Valve are at it again, details for the next big update to Team Fortress 2 are already sneaking out. this time the big man himself gets an update. The Heavy is the next class to be tweaked and you can get some of the details here.

This weekend sees the next round of character updates for TF2. this Time the Pyro gets a small makeover and a tone of neat achievements to get your teeth into. The Pyro’s flame thrower has been slightly modded so it now has an alt fire option that will repel nearby ordnance and opponents when used. the idea behind this is that you set the unlucky victim alight then blast them with a shot of compressed air using the alt fire option thus enabling the nible legged gimp suited freak of a pyro that you are, to escape forthwith ;0)

As with the medic class there are 36 new achievements which will unlock new weapons when you reach the 12, 24 and 36 milestones.

2 New community maps are also included in this update and there’s another freeplay weekend so if you don’t already have TF2 in your game collection, you can download and play for free all weekend. Oh, as if that weren’t enough, theres a new TF2 blog too over at teamfortress.com

The Full details and some nice shiny pics are here, and I’ve included the new meet the sniper video below.

Have fun and maybe I’ll see you on a server, if you get fragged by StaticVenom <TWM> that’s me ;0)

Team Fortress 2 “Meet the Sniper” Trailer (HD)Technorati Tags: TF2, Team Fortress 2, Pyro

According to the latest news hot off the Steam press (see what i did there? ) ;0) The Pyro class is coming in for an upgrade and is the next target for the new class achievements. Looks like they have some neat stuff coming including a Meet the Sniper Video.

The Steam news release is below for convenience:

We’ve almost completely wrapped up the next big release for Team Fortress 2, which will focus on the Pyro
class, along with the Meet the Sniper movie. We’ve spent time looking
at how the recent Medic release went, and have rolled feedback from that release
into the new item designs for the Pyro and into the design of the achievements
required to unlock those items. One item, shown here in concept form, will be
the Axtinguisher. Although it does about half of normal damage to standard
run-of-the-mill non-burning enemies, once you light someone on fire the
Axtinguisher will guarantee a critical hit.

Along with all of the new
content, we’re also going to be making some significant changes to the Pyro
class for everyone, regardless of whether they have unlocked any new items.

Most blokes never read the manual… why have a manual when you can use the magic created by swearing a lot eh?

This is probably why I have never spotted this before, but on the PC, Open up your Steam app and go to the my Games tab. Right Click on Team Fortress 2 and choose ‘view player manual’ from the list.

Enjoy.

I had to put this up I want one of these :0)

TF2: Sentry Turret Case Mod

This one has been out for a couple of weeks or so now but it’s no less fun than any of the other TF2 video’s.

So, Meet the scout:

Team Fortress 2: Meet the Scout Trailer

I’ve always been one of those people that likes to tinker and squeeze as much performance from my computer as possible. Often I’ve rendered my PC completely useless, though not beyond recovery, and I have learned a lot along the way.

This weekend as I was tinkering with my BIOS settings I noticed a few settings I was not sure of and it never ceases to annoy me that there’s very little help inside the BIOS interface to guide you. Of course there is always Google to lend a hand and I found a great site that explains quite a few BIOS settings.

TechARP has quite a lot of useful articles and information and well worth a bookmark. Another old favourite of mine that I have been using since it’s inception 4 years ago is Tweakguides. Chock full of excellent information and lots of detail this site will help you get the best performance from major games as well as your System. Starting with a benchmark optimisation of your system it allows you to seriously squeeze every bit of performance possible from your kit. This is a windows-centric site I’m affraid so don’t expect any Linux or Mac tweaks. If I find a good linux tweaking site I’ll post it as an edit.

Technorati Tags: Tweakguide, Games, Windows

Valve have, in my book at least, redefined the landscape as far as game distribution is concerned.  Whatever your gripe may be with Steam as a platform, you still have to admit the catalogue of games available and the fact they are constantly updated, without the need to go sign up on some download site to get a patch, well in my book this is pretty good and the pricing of the games on there is freaking awesome (to us brits thanks to the exchange rate anyhow).  Many of the top labels still sell for around the same price as you could buy on the net and get a DVD/CD but the convenience factor of never having to insert a disc to play and always knowing the game is up to date when I do play is awesome and increases the value.

