A Casual Look At Team Fortress 2 Classes

Right, Now that I have spent several hours of game time in total playing TF2, racking up my stats and exploring the maps I can now knock up several anecdotes about this comedy genius fragfest now. First, we'll tackle the classes.

Before we begin, all classes have been grouped in a specific order of what their talents might be best at. This doesn't mean the Pyro is exclusive for defence of the Sniper is a pansy in one on one combat. Lets start with Offensive, Defensive and finally support.

The speciality of the offensive classes is quite simple, you must push forwards for victory towards your objective. Or in laymans terms, pwn hard and fast without stopping. A good game has a nice balanced mix of Offensive and Defensive classes with a few Supports mixed in. The Offensive classes will see most of the map and action, as well as a huge amount of their own gibs being gurned over by their oppoment.

Defensive, a no brainer again what these guys do. They keep the bad guys that fragged the offensive dudes from pushing forward. These guys are the wall that protect the capture points or intelligince from being taken. A balanced offence and defence is a must for any game.

Support, These guys do little jobs that help the team, from sniping chokepoints to healing to sneaking behind enemy lines making a mess of their suits these guys are very useful when the a stalemate occurs.

The Heavy:

Strengths:

Lays down a huge column of supressive fire, shouts happily, best melee kill.

Weaknesses:

His own damn speed, fast spies and snipers with fetishes for slow bald men carring heavy guns. Demoman Stickies.

Ah, The Heavy. One of the first. First in the trailer, first into battle and usually the first to headshotted because of his bloody speed. Everyone loves the Heavy, despite the fact they call him fattie. Maybe it is because he is so damn happy with what he does and his simple devotion to his comrade, the Medic and his massive Minigun which he nicknames Sasha. Playing the Heavy is simple, you just need to know where to role and have good skills when it comes to shooting things. A simple tip for new players out there, you can wind your gun up AND fire at the same time. I took me two days to figuire this out.

One of the reasons why my STEAM stats state I have played the Heavy the longest isn't simple devotion, it is the fact for a man of his size and wielding a great big metal gun the Heavy is REALLY REALLY slow. Don't expect to get to the frontline to dramatically alter the course of the battle, unless an Engineer has built a Teleporter. Best taunt? His Shotgun one.

The Scout:

Strengths:

Run, running, jump doge jump, capture point and grab intelligince.

Weaknesses:

Engineers Sentry Guns, Demoman sticky bombs anything really that can cause more than 10 damage a second.

Speed man! Speed, the life of a scout is ususally a short one with either sucess or bitter defeat. You are built for being small, irritating and very hard to hit. Never underestimate a Scout in combat but never assume as a Scout you are invincible. The Levered Scattergun the primary weapon of the Scout is hard hitting but it is nothing compared to the shame of being boinked to death by a Scouts Baseball Bat.

Scouts in capture maps have very few uses, usually at the start of the game or when the enemy team seems to have a crap slow defence. Their real strengths show in maps where Intelligince must be nabbed. Scouts also can capture a CP the fastest, because they count as two players instead of one. So being fragile is worth such a handy talent. Scouts also have this lovely ability called double jump, which I must say is very useful unless you are playing on a very laggy server. All the other classes are failures in the art of the jump, but Scout here has not only mastered height but the ability to change direction in jump too. Awesome.

Best taunt? Either his Scattergun or Baseball bat over the body of a fragged foe.

The Soldier:

Strengths:

Blast Things with Rockets, juggle, jump and possibly sing! And the rocket jump.

Weaknesses:

Fire, explosions and his own Rocket Launcher sometimes.

MAGGOTS! You feel like screaming this out yourself, launching a small barage of rockets at your enemies feet, reloading and then accidentally gibbing yourself into a small light red stain on the concrete floor of the cap point. The Soldier is the jack of all, trades, master of none. It is just you, and your rockets soldier. Of course, that isn't a bad thing. With rockets, you have the highest chances of gibbing the poor suckers on the receiving end. A critical hit on an enemy with a rocket is as glorious as a firework. Just remember, to shoot at the baddies feet first.

A Soldier is excellent for bombardment, clearing out campers and sentry guns and of course, frontal assaults. The best taunt? His melee weapon one. Warms the blood up for killing.

Appearinces wise, the Soldier is quite neat. But everyone loves a good helmet, eh? There is an old saying on the battlefield Soldier, if a Medic can't get a Bull he'll grab a Sheep. Meaning, if there isn't a Heavy around and the Medic is almost charged, you have the luck of being god for about ten seconds in the game. Use it wisely old boy.

The Pyro

Strengths:

Burning. Burning things. People. Building. And runs away a lot.

Weaknesses:

His fellow Pyro, really fast Scouts, Engineers Sentries and open spaces.

The weakest of all three Offensives, The Pyro needs a man with a brain to play him. First thing is first, running out in the open with a flame throwers makes your look like an idiot if there isn't a narrow opening, a team mate or a tunnel to hide in. You need to ambush and BURN your enemy, not get gibbed buy every single weapon on the opposing teams side in an instant. It really can be embarassing. When playing a Pyro, the term patience is a virtue does come to mind. Stalk, hide, ambush and harass the enemy until they burn to a crisp.

Pyros are excellent for sowing the seeds of chaos, especially over the control point. A single agile Pyro can ruin an entire effort in grabbing a point. Make that Pyro you. Pyros are the natural enemy of the Spy, since being cloaked is not flame resistint and the Pyro will enjoy wandering around the place looking for things to burn in his own way. He is a unique charactor, who has no nationality we can confirm and possibly a love to dressing up as a girl as strong as his love for fire.

The best taunt? Hard to choose, But I say his melee weapon one.

The Medic:

Strengths:

Being more agile than other classes, the ability to heal team mates, auto-heal and the uber charges.

Weaknesses:

Being a walking target for everything on the field of battle and the syringe gun.

