It doesn’t take a lot for me to get obsessed. I’d managed to pull away from Team Fortress 2, but then Valve introduced the Strange category of weapons, stat-tracking guns and melee weapons that report how many kills each has, and I got into it all over again. I’m almost embarrassed by how easy it was to hook me back into the mainframe. Worryingly Valve have just added a new category of unlocks to augment the Strange weapons counting abilities: Strange Parts.

Only found in crates, Strange Parts will help you study specific aspects of your performance in battle by letting you customize your favorite Strange weapon. Now you’re free to track the number of enemies you gib, projectiles you reflect, heads you’ve shot, and more.

They’ve also dropped three new hats into the game, and that number is a more descriptive than you realise: there are only three in the entire game, and to get one you’ll most likely need to spend a significant amount of money. (more…)

Remember the bit in Fight Club where Ed Norton is sitting on a plane and he explains to the guy sitting next to him his theory of “single-serving friends”? Well, something similar is true in multiplayer games. > (more…)

After looking at the cost of Guild Wars 2 and feeling a muscle in my eyeball involuntarily spasm, I started considering my spending habits. I’m currently splitting my money in three ways: indie games, Steam, and funding in Kickstarter. I don’t have any MMO subs, as I’m mainly action focused, and obviously my Steam account is already crammed with games. But none of this made me twitch. Instead it’s because as PC gamer I’ve never > had to spend much on games, and in this odd, new free-to-pay future, in my eyes the cost of games feels like it’s getting cheaper. At least that’s what I thought. The one consistent expenditure I have is when I want to buy something in Team Fortress 2′s store, which saves every transaction. Going over my purchases I realise it’s not cheaper at all, and, in comparison, £50 on Guild Wars isn’t that bad. (more…)

The movie Cube, the TV show Lost and, Portal are all broken down and reassembled in CUBE, a Half-Life 2: Episode Two mod about self-assembling test chambers. Unsurprisingly, I spent a lot of time stuck, but in a good way. CUBE’s an odd one: accomplished and beautifully designed in most respects, but always on the cusp of crashing. Engine errors are as ubiquitous as new puzzles. I’m still working my way through it: there’s hours of content and multiple endings to complete, but it’s worth picking up and persevering if you miss Valve’s elaborately designed roomy puzzles. (more…)

Imagine a Portal 2 with no GLaDOS, Chell, nor portals. Set in the 1980s. With competitive multiplayer and quantum co-op. And multiple endings. At various points, those were all things that could have hapened, as revealed by Valve last night in San Francisco.>

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We’ll just have to come to terms with rule #89: if it exists, it’s in Minecraft. As proof RPS (RedstonePistonSpawner) readers, here’s a look at the newly updated Portal gun mod that, when combined with the Portal 2 gels mod, manages to drop some Aperture Science all over Blockland, or Blockworld. What the hell is the name of the world that Minecraft creates, anyway? I’m calling it Cubea (pronounced like Cuba) from now on. Amazing video and instructions herein. (more…)

Uh-uh they did-uhnt. Valve did not >just add a boombox to Team Fortress 2 that plays sounds whenever a Scout taunts… I think they did. Just let me check the server over here [opens server door] WELL, NOW I CAN’T HEAR AND I NEED TO CHANGE MY PANTS. BUT I CAN CONFIRM THAT THEY WENT THERE. They’ve released a paid for (£6.99! – too rich for my roots) community item called the “Boston Boom-Bringer“. Whenever the Scout taunts, it’ll play one of four phat beats. If you want to prepare yourself for the aural wreckage that the game’s about to throw at you, there’s a video below.

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Any new Team Fortress 2 Payload maps are relevant to my interests. My interests being defending my themed house from carts of explosives while wearing a very silly hat. I rarely stray from Badwater Basin, but when I do it’s for more Payload fun. So I’m eagerly awaiting the entries of the newly announced TF2Maps.net Dynamic Payload competition, to add a little excitement to the bomb on wheels. (more…)

Valve have created themselves an interesting situation. Presenting themselves as bastions of consumers, remarkably accessible to gamers, regularly inviting in groups of modders – often to give them jobs – and always being present to offer a quote on how customers deserve to be treated with more dignity, they establish themselves as being our friend. And then from that position, they sure do like to muck about. And as Eurogamer’s Tom “Tom Bramwell” Bramwell mentioned on Twitter this morning, it’s hard not to sympathise with a growing body of Valve’s customers who are asking for better communication.

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Celebrated crazy-em-up Saints Row: The Third is handing out a freebie to all Steam players tomorrow, and going a teeny-tiny bit further than most. You know how Team Fortress 2 likes to gives you hats from other games? Saints Row 3 gives you the TF2 gang’s entire heads>, to wear and do with as you will. Fight, dance, love, laugh. The first and the last ones at least.

But you know what else can you expect from this TF2 intrusion?

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