Valve

He's mean, he's got a jawline cut by the Maker herself, and he does the best Captain America on crack impression ever seen without even trying. He's the Soldier, arguably the most well-rounded offensive and defensive class in the game. He has few real weaknesses, but no overwhelming strengths. I didn't used to play him that much, but I've started using him a lot more lately in a defensive role. However, he can work on almost any map or any game mode.

The Scout is probably the hardest class for me to write about, simply because I've spent relatively little time playing him. His advantages are obvious, but they often aren't of any great use. Scouts make their living by being fast and hard to hit, which is useful in some areas and worthless in others. Still, you'd be surprised how many times a clever Scout can get the jump on a Heavy or a Pyro and take them down.

Team Fortress 2 is a topic I can go on for several hours about, much to the dismay of the people I might be talking to. So for the good of everyone on the planet, I have decided to put together Richard's Guide to Team Fortress 2, an essential manual for any Dustbowl-dwelling denizen.

It has arrived. After two years, over 120 other updates, and about 145 hours honing my construction skills, The Engineer Update for Team Fortress 2 has come. The new toys are quite a bit different than what I expected, although I don't work at Valve, so what the hell do I know other than how to lodge a wrench into an unsuspecting spy's skull?

So it comes to this. The engineer, my favorite Team Fortress 2 class, the one in which I saw a need for some additional items before the medic update even came out, the one that I have almost 130 hours of playtime with, will be the last to get an update. I'm not mad. Really....I'm not.

This One Time, Me and My Friend Keith...

HIGH: Barreling through all four survivors with the charger.

LOW: Rochelle's extremely bland character.

WTF: Why can't the tank pick people up like the charger does?

With the release of Left 4 Dead 2 just around the corner (it streets on November 17th for the PC and Xbox 360) expect to start hearing more about the game. Gamestop teamed up with Valve to create this new teaser commercial for the cooperative zombie-slaying game, which highlights not only a bit of what players can expect in the follow up to the wildly popular original, but to also convince players to pre-order their copy through Gamestop so they can procure the in-game American Baseball Bat weapon. Ah marketing…is there anything you won’t do?

I guess this means I need to get my red-ringed Xbox 360 fixed posthaste…

(Note: I could've used Mad Props as the title but that's already been done like a thousand times)

I stumbled upon a really sweet TF2 mod a few days ago. The red team spawns as various pieces of scenery (barrels, rocks, trees, etc.) with the scout's health, and the blue team spawns as pyros. Blue has to kill all the scenery scouts before time is up or else red wins. Needless to say, the sight of a tree running away from a pyro is pure awesomeness. If you've not played it, you don't get to sit with the cool kids at lunch. You also don't get to sniff dry erase markers with us during recess.

Mad Props (couldn't resist) to the mod author. The Steam group page has a list of servers to play on.

Been out of action for a while, so I'm catching up on some old news. I did the pre-order deal for Left 4 Dead 2 with three friends, which nets us a discount and the Scout's bat from Team Fortress 2 as a melee weapon. I'm genuinely impressed with what I've seen so far, so hopefully my purchase is justified. In effort to quell some the unrest over the release of the sequel so soon after the original, Valve recently flew two of the most prominent boycotters out to their headquarters for some hands-on time with the game. Now if I'm understanding this correctly, if I complain loudly enough about one of their games Valve will fly me out to their secret bunker and let me play it before anyone else. And so, I'd like to announce my boycott of Half Life 2: Episode 3....