Ah, The Medic. The legendary jodphur wearing German Mad Scientist Sterotype. A very useful class, the best friend of the Heavy and wieleder of the uber charge. Medics are essential for breaking through enemy lines and well, keeping your team mates alive because Medkits and Med Lockers are few and far between. Medics also heal when they are hurt, making them more durible than other classes on the field.

A good Medic needs good judgement skills and a good sense of direction. The beam of the Healing Gun can only go so far. Soldiers and Heavies are the guys that need the most healing in the heat of battle, as well as Dem0men. Heal Engies when you respawn. Don't bother healing Scouts if they don't stop, Spys because this will easily give their position away. Always heal any team mate on fire, because being set alight is such an inconvinience.

Interesting, the Medics bone saw melee weapon not only has one of the best taunts, but does the most damage in the game compared to the other melee weapons.

The Engineer.

Strengths:

Construction of Death Turrets, Teleporters and Dispensors.

Weaknesses:

Spys and their Sappers, Snipers and running out of metal.

The king of defence, the Engineer, especially when two of them work together should be feared and despised. Why? Because Engineers build turrets. Turrets that camp, and are allowed to camp. A level three twin chaingun turret with a missle launcher can ruin everyones day, unless they have been ubercharged by a Medic. A good Engineer needs to know his base off by heart, mainly the awkward hard to reace places that have excellent killing fields for his turrets. A good Engineer must also be brave and have the balls to leave his gun, go out into the frontline and plant a Teleporter somewhere to speed up slow dudes like the Heavy to get into the action quicker.

Medics must always be suspicious of odd types lurking in the base away from the battlefield. Especially if they stand anywhere near their turrets as their Natural foe, the Spy (Spyicious Sneakous) will stab them in the back, plant sappers causing their equipment to explode and laugh at them before nicking the Intelligince and leaving your base. Engineers can help the construction of their equipment by whacking them harder with their wrenches. Engineers can also recycle the weapons of the fallen for their turret and dispensor needs as well as the odd box of ammo lying around.

Best taunt, his Wrench taunt. Never seen a man so happy.

The Demoman:

Strengths:

Having grenades, being able to set traps with his Sticky Bomb Launcher and essential mastery of basic physics.

Weaknesses:

Lack of any weapon for close combat aside from his melee weapon, being a black scottish cyclops, RELOAD RELOAD GOD RELO-, and being the best choice for enemy Spys to immitate.

The Demoman is god, Always respect the Demoman. He is crusher of turrets, setter of clever but irritating sticky bomb traps and the only chap who can still spam his deadly grenades. The Demomans grenades should also be feared, because they don't do damage like a soggy brillo pad but infact cause death followed by gibs apon contact. The Demoman should be called if the Soldier fails at Sentry Gun removal. The Demoman uber charged by a Medic is fearsome, because he can now dance around his own explosions without any harm.

Not to say the poor chap has his faults. He is the right speed and usually, the right place in battle for a good Spy to copy. An Engineer won't blink is he spots a Demoman lurking around 2-Fort until he is knifed in the back. A Demoman, like the Soldier with his rocket jump, can use one of his bombs to jump to a higher place. Health and speed wise, the Demoman is the Medium of both.

The best taunt? His Pipe Bomb Grenade Launcher one. Nothing can counter that.

The Sniper:

Strengths:

The Scope of Zooming, Quick recharge, excellent secondary ranged weapon and mobile anti-Heavy defence.

Weaknesses:

Lack of Periphial Vision, Butterfly Knives to his back, Laser sight, enemy snipers with quicker reactions and being confused in a close quarters battle.

There is always one in any FPS game, a Sniper Rifle. The Sniper is an impressive class and very well balanced despite the deadliness of his bolt action rifle. His MP-40 looking Sub Machine gun is also very very good when it comes to close quarters combat and has a decent amount of ammo. Snipers may be more fragile than glass being the second weakest class but still put up one hell of a fight.

The charge bit of the Sniper Rifle is surprisingly easily, it does it by it self and is very fast. This however makes the dot of the laser sight very visible to your potential target. Lack all Snipers in all games, it is not common to get killed by something in close quarters because you are busy trying to pick off that nasty bugger of a Sniper on the other side of the map.

The best taunt? His Sniper Rifle one. So true.

The Spy

Strengths:

The deadly backstab, going Predator with cloak, the ability to disguise and the Magnum of death.

Weaknesses:

Knife is terrible for stabbing anything but the back, can't cloak if holding Intelligince, loses disguise if bumped into or shot by enemy and limited time to cloak.

The Spy, one of everyones favourite classes in TF2 because they are kings of humiliation and trickery. Nothing says pwned more than being humbled by a Spy because your fragging spree has kept you rooted to the same spot facing the same direction way longer than you should have. Good Spys must know where to go on maps and who to disguise as. It is obvious the main way out of the base is out, since everyone and their mothers are watching it on the opposite team. Cloak or not, splash damage of spammed rockets will get you.

Be clever, use alernate routes and get behind enemy lines before disguising. A quick work of warning, never disguise as the Spy or enemy Scout. Your speed will remain the same, and Engineers will shoot you for being a Spy whether you are wearing your colours or not. A clever spy can easily disassemble a ramshackle defence by sapping turrets and other Engineer equipment and kacking off their best players. The best Spy can be healed, then uber charged by an enemy Medic.

The Spy Magnum is deadly, two or three shots should be enough to dispatch your foe. Be careful with your cloaking and teleporting too. And the best taunt, his Magnum one after bloody combat.

So, that is it. Next TF2 update will be about the maps, my likes and dislikes of them and general pleas to VALVE for some more of them.

Christmas Gaming Bonanza!

Oy vey, Christmas finished and my birthday and it seems I've been given quite a few requested games to waste time on and write about.

