Team Fortress 2

Murraythis breaks out the Source Filmmaker to bring the internet a very Team Fortress Christmas.

Such great animation, and the Scout was the perfect choice to play the Christmas Eve sneak. He's such a dick.

Night Before Christmas... [YouTube]

Team Fortress 2 just got itself a big Christmas update. I'm so far past playing this game that the significance is lost on me, but hey, that giant Godzilla poster is awesome.

Mecha Update [Team Fortress 2]

Gaming Heads has been working away on a line of enormous Team Fortress 2 statues for literally years now, and are only now moving onto their fourth one. But that's OK. When they turn out as nice as they have, it's worth the wait.

The latest is my second-favourite Australian in the TF2 universe, a man whose accuracy and ability to pull of wearing a silly hat more than makes up for his slender build.

The Sniper should hopefully be out in Q2 2013, and will retail for $220 (or $235 for a slightly fancier, limited edition variant that comes with an African shield).

The Sniper [Gaming Heads]

Glorious, glorious madness. You just gotta love mash ups that put two insane games like these together.

This mod recreates the dungeon layout of The Binding of Isaac in a TF2 map, including locked rooms and even some horrifying bosses. My favorite part has to be how the players go deeper into the "basement" in this mod, too.

It's impressive, and might be just the thing to tide you over before Team Meat's upcoming Binding of Isaac remake—which lets you play co-op. But I'm assuming that version of The Binding of Isaac won't include as many people as this TF2 mod... or, you know, stuff like guns. So this might be more preferable to some folks.

You can try the mod out here, if it happens to come into the map rotation. Judging by the other available maps, which feature Smash Bros and A Link To The Past themes, it won't be so heartbreaking if you have to wait a while till you get the Binding of Isaac map. Just an FYI.

Brilliant-Looking Mod Mashes Up TF2, Binding Of Isaac [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

Two weeks ago Valve opened voting on the second annual Saxxy Awards, celebrating cinematography in Team Fortress 2 and the Source Filmmaker tool released earlier in the year. Last night, voting ended, and winners in four categories were crowned. You may see them here in this gallery.

The overall winner has not yet been named. It will be revealed, and shown, during the 2012 Video Game Awards on Spike TV on Dec. 7. For now, kick back and enjoy the winners from these four categories.

The Saxxy for Best Replay goes to "EPIC High Five Fail," by 1231231453123.

(See the other nominees for Best Replay.)

The Saxxy for Best Drama goes to "Bad Medicine," by Zachariah Scott.

(See the other nominees for Best Drama.)

The Saxxy for Best Action goes to "Meet the Dumpster Diver," by MrPopulus89.

(See the other nominees for Best Action.)

The Saxxy for Best Comedy goes to "The Wishmaker," by MaxOfS2D.

(See the other nominees for Best Comedy.)

Valve has opened the voting for the second annual Saxxy Awards, celebrating cinematography in Team Fortress 2, and a winner shall be crowned on Nov. 30. Why so soon? Well, because the best overall winner is going to be announced at the Spike Video Game Awards on Dec. 7, and the video is going to be shown live.

In that case, my vote is for this four-minute, 45-second retcon of the history of the Saxxy Award (above), and the revelation of its creator, mostly because the whole shebang is 15 seconds under the 5 minute limit and would require Spike to devote 1/20th of its broadcast time to a fan film. The voting page is here. Get to it.

Saxxy Awards [Steam]

Master Source Filmmaker user Zachariah Scott returns once again with an amazing piece of work, this time crossing the world of Team Fortress 2 with that of Godzilla.

It's... look, I'm starting to think Zachariah Scott isn't one man, and that he's instead a complex computer program nestled beneath Valve headquarters, devoted entirely to designing and rendering terrific movies at record speed.

Big trouble in Rumble City [ Saxxy Awards 2012 ] [YouTube]

Steamrep forum user base64, having noticed a strange spike in transactions for a rare in-game item, decided to do a little private investigating. And uncovered some very strange happenings.

Picking up on a weird increase in trades for "earbuds", a rare item in the game, his investigations led him to discover a closed Steam group that was involved in highly suspicious item trading. The report is a lengthy and surprisingly fascinating read, but for the time-starved, let's cut to his tl;dr hypothesis:

tl;dr A group of Russians bought >5,000 Keys from Store today using illegitimate credit cards and bought few hundred Buds from TF2 Outpost at an ridiculous price of 28-30 Keys (The average yesterday was 25.5 Keys). They have been doing this for quite a long time and their activity today is alarming.

One motive for this could be the hilariously bizarre (if unlikely) possibility that Russian gangsters are using Team Fortress 2 to launder dirty money. Another, more likely outcome is that a band of crims have got hold of some stolen credit cards, and are spending the cash on rare TF2 items they can re-sell.

Today I discovered that there are tons of Keys with doubtful origin injecting into the market [Steamrep, via PC Gamer]

It might not be tear-worthy, but it's certainly a touching account of the Team Fortress 2 characters coming together in a moment of need. And that song ain't half bad either.

Lozeng3r's dramatic take on Team Fortress 2 is a submission to Valve's second annual Saxxy Awards, which will be open to votes in two days.

Team Fortress 2 - Till Death Do Us Part (Saxxy Entry) [YouTube]

Zachariah Scott, a cinematic designer at BioWare, may have an unfair advantage when it comes to Source Filmmaker clips, seeing as he's not exactly an amatuer, but whatever. If professional videos are what we get when professionals use the tool, then we're all winners.

In this clip, TF2's Medic has an...episode after the loss of his beloved bird. It's far more haunting than I would have thought before I pressed play.

Bad Medicine [YouTube]