can’t make that shit up! Sure, we can laugh about it now, but at the time, it was so excruciating, Zoso had to abandon ship. Next movie, Zos was stickin’ with rED and Grymm. He needed to purge the experience from his memory. LMAO! Just remember, Zos, you were in those rooms with us.

Hey, there were rumors last night that there might be another Festival tonight! Let’s keep each other posted if our plans change, otherwise same time, same place? (Tim and Johann won’t be able to make it. They will have company this afternoon.)

In this 3 part series, contributor Dan talks about the effects of Hats in the Team Fortress 2 Community. In this segment, Dan talks about the positive effects for Valve as a company, which could translate as not so positive for some players.

Back in May of this year, the Team Fortress 2 team introduced a new drop system for weapons and included a few bonus items that you could acquire. While the new weapons that accompany new Class updates serve a purpose (giving existing players new ways to play, or adding a new mechanic to add another layer to the class), these new bonus items did nothing. Absolutely nothing. But people needed these useless items. They complained on the official forums about not having any (and still do to this day). They analyzed statistics, and gawked at members who had 3 or more of them. Even worse, veteran players saw mere newbies get these useless items and raged to a level thought impossible. What am I talking about? Hats, of course!

Hats were released as a way for players to have a sense of individuality without removing the distinct silhouette of the class they are playing. For those of you who got a hat (I’m of course talking about the random drop ones), you no doubt felt superior to your fellow team mates, at least at first. That’s the brilliance of hats, especially from a business standpoint.

Look at my hat!

From this business standpoint, you could logically presume that the reasons hats exist are for players to want them. If Valve had made them unlockable, say in the form of Achievements, the community would have got them all in 2 weeks and asked for more. But because the only way to obtain these extremely rare hats was through a random drop system, Valve established the first benefit: Getting players to play more.

Because the original method of obtaining hats was through a completely random drop system, this meant the only way for you to get one was by playing for extended periods of time. Of course, Valve doesn’t make more money (they don’t advertise in-game, and you already own Team Fortress 2) but they do get you to play. And the fact that people did play more, showed them that they had established this item as desirable in the community. And that paved the way for more hats.

But let’s take a step back. Valve has been known for supporting Team Fortress 2 with free content “class packs” over the last two years. It’s no secret that every time Valve releases a content pack, they gain loads of free press and new players. Now, it’s important to note that Valve is a company, and its goal is profit. And to create these free content packs, they need to pay their employees. The same amount of money could be going towards a brand new, yearly franchise installment from the game company down the street. So what do you do when you have a product for which you have promised continual updates, but the work load for those updates begins to eclipse the financial benefit of releasing them? You release smaller, cheaper updates that have a bigger impact on the community, of course.

Hats Over There!

This brings us back to the business side of things. As I stated earlier, Hats exist for players to want them. And boy did they show it! The fact that making a few models doesn’t cost much (compared to the cost and time spent testing new weapons), allows the Team Fortress 2 team to get hat related content out faster. This meant that when the Classless update arrived, we got 18 more hats (and a medal, for those quick enough to snag one). Sure, I still don’t have any of the random drop hats, but I still want one. And isn’t that the point?

And of course, this low cost, free update for the community means free press (similar to the traditional Class Updates), discounted or free weekends (more players!), and a source of content for us, the players. Just look at the recent Halloween weekend: 10,000 players jumped on the free Gibus like Gollum on The One Ring. In fact, one could argue that these hats have had more of a lasting impact on the community than the new weapons. For example, lets take the last weapon that was released that really irked everyone off: The Force-of-Nature. The arguments persisted for months from when the Scout update was released, and it wasn’t until some time later that it was better balanced, so the community shut up. On the other hand, hats have been out for almost 6 months now, and we talk about them daily. They are a status symbol among the community, and you can even get hats for pre-ordering other Valve games.

The special hat you get for a L4D2 Pre-Order

No matter what your stance on hats is, you have to agree that they have a good side. When you finally got a hat (whether it was the Halo, Gibus, or even the one of the random drop hats) you were happy. You had something no one else had (on your server, at least). Of course, the rage from the community directed at you and your hat-wearing brethren made you feel unwanted. But inside you knew they were just jealous. You had a hat that had randomly dropped for you, no one else. In fact, by the time my friend Dakota had received his first hat (A Batters Helmet), they had been out for several months. He gained an unquenchable thirst for hats (more on this later), and I know much of the community was the same. As for me, I still don’t have one of the random drop hats. But both me and Dakota and practically everyone who owns and plays the game regularly wants (or wouldn’t mind) one. And that’s the point: You want hats, and Valve knows it.

Here’s a compression blast frag video by Frying Dutchman and timbl4. We don’t often feature frag videos on this blog, mainly because there are just so many of them with already so many web sites that cover it, but this one is especially well pieced together. There are some pretty nifty compression kills here, quite entertaining.