First off, The Crowning Jewl of the Set is The Orange Box. Despite being a few months late, I finally get all the Portal references people are dropping and indulge in heavy cartoon themed violence every now and then now. I am planning to play HL2 Episode 2 somewhat in the new year. I also received a Sold Out version of Broken Sword 1 and 2. Praise the gift givers! I've never actually played Broken Sword 2.

I also got Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 and the expansion. At last, it seems the gaming circle is complete seeing one of my first true PC Games was Theme Park in 1998. I am looking forward to opening my cheekily named Theme Park once more and erecting Rollercoasters I'd never ride in real life.

My Sisters received a copy of The Sims 2, which I will be borrowing when I can for a quick go. I remember the fun of the original, and I am pleased to see while peeking over my sisters shoulder a huge amount of change has happened, especially in the area of customisation.

I have also nabbed a Copy of Black and White 2, and the Empire At War expansion. So in the next few months, I'll be smashing things with a crowbar, being god, watching over my little Sim Families, creating my own Disney and taking over the Galaxy with crime. Action packed!

I'll update if I find/buy anymore games, but at the moment my biggest problem is HD space. Never be cheap with HD space with games these days, trust me, At least have a 100 Gigabyte HD minimum people!

Oh, and an amusing gem I dug up from SomethingAwful earlier for those interested. Apparently, the SA Goons (Or forum goers for those who don't read SA) MS Painted a series of game characters in their old age, sad yet greatly amusing:

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/comedy-goldmine/ms-paint-video.php?page=1

Quality Machinima I Like

Entertainment these days is a funny thing, you will find more good things on the internet that the actual Television. One of the more original things is the gaming art of Machinima, which turns simple games where you shoot somebody in the head to something more artistic (Or really badly edited footage of you shooting somebody in the head in black and white online).





Like the Silver Age of Hollywood, Machinima has also begun to shine making us laugh, cry or cry wtf?!.





In this entry I am going to list a few notable single Machiis (I'm not sure what the proper term is for more than one, so I winged it) or Machinma series on the web with appropriate links. I'll also vaguely ramble about them enough to make them appealing enough to be checked out.








Rooster Teeth Productions AKA Red Versus Blue:





The guys (And eventually, girls) that started the mainstream modern movement of Machinima should get a little bit more recognition for more than just RvB. They've also done PANICS (A short series based on FEAR) The Stranger Hood (The Sims 2) and a series based on that Rubbish Fantasy Shoot 'Em Up Game.





In fact, they are so good god help any Machinima series where a character has the slighest trait from a character IN RvB (Despite the fact that characters in some Machinma have to act crazy because people don't make subtle animations in most games where you shoot bullets into people) that some fucking idiot will be leave a poorly spelt comment informing other viewers.





RvB is about two teams of Spartan armour wearing Marines stuck in the Blood Gulch map in an alternative timeline to the original HALO, Where they beat the nasty aliens and civil war began. Both teams are full of people who simply became soldiers because they could shoot guns, not because of their personalities. Nobody here is well adjusted. In fact, the characters of the infamous anime Neon Genesis Evangelion are hyper active and friendly compared to these guys.





The writing for RvB is very very good. There are moments that will make you laugh your head off, or nod in agreement. It is also one of the longest running Machinima ever. The series makes a leap from Halo to Halo 2 on the 3rd season and rumours are that RvB IF made will take place in Halo 3 with a different set of maladjusted future soldiers. The success of RvB is pretty awesome, because you can buy DVDs of the thing instead of spending hours on the internet looking for each episode. Which is a good idea, because the quality of the 1st series outside the DVD is pretty poor.





You can find Rooster Teeth's website here, Where they host some of the episodes of most of their machinima and the forums themselves.





http://rvb.roosterteeth.com/home.php





Lit Fuse Productions:





While RvB is the leading Machinima when it comes to Halo, Lit Fuse covers mainly Half Life 2 and several other VALVE games in their little portfolio. Lit Fuse was eventually conceived from several famous Posters of the HL2 GMOD Comic making community, PHW forums. Led by the plucky Michael and eccentric Steinmann, the team work hard to provide some quality stuff to watch.





The War Of The Servers, A two hour long War of The Worlds Parody set in Gmod is one of their best, other quality mentions are the excellent done Ignis Solus in Team Fortress 2 which is simply done easily using the games animations and the simple noclip STEAM console command. They also did Maintenance Man which is an amusing take on the events of early HL2 Episode 1 from the Combines POV and are working on the amusing Civil Protection series.





Lit Fuse Films are long and have a rather majestic soundtrack compared to the usual five minute bites of most web Machinima and are must sees for the obsessive VALVE/HL2 fans out there. Their Website hosts in site flash browsers and links to most of their materiel. I seriously suggest checking out Ignis Solus especially if you a TF2 Pyro fan. Lit Fuse also has a STEAM Community you can join if you want to help out somehow with their projects or just hang out.





http://litfusefilms.com/





The Janus Syndicate:





http://janus-syndicate.com/?page_id=5





While Lit Fuse is the big, bold and majestic son of HL2 Machinima, The Janus Syndicate are a smaller but more original grass roots movements. Old that Lit Fuse (They have been doing stuff since the original Counter Strike) the The Janus Syndicate which has been revived by quite a few FacePunch forum members and help focuses more on the humour spectrum of the HL2 Universe at large.





The JS work on Independent Projects from time to time, much like Lit Fuse but also have several rather interesting Machinma series under their belts. My favourite one of these is HL2 Mod Tod, where a man named Tod jumps plays an online HL2 Mod with his only friend, a mic and sort of reviews the mod amongst planned and accidental improvised comedy. The Janus Syndicate loves to parody things, even more than Lit Fuse as you will see if you watch Dirty Garry (A Gmod RP Dirty Harry Parody) and Dr Strangeman (A General HL2 Universe Pardody of Dr Strangelove).





The JS host all their works on YouTube, all links of which appear on their constantly updated website with a forum. They also have a very friendly STEAM Community you can join if you want to help or just hang out with them.





