Ooh, that’s Dwight’s desk! Remember when Jim filled his phone with coins, so it got incrementally heavier? When he took them out, Dwight hit himself in the face? And Pam’s old desk. I have a small confession: I like Erin a bit more… What? Hmm, sorry, I got a bit lost in fanboying over a video of a Counter-Strike: Source map that recreates the American version of The Office. Oh, that’s where Oscar, Angela and Kevin sit… (more…)

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…)

Way back in the year 2000 I had a very brief stint on Dreamcast magazine, DC-UK. I won’t bore you with the details of my quick departure: just imagine the most dramatic escape scene you can, then double it. But while I was there I happened across a preview disc with Half-Life on it. I say preview, the damn thing was nearly complete and I played a tonne of it on that bizarre controller. It was cancelled. As is the way of these things, the code found it’s way onto The Google and now someone’s ported it to the PC. (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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Our e-sports correspondent is ESFI World’s Samuel Lingle.>

E-sports in 2012 got going quickly as a number of January events opened the year. The Global StarCraft 2 League (GSL) kicked off their new season. The fighting game community knocked off APEX 2012, featuring Super Smash Bros and various other titles. The DotA 2 beta continues to chug along with various tournaments and leagues. The biggest of the past week, though, was the StarCraft 2 tournament at HomeStory Cup IV. Coverage and results right here. (more…)

Back, back, back, back even further, back a bit more, keep going, yes, not much further now and… there we go. You are now back in the most dim and distant past of the then tiny baby website Rock, Paper, Shotgun, a mere three months into our making-it-up-as-we-went-along existence. You will see ancient typos. You will see only glimmerings of understanding of how the internet works. You will see Kieron Gillen. And you will see The Go Team!, a multi-part mega-feature in which the four RPS founders present their assorted thoughts on Team Fortress 2′s classes, based on our delightfully haphazard experiences in the original beta back in September 2007. (more…)

Level With Me was a series of conversations with level designers like Dan Pinchbeck, Jack Monahan, Magnar Jenssen, Brendon Chung, Davey Wreden, Ed Key, and Richard Perrin. At the end, we all collaborated on a Portal 2 mod. You can download that mod here. Liner notes, installation notes, and screenshots are after the jump. (more…)

Dear me, I wasn’t paying attention yesterday. Remember that we told you about the excellent trailer for a Left 4 Dead fan-made film, that to my eyes at least look Hollywood scale? The full 10 minute version is now there for you to see. And by “there”, I mean, “just below these words”. It really is remarkably good.

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Earlier this month, Valve made a video of Wheatley talking about his nomination in the ‘Best Character’ category of the VGAs. The Joker actually took the award, which seemed disappointing at first, since he’s a decades old character who even in this incarnation is appearing in a sequel, while Wheatley is quite the original. Then I noticed that the other two entrants were Nathan Drake and Marcus Fenix, appearing in the third games of their respective trilogies. The awards mean diddly squat, but I was a little disappointed about Wheatley missing out because it meant we all missed out an an acceptance speech. No more! Here’s what he would have said.

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