Randy Picthford the President of Gearbox has questions the motives behind the discussion not to support the PS3 by Valve. Randy Picthford has worked with valve in the past, and gave his opinion on the PS3 to the magazine. He states “the PS3 is awesome. I think Valve…I don’t know why they are doing that. It’s weird. but yeah, the Playstation platform’s really cool. It’s different to others and it’s certainly a challenge to be able to develop software for. But that’s where the fun is, right?”

After praising  the PS3, Randy Picthford say’s “I noticed something on the net not too long ago. Doug Lombardi (Valve’s VP Marketing) had to take a swipe at the PS3 again, and I thought it was foolish. I read it the same way I read fanboys. Like there’s a guy who brought 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”Randy then takes the comments to a more personal level “Valve think their own stuff is the only stuff that matters, to the point where they have their own distribution platform. It’s like, I don’t care about retail, about Marketplace, or PSN, I’m going to have Steam. It’s cool, it’s good, and they’re doing a good job but at the same time they’re reliant on the rest of the world. They had to do that deal with EA. When I see the L4D ad on the television I don’t see a Valve logo, I see a EA logo, and when I bought it, I bought it at a store”.

Gearbox has a multi-platform game out, which everybody seems to be enjoying on both the PC, PS3 and Xbox360, so Randy couldn’t help but also comment on the Orange box fiasco. “I’m actually kind of mad at Doug because with the Orange Box, he said the 360 and PC versions are the good ones and the PS3 version is like the stepchild because some other developer made it. Well you Valve don’t really think that, because look what you’ve done on the PC side. You’ve supported that, you’ve added all this content to Team Fortress 2, and you’ve left us hanging. It’s hard to accept that genuinely, because I know the business, I know you guys make half the money on the PS3 version because you’ve got other fingers in the pie, and other developers getting a cut. It benefits you if nobody buys that, and only buys the PC version, because you make the most money. There’s this underlying sleaziness. You know what, I thought the performance was a little slower on the PS3, but it Looked better. The colors were nicer, I thought the image looked better on PS3. It was a trade-off between the performance and the visuals. And I like visuals”.

So guys what do you think do you agree with Randy? or is Valve doing the right thing?

*Not so much with the whores.

As we all just experienced Halloween, we know it was on a weekend. First thing that jumps to mind are Halloween parties, especially since they would be amplified due the fact it was on a weekend. While I did go out on Friday night, Halloween itself was full of answering doors and giving little children candy. But! That isn’t where the Halloween festivities ended, for any good gamer knows his favorite games fill their world with Halloween themed items.

First off, Guild Wars was giving out Charr Masks and Skeleton Face Paint. While I was not able to grab both, I did get the Charr Mask which looks sorta more like a boar than a Charr. The Mad King had some alright jokes this year; all completely Guild Wars themed so if you don’t know the game I don’t think they would make any sense. I didn’t bother with the Halloween quest because it just took a little too much time. I had more important things to do, like get the Team Fortress 2 Halloween hats.

The Team Fortress 2 hats were a great deal of fun. The first of two hats that I got was the Ghastly Gibus, which after a little internet hunting, I discovered that it had a back story. When you hover over the hat in your inventory it says “The initials ‘ZM’ are embroidered on the inside…” ZM is in fact a man by the name of Zepheniah Mann, who is the father of two men. These men are Blutarch and Redmond. Names sound familiar? In the slowly developing back story for Team Fortress 2, Zepheniah was a rich Englishman who bought a large amount of land in frontier America. On his way to see his newly purchased land, he contracted almost every fever and sickness known and unknown to man. Upon his death he left his belongings and estates to friends and family.

• To his dearest maidservant Elizabeth, he left his estate, including all deeds, accounts, and debts, his tobacco plantation and the remains of his fortune
• To his faithful aide and tracker Barnabas Hale, he left complete control of Mann & Sons Munitions Concern.

Barnabas Hale is an ancestor of Saxton Hale. The Saxton Hale of Mann Co. the creator of many great TF2 inventions, including but not limited to:

• The Sandvich Edible Device
• The ‘Force-A-Nature’ Double Barreled Shotgun
• The “Dead Ringer” Spy Watch
• The “Cloak and Dagger” Spy Watch

And much more.

Zepheniah left his greatest curse for his two ‘brain defective’ sons Blutarch & Redmond. He left a partnership of all the new land he had bought, so now the two brothers had a reason to fight to no end.

You can read Zepheniah Mann’s Last Will and Testament which is hidden on the TF2 blog here.

My Ghastly gibus

The other fun hat was the Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask which you can read up upon over at the TF2wiki.

My Mildly Disturbing Halloween MasK