I also suggest checking out the first episode of The GMAD Squad too.








http://janus-syndicate.com/?page_id=5





Smooth Few Films:





One of the newer studios, Smooth Few Films currently are working on only two series at the moment, the Counter Strike Source based Leet World and something involving Halo 3.





The Leet World is interesting, Because Counter Strike Source is an untouched medium when it comes to long term Machinima. The premise with The Leet Word is quite simply, The Counter Terrorists and Terrorists taking part in a Reality Show. They live in the ramshacke house that is the Militia hostage rescue map. The Counter Terrorists and Terrorists each have a rather unique personality. They Producers use a mix of Counter Strike Source and GMOD 10 for filming, which gives them certain liberties like Lit Fuse and Janus Studios thanks to Mods and other stuff that can easily be put into the game.





I mentioned the Leet World at the start of the blog, but here is the website where you can watch or download most of their episodes. You can also find The Leet World on YouTube.





http://www.theleetworld.com/

The Horsemen of the Apocaypse the guys behind The Fortress:

These guys are quite new but they are also pioneers of independent TF2 Machinima, they have decided to do something quite unique for The Fortress. Instead of the series being about the characters in the game, it is sort of about the (voices) of the players playing the game, sort of RPing their parts in total. The series is quite unique, because due to the fact you will get people that in real life nothing like their TF2 counter parts (For example, A Woman plays The Heavy and amusingly, the guy playing the Scout class sounds just like him!). Sort of hardcore philosphy hidden amongst the witty humour.

The only thing The Fortress needs to improve is time (As well as maybe tone the camp factor down of the gay Engineer. Nothing wrong with being gay I am not at all homophobic, but dammit that sterotype is annoying).

These guys also have their own STEAM Community, as well as a forumsite where you can download their videos. Like The Leet World, most of their episodes are currently on YouTube.

http://www.team-brh.com/thefortress/

Nurdbots Guide To Online Mic Users

In this modern broadbandtastic headshot a minute respawn a second word of online gaming, we don't have time like we used to type OMG YOU HACKER into the six line sized box that is public chat in online gaming. Yes, thanks to the rise of technology these days gamers would rather use a mic with or without a headset, instead of replying in the distracting method of typing out or using pre-recorded voice commands to inform the team that their collective asses were being kicked.


At last, you can finally scream through your cheap three pound mic with relish and accuse somebody of being a hacking fag slut, with your speakers on high, hand on chest and TK macro at the ready. I myself, thanks to the last few years of casual gaming on STEAM game servers have researched, rechecked, tore up, fabricated, tore up and finally released a list of the several categories of the most infamous of Mic users in the gaming battlefields. Read on and learn, my unwashed masses!


Captain Tactical Strategy:

Captain TS is a strange creature, he is a man who knows from the deep pit of his soul that he himself can only lead his fellow gamer into winning the game by using teamwork, following his orders and doing the objective. Sadly, Captain TS is also extremely naive thinking that his fellow public server gamers are a team of loyal, hard thinking and intelligent group of people instead of lone wolf assholes with the suicidal urges of a Lemming high on quality speed wearing Rollerskates while visiting Dover for the Weekend.


And for that, he will, most of the time be ignored by fellow gamers much to his dismay and frustration. Sometimes, he will even get aggressive and lose his cool picking fights with other players, arguing over against fellow Mic users or text types alike. He usually is either a guy who was once the leader of a rather decent amateur Professional Clan in the old Quake or CS era of gaming or less commonly an actual Military Officer in real life who is a gamer.


The Master DJ:

His name does what it says on the tin, The Master DJ loves music and WILL share it with you throughout the entire game, piping it through his microphone either for an application made for playing music in the game online or (god help you) forgoing quality and playing a cheap CD Player really loud next to his mic on the desktop. The man rarely speaks himself, too busy rocking out with his cock out while everyone trying to communicate in attempts to beating the opposite team is being drowned out by the latest POS that is in the charts or some awful Techno rubbish.


Master DJ actually has a sense of humour, and sometimes will even grant requests to friendly players on the server. Oddly enough, the Master DJ has an evolutionary spin off, the LAWL Master DJ. The LAWL Master DJ plays sound, either clips or actual rather embarrassing music from a series of Internet memes. He will also attempt failing at being ironically funny too. It is theorised he is the offshoot of the Token Internet Asshole and Master DJ's mother.

The Token Asshole:

Like everything else with humanity involving something more than a single person, there is an asshole in the online mic using gaming community. The Token Asshole is usually a 14 year old teenage male, or a male in his late thirties. Both share the same common affliction of not shutting the fuck up and hanging themselves. The Token Asshole, has one objective. To annoy everyone for laughs.


How they do this, is in a variety of ways. From barking out random offensive and racist terms as casual and loud as if it was the thirties again over the mic, to screaming, screeching, farting, arguing with their mothers or in general creating an echo with their speakers on purpose. They will not care for you, the team or even the game they are playing. We suspect now these people have decided their ultimate aim in the universe is to be banned from every online game ever to gain the crown of King Asshole.


The TA loves to piss off Captain TS, Constantly accusing him of being a different sexuality over the mic, pettily arguing with him or just drowning him out so the game can be lost quicker. The Internet asshole almost has a creepy modern day Michael Jackson effect with the Kid.


The Kid:

Considering parents these days are quite liberal and gaming appeals to almost everyone now, It isn't usual you will get the odd visit or two by The Kid, his voice when using the mic instantly tipping off how old he is in a second. Now, remember to go easy on the fellow. Yeah sure, your age you were more interested in cartoon and not going to school but this guy could become a
pro-gamer or hardcore modder in the future. So to be space, be cool with him.


