Super Time Force launched on Monday, while we were off enjoying the holiday (I sat in a park in St. Albans in torrential rain with a bottle of wine, because reasons), so have a reminder that it’s out.

The time-twisting shooty platformer’s port from Xbox is fancied-up, as one would hope. Capy Games bunged in a new mode and more levels, renamed it to make a most entertaining acronym, and also teamed up with some other folks who play loose with time, Valve. See, Super Time Force Ultra (what wags!) on Steam also has Zoey from Left 4 Dead and TF2′s Pyro and Saxton Hale.

… [visit site to read more]

Team Fortress 2‘s Steam Workshop is a font of creativity, introducing all manner of new models and maps to the now seven-year-old multiplayer shooter. But what if you’re tired of new guns in-game and instead want more real world materials you can stick to your wall or wrap around your meatform?

Valve are now accepting Steam Workshop submissions for proposed TF2 merchandise. Anyone can submit a design, the community will then upvote/downvote as is their wont, and then Valve will swoop in and select the most popoular few for production and distribution via WeLoveFine. As always, the original creator receives a cut of the profits, and players get new dresses to wear like the one above.

… [visit site to read more]

Every year Valve hold the Saxxy Awards to encourage and round-up the very best Source Filmmaker creations, and every year the submissions are almost solely set inside the Team Fortress 2 universe. That’s perhaps because they’re Valve’s most expressive characters and because TF2′s manic world is most easily bent towards drama and comedy, but for the just-announced 4th annual Saxxy Awards, Valve are encouraging submissions from other games. Mainly: Portal 2.

… [visit site to read more]

Early Access? For a game that’s been out since 2007? Yes, that is, in fact, a thing that can exist. Valve has decided to leave Mann Corp’s doors ever-so-slightly ajar so that fans might run around on Team Fortress 2‘s magical murder playgrounds before they officially hit live servers. So it’s a series of test servers for maps, essentially. Details below.

… [visit site to read more]

It’s day two of Team Fortress 2′s latest hyper-elaborate update, Love and War. Yesterday we got love in the form of dances and other taunts/expressions, but today, well, I’ll just let Futurama handle this one. This isn’t just any old regular war – the sort you might find at the bottom of the bargain bin at your local War Mart – though. No, no, this war has, um, bread. Oozing green teleporter-mutated bread, because Team Fortress 2′s sense of humor is nothing if not incredibly> specific. You will find deet meats for this information sandwich below.

… [visit site to read more]

A mysterious countdown? Some teams? A fortress? I’m not sure if there’s a soul in the world who doesn’t> know what this means by now: new Team Fortress 2 update. The latest multi-day reveal-stravaganza is called Love and War, and it’s kicked off its grim march not with new weapons or maps or colors other than red and blue, but rather, um, dancing. Also other expressions that will allow you to wordlessly communicate with and/or taunt your fellow players. There’s a new short film below, and it’s Valve’s longest ever, clocking in at a whopping 15 minutes. The topic? Inevitable, creeping death. Cheery!

… [visit site to read more]

Rust is already a purring, slurring engine of human depravity, but there’s no denying that it’s all rather barebones at the moment. You can explore, you can build a house around other people’s houses and take them prisoner but mercifully feed them tuna every couple hours, but Garry (of Garry’s Mod fame) and co have much bigger plans for the future. At this particular moment, that means a whole slew of improvements including a new UI, farming, and an item editor modeled after the one that produces Team Fortress 2′s infamous headwear selection.

… [visit site to read more]

The Saxxy Awards are Valve’s annual celebration of the Source Filmmaker community and their efforts to make short films using the Source engine and Valve’s game assets. The community has been producing better and better stuff since the tool was released three years ago, and this year’s winners, nominees and honourable mentions are all worth ruining your productivity over.

Here’s the deserving Overall Winner for this year. (more…)

OK, time for a truth bomb: I haven’t played Team Fortress 2 in age– *KATHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMSPLURSHHHHHH* Oh jeez, wow. That was actually a regular bomb lightly sprinkled with truth. My bad. I’m gonna need to un-bury John and Alec from the wreckage momentarily (Graham was out, and Adam is immune to explosions), but quickly: I haven’t played Team Fortress 2 in quite some time, but I still get excited about updates. Why, you ask? Because Valve always delivers brilliant laughs on top of them. Go below for delightful text and a gruesomely enjoyable video of the new, Medic-immortality-granting Two Cities update.

(more…)

James McVinnie has been making machinima for years, for the Half-Life modding community, for BioWare as a cinematic director on Mass Effect and Dragon Age, and more recently for himself. His Source Filmmaker short, Practical Problems, was a finalist in the comedy category at the 2012 Saxxy awards.

His latest project is End of the Line, an eight-minute Source Filmmaker short due out early next year. It again stars a cast of Team Fortress 2 characters, but it’s more ambitious than any SFM short I’ve seen before. A minute-long trailer released in August garnered so much attention that Valve have asked McVinnie and his team to explore creating an official community update for Team Fortress 2 to coincide with the film’s release.

I spoke with James about his time with BioWare, and his process for making films within videogame engines. In response to one of my questions, he made an illustrative video. (more…)