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Massively's hands-on with WildStar's Engineer
It must have been serendipity that got me into the WildStar beta the week after the Engineer was announced (well, that or a PR push, but what are the odds?). As my friends, my family, and those who come within shouting distance of my voice know, I am always drawn to Engineers in video games. Whether the game be Team Fortress 2, Guild Wars 2, or Warhammer Online, if I have a big wrench, turrets, guns, pets, and/or lots of gadgets, I'm a pretty satisfied human being. WildStar's Engineer almost sounded too good to be true to me: a heavy armor-wearing ranged class that could DPS or tank while fielding combat robots. There might have been mention of a mech suit as well, but by that point I was twitching on the floor after suffering a happiness seizure. But would this perfect match on paper meet up to the cold, colorful reality when I got into the game? There was only one way to find out. Honey, take the kids out for the next two days, for I have space clobbering to do!
Two old ghosts argue in Team Fortress 2's Halloween update
Now through November 11, Team Fortress 2 is celebrating All Hallow's Eve with a new "Scream Fortress" update including a custom Payload Race map replete with spooky skeletons, magic spells and two bickering old men. The custom map is Helltower, where the Red and Blu teams must each push their own respective cart through enemy territory to an end goal, just like in any traditional Payload Race match. This isn't the usual Payload Race, however, because on this map players can equip a spell book to their action slot, which allows them to pick up and cast various spells throughout the match. There's also a custom event called The Witching Hour - a path appears for each team leading to the base of the in-map clocktower, where players can grab a rare spell and teleport back to their spawn room with enhanced health and speed buffs. The update also adds over 100 new items for dress-up (turn the Scout into a terrier or give the Pyro a nice Goldilocks wig) and eight new holiday-themed achievements. In order to grab the update, simply head into Steam and boot up Team Fortress 2 for the mandatory install.
Team Fortress 2's next update fixes exploits, adds fan-made maps
Valve's free-to-play shooter / hat-collecting sim Team Fortress 2 will get a bundle of fixes, tweaks, and improvements in its next update, along with two additional maps. Promising "a list of patch notes longer than a stalemate on Hydro," the Team Fortress 2 team observes that the forthcoming patch will eliminate rooftop spawn-camping and sentry-jumping in the Badwater map, among numerous other fixes across existing levels. The update will also add a pair of Capture Point maps -- Process and Standin -- created by community member Ian Cuslidge. "These maps were selected by the TF2 team in part for their straightforward and intuitive layouts, and in part because they were a hell of a lot of fun to play," the Team Fortress 2 team explains. "These CP maps were designed with little visual noise, were easy to understand and fun to navigate through."
PSA: Valve deals Steam Trading Cards to all
Every Steam user now has access to Steam Trading Cards, Valve's virtual collectibles that can be traded with other Steam users and spent for various in-game goods. Collecting cards allows Steam users to craft badges for their Steam profiles and "earn rewards like emoticons, profile backgrounds, and coupons." Steam Trading Cards entered beta back in May, supporting a handful of Valve games and Don't Starve. Right now, more than 30 games support Steam Trading Cards, including Team Fortress 2, FTL, GRID 2, Monaco, Trine 2, Super Meat Boy and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Valve promises more games will support Steam Trading Cards with each passing week.
Team Fortress 2 goes under the knife in Surgeon Simulator 2013
A free update has been issued in Surgeon Simulator 2013 through Steam today, adding a new Team Fortress 2 scenario to the purposefully awkward slice-em-up. Playing as the TF2 Medic, Surgeon Simulator 2013 owners can now get a peek at the Heavy's innards – while we haven't played the update ourselves, we're just going to assume he's filled with Scout.%Gallery-192078%
Build Minecraft levels, select Team Fortress 2 guys in Joe Danger 2 PC
Joe Danger and Joe Danger 2: The Movie are set to pop wheelies on Steam on June 24, and the sequel port will come with additional Minecraft and Team Fortress 2-themed goodies. You'll be able to play as the Team Fortress 2 cast – don't tell Joe you're racing without him! – and Minecraft Guy, plus pull from a whole suite of Minecraft items, objects and environments in the level editor. Joe Danger and Joe Danger 2: The Movie on Steam both benefit from Big Picture mode and will incorporate Steam Workshop into their level editors. Keyboard and mouse controls, as well as game pads, are also supported.%Gallery-191840%
Team Fortress 2 'Robotic Boogaloo' update tangos with Steam
The first community-created updated for Team Fortress 2 has rolled out: 'Robotic Boogaloo.' Continuing the robot theme of previous Team Fortress 2 updates, Robotic Boogaloo adds 57 new artisanal hats, helmets, bonnets, turbans, crowns, toppers and other headgear – all created by the community. Robotic Boogaloo isn't all hats but, naturally, it's mostly hats. Each new Team Fortress 2 item can be found within RoboCrates – rare drops after June 3 – that can be opened with a key from the Mann Co. store, each costing $2.50. The revenue from these items will then be shared amongst all creators responsible for Robotic Boogaloo content.