The Kid is usually quite competent at times and gets along great with everyone. He however, has two major down sides. The first is, being a child, he is quite impressionable and chances are he'll become friends with the Internet Asshole, who teaches him that is quite all right to keep dropping the N-bomb and using other colourful language on the mic during the game us quite fair and fun. He also rarely has a hot sister in her late teens, willing to kick him off, take over and talk on the mic.

Negative Dude:
Woe betide if you can hear the Negative Dude, woe to you more if he is on your team because being the delightful confident and patriotic person he is will keep informing that A, we're losing and B, we suck because we are losing. Amusingly enough, Negative Dude himself is rarely above average in such situations and refuses to acknowledge the fact the reason the team is losing is because he is sapping morale, will not shut up and generally sounds funny.


However, the Negative Dude can actually, but rarely sort of cheer up when he is certain things are going the teams way he is on. If not, he'll usually just switch sides to the opposite team who immediatly begin to lose horribly.


Foreign Guy:


This one is usually quite rare, the Foreign Guy is simply a poor soul who has wondered into a random server and is speaking his langauge fluently not getting until it is too late that the server he has joined doesn't have a major multi-lingual population. You yourself can easily become the Foreign Guy if you join a server which is clearly marked by the name as a French/Spanish/German/Chinese speaking server. Sadly, Foreign Guys who can't speak or type english yet use the mic are destined to be kicked for the amount of confusion it could cause. We know a majority of gamers have trouble understanding the basic commands of online gaming in english after all.


The Foreign Guy is the second favourite target of the internet asshole, hopefully however foreign guy has no idea what the hell the Internet Asshole is saying to him.

Documentary: Rise of the Video Game

A short post today readers, but a rather interesting one.

The Discovery Channel recently has begun airing a several part documentary basically about the history of the electronic game. This little program of around forty minutes covers the creation of gaming as secret hobbies of Cold War Technicians right up to to days multi-million dollars industry.

The program is full of some very interesting tidbits not even Wikipedia knows (Until some anal person puts them in the thing at least) like the origin of why Pacman was Pacman and how the September the 11th Terrorist Attack helped the War Gaming platform. A lot of key players of gaming are interviewed in the program too.

I have the Veoh Links here, each link is a full episode that requires you to register with Veoh and download their player (Both are free and not at all buggy). They are worth watching indeed.

Level 1:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1571248E3fqmwNW
Level 2:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v15720553SxXjfCh
Level 3:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1622155ymCZMYQC
Level 4:
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v1641365kTByTTtJ

Mod Play: Empires 2.0

Yes boys and girls, it it is time once more for another edition of Mod Play!

I have a gun! At last! Now world, you put YOUR hands up!

Name: Empires 2.0

Game: Half Life 2.

Type: Multiplayer FPS/RTS Hybred.

War! Hah! Good God, What is it good for? Fun apparently...

Now Empires has a small history, It was originally a Battlefield 1942 Mod which would explain the slight resemblance to the Models, The grid map and the diverse list of user friendly mechanised killing machines which you don't usually see much bigger than a few vehicles in your average HL2 Mod. Vehicles aside from the Buggy and Air boat were rare in HL2 mods because of the SOURCE engine at the time, but the Mod as you can see has worked around such problems and benefitted greatly with a huge amount of engine upgrades since 2004.

Soldiers in Empires are attracted to free ammoz like gazelles to watering holes.

The FPS bit is also quite BF1942-esqe. You and your fellow grunts must capture the Refineries dotted around the map while icing as much as the enemy possible with various weapons and vehicles. The RTS bit, with the Commander, places buildings down, organises the Squads of Infantry to actually do something instead of the usual anarchy in these sort of games for rewards that unlock the further skills for their classes (we'll get into that in a little bit) and help win the game for their side. The Commander (Who at the start of each round is elected) also has a RTS view of the entire map without fog of war inside his own vehicle, the Command Vehicle. If this is eliminated, the game is lost. Destroying the Command Vehicle is one of the easier ways to win a game. The other is to simply smash the opposite teams tickets down to 1 and kill all the Engineers to stop them re spawning. The attrition way. Commanders can also research and upgrade their teams technology giving them better vehicles, improved body armour and improving the damage dealt to the enemy forces with ease.

I am the Angel of Death. There will be no survivors.

They flushed away a perfectly good Engineer, only a little blood on him!

There are three different games modes, The RTS mode where bases must be built and tickets wore down until you smash the enemy commander with your bigger better armoured army as well as the classic Conquest where your team must capture strategic areas of the map in man on man urban combat. The 3rd mode, escort I have sadly not played but with a title like that I imagine it has something to do with keeping your Commander alive and moving.

Lots of manly uniformed men holding manly guns about to do a deal of great manly things Like dying manly! and shooting manly!

In fact, Empires was one of the first FPS multiplayer game with the RTS Commander Modded in modern times . So when you are having fun as the Commander in Battlefield 2 or 2142 thank Empires for adding this little system, otherwise we'd have something cheaper and less appealing. It actually is sort of fun, when you listen to your Commanders orders and get something right. Don't be too upset somehow is a Donkey instead of a Lion is elected leader and has no idea what the hell is doing. Empires is also one of the games where a Mic is incredibly useful. The interface DOES of course come with an excellent menu of voice commands but a mic usually makes thinks easier getting your Commanders attention and also adds a layer of amusement to the game.

We have got to stop conscripting the blind, they are terrible at this.

We know of the bone of the game, you cry, but what of the meat? Empires 2.0 has lots of it. In addition to over 12 unique maps for the game, all of them very well done (some Imported and Retooled for the SOURCE Engine from the BF1942 version) the two armies of the game the Northern Faction (Crazy Yellow Loving Slav Rebels) and the Brenodi Empire (Evil-Commie Nazi's!) have two unique styles with not only their appearances, but with their vehicles, weapons and buildings too. Each side however, has the same four combat classes. Rifleman, Scout, Engineer and Grenadier.

Two APCS depart a Brendoni Empire base, destined to spawn nubs into war!

You can ride shotgun in most of the vehicles, and shoot from the top too!