Well maybe EA are about to change things again.  Battlefield heroes is the next chapter in the Battlefield series and this one has a twist - it’s free!  i shit you not, they are actually giving the damn thing away.  All is not quite as rosey as the old tinted glasses may fool you into thinking though, this ain’t ‘free as in beer’ or ‘free as in speach’ my friend, this is ‘free as in ad supported’. (I claim that phrase as mine unless someone got there first  ;0P  ).

Ads have been popping up in a lot of games recently so this isn’t exactly new, but giving the game away and making it entirely ad supported, well i guess we may be about to sell our souls to the devil or something huh?

I wonder though, have you actually paid any attention to ads in games?  I suppose someone might but you’d be pretty bloody stupid stopping to read a billboard while hot lead is pouring around you right?

i suppose you should never turn your nose up at anything free and the game sounds interesting, especially because it’s looking a lot like TF2 :0)

The press release starts with:

Unique Cartoon Shooter Introduces a New Way to Play Battlefield

Well unique in that it looks like TF2, but I suppose the whole ‘its free’ thing counts.  Aparently you can customise your character and build them up, and there will be new content added all the time to keep the game fresh, i guess there is still room there to have us purchase content and I wonder if we’ll be seeing the old CounterStrike buy your weapons gig coming along so vets can blat the noobs all over again from a mile away with their super duper mega sniper?

Ah I bitch too much but I’m still looking forward to sucking up all my bandwidth downloading ads.

TF2 still rocks though!

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Call me a big kid, but I absolutely love Lego Star Wars II.  I really enjoyed the first Lego Star Wars game and still love dipping in to try and unlock the secrets, but with the follow up Lucasarts have surpassed themselves.

LSWII has all the features of the first game, the fantastic humor and in game movies that tell you the whole story without a single spoken word.  The awesome characters and scenery that are right out of the Lego box and incredible ease of play.

Kids will love both games and it’s easy for an adult or big bro/sis to drop in lend a hand and drop out again all at the press of a single key.

LSWII takes you through the original three movies, by far the best story lines, where LSWI took you through Episodes I II and III.

There are several enhancements to this game over the first, one that I think is pretty cool is that any character, except droids, can build items in the game.  You’ll see as you go through the game that some Lego pieces in a pile will be hopping about, move up to these and hit the build key and the character will speedily build you something out of Lego.  Kids will love guessing what it is as they see it building up exactly as it would if you had the very Lego pieces in front of you.  Some parts of the game require you to build up complex machines that you can then hop into and operate.  I’ll not go into detail as it really would spoil the game.

there are secrets galore that will unlock different parts of the game.  the replay value of the Lego Star Wars genre of games is unequalled in the world of gaming as far as I am concerned.

I picked up my copy for £14.99 at Virgin, Play.com have it on for that too.  You can get it on PC, PS2, PSP, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, GameBoy Advance, Xbox and GameCube.  So that’s pretty much all bases covered then

I never used to be a big fan of rts gaming, favouring the first person shooters. I still do prefer the first person shooters but after Dawn of War and the follow on Winter Assault I have to say I’m getting hooked. I recently got hold of Dark Crusade and recently the collectors edition of Mark of Chaos landed on my desk. Having played the role play and board games from the Warhammer genre as a kid, these games gain an advantage in the fight for my affections ;0)

For Mark of Chaos, expect to pply a little by way of tactics.  Storming the gates of a city all out will cost you a lot by way of troops and you’ll find future missions pretty tough when there’s just you and a horse against 500 seasoned Orks.  There’s no resource management required here, but you do need to ensure you assign your heroe’s experience points wisely and you can do this during battle phases as you win skirmishes and your experience increases.  You’ll also want to make sure to upgrade the armour and weapons of your troops, things will obviously go well for you if they are all on the best kit. (hint hint Mr Blair).

Dark Crusade for me represents risk on steroids.  Those of you that are seasoned rts players will know the format well.  you can skirmish so you get used to how the different factions operate and find the strengths/weaknesses.  you also get to play on different maps and terrains so it shouldn’t get too boring.  The main game phase consists of attacking adjoining territories on a global view map.  when you attack or are attacked the game moves into the battle phase which is pretty much like the Dawn of war games we know and love, you start with the need to build up resources, get your soldiers up and then go kill some [insert bad guy here].
One of the things I love about  Dark Crusade is that you don’t need any of the previous Dawn of War games to play it, but if you do then you can unlock extra races and extend the game, I think this is an awesome feature.

All in all it’s great fun and if you are into the Warhammer genre, you’ll love them all.