Valve now selling a Balloonicorn plushie, with in-game code
You can now buy a Balloonicorn Plushie straight from Valve's official Team Fortress 2 store. The cute pink union of a balloon and a unicorn is 14.5 inches from horntip to tail and comes with a code for a genuine Balloonicorn in-game item, for $24.99. The Balloonicorn serves as the "Municipal Ombudsman" of Pyroland, which is the cute and creepy world as seen through the Pyro's eyes. Like the best things in life, it's adorable yet horrifying.
Source Filmmaker strikes again with fan-created Futurama fun times
Stop us if you've seen this one before. YouTuber MisterMulluc took the song from "Hell is Other Robots," the ninth episode ever of Futurama, and gave it a Source Filmmaker twist. Mr. MisterMulluc has some serious skills, even one week after the video was posted.
This is what playing TF2 with an Oculus Rift and an omni-directional treadmill looks like
In order to demonstrate the functionality of its "Omni" prototype treadmill, which the company calls a "natural motion interface for virtual reality applications," technology start-up Virtuix has released the above video of the contraption being used in conjunction with an Oculus Rift and Team Fortress 2.The setup essentially works like this: The Oculus Rift handles head tracking and display duties, while a Kinect tracks how the player walks/runs on the the Omni, and then converts that input into in-game commands. The Kinect is an in-development solution, however, and Virtuix says the Omni will include its own sensor when/if it ships to consumers.The company plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign in May, with final production units costing somewhere between $400 and $600, sans shipping. A second example video, this time showing a better look at a prototype of the device while in use, has been tucked away beyond the veil.
Brutal Legend items now available in Team Fortress 2
Double Fine's heavy metal adventure RTS, Brütal Legend, made its way to Steam earlier this year, and those who pre-ordered it were able to grab a few special items for use in Team Fortress 2. Those pieces are no longer exclusive: You can now purchase the Brütal Bouffant headgear (sideburns and mullets included) and the Shred Alert taunt from Double Fine's Steam Workshop stall.Only the pre-order bonuses are of "Genuine" quality, however, so those who participated during the promotional period still have a way to distinguish themselves in Double Fine fandom.
Thirty minutes of Team Fortress 2 in virtual reality caught on camera
The team at Tested got a chance play around with Team Fortress 2 using the upcoming Oculus Rift headset, and they recorded half an hour of gameplay for us to virtually enjoy. Not "virtually" as in we'll "almost" enjoy it, but "virtually" as in "virtual reality"-based enjoyment. Just watch the video.Kickstarter backers should receive their Oculus Rift dev kits by mid-April, with pre-orders hitting a little later in the month. For those expecting a kit, check out Valve's list of handy tricks for setting up VR in TF2.
Valve offers Team Fortress 2 'VR mode' tips and tricks
In anticipation of VR mode in Team Fortress 2, Valve has put together some resources on how to activate VR mode.Before you boot up Team Fortress 2, hook up your Oculus Rift, add "-vr" to your command line options in Steam and you should be good to go. You can save shortcuts to your desktop with or without the modified command line for quick-launching in VR or vanilla modes.You can find all of the above and more on Valve's Oculus Rift user guide. The Oculus Rift will have its first dev kits shipped this month; Kickstarter backers should expect theirs around mid-April. Pre-orders are currently open on the Oculus site, though these folks are last in line to receive their goggles sometime near the end of April.
Valve experimented with VR in other games, Team Fortress 2 'obvious choice' for Oculus Rift
Valve revealed that Team Fortress 2 will be the official first game to support Oculus Rift's VR headset, something Valve programmer Joe Ludwig told Engadget was an "obvious choice" for Valve – not only because of the size of the community, but because of how rapidly Valve is updating the game, meaning the community is used to being sort of a test group for new concepts."Team Fortress was sort of the obvious choice for this," Ludwig said. "The Team Fortress community is large and healthy. There are millions of people playing TF every week, but they're also used to us shipping a lot of updates." Team Fortress 2 receives updates nearly on a weekly basis, but it's not uncommon for players to see multiple updates to the free-to-play shooter in one week.Ludwig said Valve is currently experimenting with VR in its other games, but is hardly committing to anything beyond testing at this point. "We've played a bit in Left 4 Dead; we've played a bit in Half-Life 2. We haven't taken any of those other games to the point where they're anywhere close to being ready to be shipped; we've just sort of experimented with head tracking a little bit."Valve chose to partner with Oculus as opposed to creating its own display simply because it made more sense to go that way – the two companies each had something the other wanted. "We've done a bunch of experiments with various bits of hardware, but we don't have a display that we can ship. Oculus is actually out there doing this, and so we're partnering with them because they have the hardware and we have the software and we can help each other out. And we can both learn a lot in the process.""We don't know how strongly people will react to VR," Ludwig concluded. "We don't know how popular it will be, what people wanna see. It might be that we need to learn a lot more from TF before we move on to other titles. We just don't know what's gonna happen."