Rifleman is the jack of all trades, master of none. He can choose between the normal Rifle, the heavier offensive version or the MG for defence and suppressive fire. Scout is your typical Artillery Spotter and Saboteur Commando. Engineer can build buildings and walls, heal and revive fallen comrades and upgrade turret defences with ease. Grenadiers are masters of everything explosive. They can drop bombs onto campers with Mortars, Shatter armoured hulls with their Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher or drop mines that are hazard to man and machine. All classes can help an Engineer build up structures and walls by helping with the welding by pressing E.

The Engineers humble pocket Calculator, creator of Empires.

Engineers can drop Ammo and Health Supply crates for Infantry

for when the base armoury is too far away or the player is too fat/lazy.

The FPS bit gets even more diverse with classes and skills as well as selectable weapons. For example, after joining Bravo Squad I choose to be a Scout. Tapping the B key, I choose my first skill (You get a free skill point for joining and working with squads, which makes not going solo even more appealing) cloak and then instead of the sniper rifle grab a machine pistol and Flash bang Grenade. I catch a ride with the APC leaving the base, leave halfway through the intended route and sneak behind enemy lines to disrupt Engineers Turret production by cloak, shoot and sabotage. As I gain points for the kills and damage, I will soon unlock up to three more skills for myself as I gain Rambo-esqe experience from the battlefield.

Tense stand offs between Tanks overrunning Engineer outposts happen a lot.

The Mortar, A Campers worst nightmare.


Vehicles in the game can also be customised. You can choose what kind of engine to put in your APC to make it faster or go up hills better, or to make your tank heavier with that extra grenade launcher. Most vehicles can be multi-crewed, the most useful vehicle in the game next to the Commanders little Camper van is the APC, which is a mobile spawn point players can spawn from as long as it is standing on its own two wheels. Vehicles cost resources to spawn and create, and unlike BF1942, wasting one is a pretty serious offence. Luckily, Commanders have an option to limit what the Vehicle Factory can produce, or just decide what needs to be built so rounds are not spoilt by smacktards building waves of pointless jeeps.


Two cannons good! One cannon bad!

When playing the game, you will indeed have some excellent moments like I have had and will keep on having. Desperately building a wall with two Engineers under enemy APC turret fire, watching in satisfaction as you dive behind cover a fully loaded Northern faction jeep rolls over your mine, sneaking deep behind enemy lines and sabotaging their refineries or simply getting a kill with the Shotgun Pistol. Yes. That is one of the Northern Faction sidearms, a Pistol that fires shot. It has the best animations I have seen in ages on a HL2 game weapon. All the guns in the game are pretty, from the Brendoni Empires Engineer SMGs, To the Northern Factions Steam punk looking Landmines. However, melee combat is also there, in the Halo-esqe manly form of beating an enemy to death with your weapon. Most of the non-scoped or Machine Gun Rifles also have iron sights. Deep joy!



Look! The Shottie Pistol, and the Rebel Wall Fortifcation.

Northern faction Mine, Cutest Mine Ever.

Empires 2.0 at the moment as a pretty successful player count when it comes to a HL2 Mod, On average around 200-300 players are playing. The main appeal to the thing I expect, is mostly the vehicles and promised tactical and team work moments of the game. It is indeed something a little different from the usual frag and smash of HL2 Multiplayer gaming. The maps and general atmosphere of the game is very well done indeed. The interface needs a little more tweaking and the models need to look a little bit more pretty (Both promised in the up coming updated SOURCE Engine update, along with flying vehicles) and the sticky grenades of the Rifleman have an annoying habit of not, well sticking to a rampaging blood thirsty target when needed. You will also need to do a little bit of keymapping.

Angered and lonely due to years of war, Soldiers communicate their feelings through the means of bullet graffiti.


The next update should be very good for Empires, because it is increasing the highest player cap to 64 player. I have never heard of a HL2 Mod with that many players before and I will be quite interest indeed to see how this one does turn out. Hopefully, It won't lag and we will see some magnificent battles. The Installer file for the game is pretty large (Over 700 Megabytes) and I suggest the most reliable way in downloading the game is to simply join Filefront and use their IGN Downloader Client. It gets the job done efficiently.




Good Leadership and teamwork ensures you stride over the corpses of your fallen enemy...


...or gets you reduced to a bloody splatter on the landscape because of smacktardation.


Empires is lovely Mod, revived from the BF1942 Engine to the SOURCE Engine and your Empires need you soldier to fight in this crazy ragdoll physics explosive Warfest! Right now! Join Squad Bravo on the double man! And pick up a Rifle. Remember to press F10 in the game for all the info and you need and for god sake, don't become a Commander. Please. Don't waste noble, intelligent and well loved tickets. And your soldiers lives too, I guess.

This is my rifle, there are many ones like it, but this is mine. Because I aimbotted it.

Point 'n' Click: The Beloved Dinosaur of Gaming

A long time ago, before today's fancy high resolution detailed 3D graphics, quality sound and havoc physics engine gaming on PCs used to be quite different. More flat, sprite-esq and easier on the hard drive when it came down to the size. And during those days, there was a genre called point and click games. These games didn't involve shooting thugs in the face or general construction of cities/armies/planet earth or even teaming up with your mates to smack something until it gave you exp. These games were interesting interactive stories.

Nowadays, They have been usurped by the more addictive, pretty and interactive (But still slightly shallow) Plat former RPGS. Just remember, as you bounce happily around with Mario on Mario Galaxies with your Wii your hands are stained with PnC games blood. Your dirty murderer :(.

A few famous titles come to mind, mainly Day of The Tentacle, Monkey Island, Broken Sword and the Discworld trilogy. Instead of shooting nasties in most of these games you had to outwit them, either with your main characters cheeky conversation skills or using random stuff your obsessively stolen all over the place to slat together a crude puzzle using lateral thinking.

Occasionally, mostly with the Broken Sword games you could mess up and have your main character cruelly killed. Many times in my experience poor George Stobbart of the Broken Sword series got shot, imprisoned or fell into a lethal trap because of my cheap assumptions and bad reaction times (Of course, I can reach the heavily armed man, shock him and in the next two second grab the lethal gun!. Ow.)

In these games days, they had the pinnacle of all gaming tech behind them (Very well drawn and rendered art, full voice acting with was a rarity back then where text usually took voices places and professional very well done stories) and were indeed quite a fun way to introduce a family friend into gaming. Funny how Tabloid Newspapers focused on the Dooms and Duke Nukem's of the day, but never cared for Sam and Max Hit the Road or Monkey Island eh?

The stories in these were made out of pure emotion. If you accidentally led your hero into a messy death, you felt horribly guilty. When Rincewind got really sarcastic (Eric Idle does lovely voice acting in games, I do hope we hear more from him) you can't help but snicker and the fictional character match maker inside you screamed at George and Nicole to get together!

This whole field was something that LucasArts was very very good out. Yes, LA did NOT make usually crappy Star Wars tie in games once upon a time many years ago. Back then, they made some golden Star Wars games too but we'll chat about that some other time. Even today, in the mighty year of 2007 Grim Fandango, Day of The Tentacle and the Monkey Island Trilogy cannot be beaten by the recent reappearance of PnC's bastard son.

Yeah, PnC returned majorly a few years ago with the release of Broken Sword 3 in full 3D. A few PnC games come out rarely now of this genre, but a majority of them are dog poo badly knocked up and released by a few amateur gaming companies with barely any experience, funds and a sane deadline. After all, why spend months even years making an action packed FPS with complicated animations, processor hogging explosions and complicated multi player modes when you can hire a few down on their luck porn actors, shove them in a voice studio and hire somebody who can knock togther polygons that resemble homosapien. And chuck in a few hundred bugs with a hack of a script writer fired from the latest series of The Simpsons.

My favourite games of the whole genre, however, have always been the Discworld ones. I've always been a fan of Terry Pratchetts Discworld for as long as I can remember and the Discworld games amused me greatly despite the fact when I got older and read the books discovered that Terry, quite cheekily, borrowed and merged several of his book plots for Discworld 1 (Guards! Guards! crossed with The Light Fantastic) and Discworld 2 (Reaper Man, Soul Music and Moving Pictures). The best one of these was Discworld Noir which took to the 3D plane beautifully and was actually a very well down story. I lost my PSX version of the game and ache to replay the thing sometimes. One of these days, I am going to look in the bargain bin for a PC replacement. Assuming it runs on Windows XP.

So PnC, we wish you well with our sepia tinged nostalgia. Just stop dropping horrible attempts to cash in on your past successes (The recent Sam and Max crap fests) and we wish you the best luck for a proper re-emergence into the gaming industry now that story is the most craved for elements in our digital Rambo/MMO/Dictator binges. Thankfully, a lot of these titles are either sold in Bargain Bin Remastered packs or available to play thanks to the SCUMM application with several others if you own the older DOSS era games. It is such a damn shame we never got a serious Star Wars version of these based on one of the more better expanded Universe Novels.

Oh, and in the words of beloved Guybrush, You apparently fight like a cow.

PVP:The WORST gaming comic ever.

PVP sucks. No silly, not the actual player versus player combat of games, that would be a sacreligious thing to say anyway.

No, I mean the webcomic. It sucks. Brutally bad. The internet, no doubts has hundreds of webcomic rating from meh to worth reading, but PVP and the creator Scott Kurtz have earned a hated place in my heart for the simple fact that reading one of these comics to me, at least, gives me a sensation of deep hurting.

PVP is bland, boring and has a host of idiot whacky characters that are suppose to be enduring, but instead are all fictional poster children for genocide, torture and the utter destruction of both of Scott Kurtz hands. Scott himself is a terrible artist. Seriously, if you read a PVP comic you will NEVER see a character drawn in any other way but facing you. Garfield does that, and we all know Garfield these last 18 years have sucked horrily. Maybe Kurtz and Henson should team up, and print out their bland comics in every funny section of the newspaper to hurry to headlong rush of doom humanity is currently running.

Also, I hate the characters. The cast are the follow: A balding whiny 'old skool' gamer, his Mac obsessed sunglasses wearing jerk off of a friend, his annoying girl friend, the sterotypical teen power gamer (DIEOFAIDSDIEOFAIDS!) and the stupid fucking whacky monster guy. Apparently, these things have personalities. I can't see any, just ANNOYING REALLY ANNOYING dialogue. Occasionaly, Kurtz likes to take over and tell us about his whacky middle aged Dad in this modern world of techology. Of course, when you are reading a webcomic based on gaming you really don't care. We're here for the humour, pardodies of games and the chance the artist will draw the token gamer chick in something sexy.

Kurtz himself, personality wise, is a despicable blob of a man. He, along with his creepy buddy who created the equally overrated and obnoxious webcomic SinFest pretty much think they rule the whole webcomic community simply because they were the first ones that started putting their badly drawn crap onto merchandice. Scott Kurtz also seems to miss the point of many other webcomics, ones that actual have proper attempts of humour instead awful mac running jokes and Panda attacks.

If you ever see the man in person, dear reader, please inform him that CTRL-ALT-DELETE was a lot funnier just to watch the man himself personally aligh his gravity around him and attempt to harness the power of his ego to crush you. If you sort of like PVP, STOP READING IT NOW. Delete the damn URL from your favourites and look for VG Cats/CTRL-ALT-DELETE/Woody Comics for an actual laugh. You'll thank me after rolling your eyes.

A Battlefield 1942 Veteran Remembers

Now, in online gaming terms I didn't arrive in the period of old school Quake and CS fragging, but a few years later in 2003. The first actual game where I was put against my fellow man online was Battlefield 1942. Looking back at it now, nothing of this kind of FPS fraggery appealed to me until I read the review of BF1942.