Team Fortress 2 is Oculus Rift's first official game
Our pals at Engadget toured the Valve offices last week to check out virtual reality support in Team Fortress 2, something Valve programmer Joe Ludwig has been working on for quite a while now. Ludwig reveals that Team Fortress 2 will be Oculus Rift's first official game and that Valve will push a VR mode update to players "sometime within the next couple of weeks.""This is a mode that everybody who has a Rift dev kit and access to Team Fortress 2 will be able to play, just on public and in the same servers that everybody else is playing in," Ludwig told Engadget. Initially, VR mode will be available to only Windows PC players – Mac OS X and Linux platforms are a possibility down the line, after Valve gets access to SDKs for those platforms. "We don't have a Mac or Linux SDK from Oculus quite yet, but once we get those, we'll get it ported over to those other platforms."Ludwig will provide a talk on Valve's hurdles porting the free-to-play shooter over to virtual reality at GDC in San Francisco in two weeks. The Oculus Rift is an upcoming VR headset that was successfully funded through Kickstarter and ships to backers in April. Oculus Rift's 40 "pilot" dev kit prototypes will begin shipping this month and pre-orders are currently open through Oculus Rift's website.
Free for All: The continued standardization of selling power
Selling power is a much quieter controversy than it used to be. I've been in gaming long enough to remember when selling anything desirable at all was taboo. At the same time, it's always been OK to sell some things like subscriptions or special boxed editions, proving that MMO gamers and others are brilliant at segmenting their rage. If it's a cool, special box with a neat virtual item inside, it somehow does not fall under the same umbrella as selling powerful, useful items in game. I think it does. But geeks in general are good at justifying poor behavior if they get what they want; just ask the hackers and file-swappers. Still, it doesn't matter how we feel about selling power because the industry is already moving in the direction of selling power, lots of power. EA recently announced that every title it produces from now on will feature microtransactions. While that doesn't guarantee the sale of powerful items, I can promise that it will include some. This train ain't stopping. Sure, the console community seems a bit late to the party when it comes to the power-selling controversy, but that's likely because of MMOs' always-on multiplayer mode.
Pre-order BioShock Infinite on Steam for TF2 hats, free games; Amazon offers $30
Pre-order BioShock Infinite on Steam, and you might get free copies of BioShock and XCOM: Enemy Unknown. In a Ninostarter-type drive, rewards are unlocked as the number of pre-orders goes up.The first tier is a free copy of BioShock for everyone; next is a set of BioShock Infinite-themed hats, because it is a game on Steam. Finally, if pre-orders reach a high enough number, free copies of XCOM will be rewarded to everyone.Amazon offers $30 in "2K Games Credit" with pre-orders of the PC download. You could always fold up some dollar bills into a hat.
Monkey Island 'I wanna be a pirate' scene done up in Source Filmmaker
When it comes to making movies with Valve's Source Filmmaker, there aren't many rules. If The Secret of Monkey Island taught us anything, however, it's that becoming a pirate involves involves an unusual number of rules. YouTuber Callegos Yavolitak decided to combine Source Filmmaker's anarchic ways with the classic "pirate rules" scene from The Secret of Monkey Island, now starring Team Fortress 2 characters.And hey, the universe didn't implode. See? We can all get along, you guys.
Team Fortress 2 Demo and Pyro action figures now available
If your childhood was/is anything like our own, a good majority of it was probably spent blowing up and/or incinerating action figures that totally had it coming, on account of being found guilty of being the bad guy or belonging to one of our siblings. Valve and NECA's shiny new Team Fortress 2 figures follow a somewhat similar theme, though they typically prefer to be on the giving end, rather than the receiving. Available at Toys 'R' Us, Amazon or directly from Valve's own store, both Demo and Pyro figures measure 7 inches tall, feature 25 points of articulation, include codes for in-game goodies, are individually numbered (1 to 10,000) and cost about $22.%Gallery-177568%
Team Fortress 2 characters join Sonic & All-Stars on PC
While the console version has been out for a number of months, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is stuck at the starting line on PC until January 31. Luckily for Sonic and friends, they will be joined by Pyro, Heavy and the Spy from Team Fortress 2 as PC-exclusive racers.As seen in the video above, the manager from Sports Interactive's Football Manager series and the Shogun from the Total War series are also playable characters in the PC version of the game. Add in the recent 10% off deal when buying the game through Steam, and we're pretty sure Sega wants you to play Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed on PC.