Back in the boring school days of 02 the thought of jumping online and sharing a virtual world war 2 themed Battlefield stocked with all the toys and guns a boy could dream of and eventually I was granted that dream the coming Christmas. I remember my first map, Operation Battle Axe. I spawned in one of the bunkers as a Medic rignt in the thick of combat in that bitter little Battlefield and quickly began my Support Career in FPS games from now on. When I fix somebodies armour in Planetside or heal somebody in a MMO I will always think of my little British Medic, trying to press the Medical Satchel against his wounded comrade under German GM fires.

BF1942 addicted me like crack, I was determined especially to Master the Engineer Class and crush all those in my wake with the one shot one kill bolt action rifle of death. The game it self was incredibly arcadey and as I grew a little older I desired more than the simple cartoony anarchnosims and downloaded Forgotten Hope, which extended me playing the game for an extra three years.

My favourite Vanilla BF1942 map was eventually, after playing quite a few several times over, was El Alamein. I always played for the home team when I could, slapping down Landmines in the middle Control Point and blasting those damn Jerry Planes from the sky in my Ack-Ack Anti-Air gun. Interesting fact, I quite enjoyed using AA guns. The satisfaction of downing those showboating Pilot clowns from the sky and watching the blackened twisted wreckage of their plane slam into the ground after was brillaint.

I was quite rubbish when it came to flying too, I somehow could not master the act of coaxing the buxom and darling mistress of gravity into keeping me steady enough when going into the air. I crashed more than a 3rd World Nation Airline Jumbo Jet and rarely hopped into planes unless they needed a gunner. The latter action saw more action with FH, Especially with the deliciously sexy Bombers.

One thing I HATED in the game was the blasted grenades. The second you saw one of the enemies grenades plink next to you while crawling on the ground over the Bocage bridge (This happens a lot) you know your fragging is inevitible and you groan as your poor avatars body is comically tossed into the air with the cartoony explosion. Another thing that drove me to FH, was the stupid act of balance in making HAND GRENADES do damage to tanks. Madness. As for weapons I loved, The Lee Enfield with the Road to Rome bayonet came the closest to my heart.

Speaking of Tank Damage, next to the Engineer the true Warrior of the BF1942 field of conflicts was that mighty manly man the Anti-Tank guy with his Slow Mo Rocket, Piddily Pistol and Combat Knife against the world of many mean lean killing machines. I remember fondly, Clutching my American issued Bazooka (?) as a Soviet in the Kursk Map hopping around and shooting a German to death easily with my Colt. Thankfully, Tanks in Vanilla Battlefield could only take Three hits to the front and rear and two hits to the side. Makes you thank god they didn't make tank armour like that in real life or the 2nd World War cost of life would have been even more terrible eh?

The most unique maps that BF1942 offered were the Pacific Campaign ones, Because of the Navy Combat. Everyone wanted to crew the Battleship or Destroyers or the sneaky Submarine (The latter requiring the most patient BF1942 player) and simply causes havoc by bombarding the enemy bases. Mastering the Torpedo Bombs during Battle of the Coral Sea was something every player wanted to do, copying the act from the rather nifty Intro Movie.

What really makes me smile, Is remembering playing against the bots of the game as general hands on practice before carting myself online. The AI of the bots in these games was incredibly dismal these days. You can NEVER replicate the random cunning of fighting against a person online (Nowadays, bots have come almost as close as possible) and the things the bots did in 1942 were so insane you would NEVER see such actions on an actual public server.

For example, sometimes Three AT Class boss would go prone and fires their missles at you, despite the fact you are foot and can dodge them like a mouse dodging an OAP driving at half a mile an hour with ease and shoot them in the head. Bots in the game all had habit of crounching and throwing themselves on the ground for no reason. Bots would also spawn camp the areas where vehicles respawned, even long after said means of transport were long taken. Bots were even more addicted to TKing or suiciding than the FF players. Bots were even more terrible at flying planes than me, you had to be careful to not get caught in a plane crash. Bots, no matter how hard the AI was were easy to kill people would only play a single player game just to try out a map they haven't played or to improve their skills. A few years later, Modders of the game managed to pound out something decent from the glitchy coding of the AI and removed all the inane smacktardation code.

Another thing I loved about BF1942, were the useful Radio Commands on the F buttons. Most of the time, people actually used these and they helped a lot to encourage teamwork. It was a custom to F5-F5 an Engineer or Medic for doing their job. The phrases themselves echo still in my brain (MEDIC!, TALLY HO and my personal favourite SCHNELL LOSS) and unlike most command menus you see in the games it is quicky and easy to use.

I played a few Mods to BF1942, All of them excellent total conversations. Battlefield 1918, Galatic Conquest and Forgotten Hope were my personal favourites. I also wanted to get around to playing Desert Combat, Eve of Destruction or the Pirate Mods of the games but never had the time or harddrive space. Most of these mods have continued onto Battlefield 2 or 2142.

Sadly, I haven't been able to play the sequals to Battlefield 1942. Battlefield 2 and 2142 need an extremely better Processor much to my grief. Battlefield 3 doesn't sound that much appealing to me too. I think it is sad EA bought DICE now and we will never see Battlefield Imperial Era or Battlefield Korea.

The influence of the game had spread very well, most FPS games these days go for the old conquest node capture mode they streamlined and the proof that several of the mods have moved on to different engines (SOURCE, Crystis etc) by retaining the streamlined team against team with lots of guns and vehicle action. PlanetSide the MMO remindes me a lot of the game, and is excellent to buy if you are an old junkie like me who wants to capture positions and appear the most on the kill message portion of the screen with your signature weapon icon.

One of these days, I must reinstall and see if a few Vanilla servers are still going...

City of Heroes/Villans: Best MMO ever?

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