Don't want to wait for multiplayer in Portal 2? Some modders are privately testing out Team Fortress 2 equipped with portal guns, and released this video to show how far they've come with the concept.

While anyone on the board can pass through a portal, whether they laid it down or not, the portals can be destroyed. (Coding to allow shots to pass through them would have been prohibitively complex.) They also disappear when their owner is killed, or if he reloads. And it looks like the progressive velocity of falling through two portals keeps anyone from being stuck in an infinite loop.

Destructible portals also allow a team to prevent its opponent from constantly beaming in behind them. They do provide access to otherwise unreachable parts of the map, and deliver a heck of a speed gain. As an offensive tool, catching your foe in a loop - see the 1:47 mark - lets you toy with and ultimately sucker-punch him.

Team Portress [YouTube]

Mentally defective sadist? With that smile? Yes, very much yes. [From some dark corner of 4chan, as seen on Imgur via Reddit]

Here it is, kids. The final major Team Fortress 2 character updates (for now). The last-in-line Engineer is due for his big makeover and Valve has officially upgraded our anticipation to Tier 3 with a new teaser.

In an update to its celebration of 119 Team Fortress 2 updates, Valve has engineered this brief clip that could very well be oozing with hidden details. I suggest watching it frame by frame to see if you can spot clues. For instance, what's that Iron Man-esque helmet thing sitting on his workbench? What's the deal with that robotic arm blueprint in the background? What *is* our friend the Engineer working on?

Surely we'll know soon, but we'll factor in Valve Time, just in case.

Coming Soon [Team Fortress - thanks, Jon!]

The first offering in Valve's new line of collectibles, Team Fortress 2's the Heavy, is now up for pre-order. These lovely limited edition statues can soon be yours, provided you've got the scratch to afford it.

Gaming Heads is now taking orders for four separate versions of the Heavy. The RED Heavy and BLU Heavy will set you back $229.99 USD and are limited to 750 units. The exclusive versions of the RED Heavy and BLU Heavy, both of which come with an alternate, more pensive head and an alternate gun—giving collector's both Sascha and Natascha—will cost a cool $244.99 USD. The exclusive statues are limited to 300 each.

Cheap? No way. But for 13 inches of hand-painted high quality poly-stone sculpture, not outrageous. It's currently beyond my means—and spending justification—but for the collector of fine video game statuettes, it may be the Heavy you've been waiting for. Who's buyin'?

The Heavy [Gaming Heads]

Agent Midnight over at DeviantArt thinks Scout Man has what it takes to be a real video game, though he might need a little help. Check out the rest of his Team Fortress 2 sprite work here.

Flush with pride over the game's 119th update, Valve today released another update for online shooter Team Fortress 2, designed to honour those that have been with the game since its launch all the way back in 2007.

Along with a few minor tweaks to the mechanics of the game, it introduces three types of medals players can wear on their chests, which reflect how long they've been playing the game. If you played your first game of TF2 twelve months (or later) after the game's release, you get a bronze "Weekend Warrior" badge.

Those whose first game was between 3-12 months after the game first came out, you get a silver "Soldier of Fortune" badge. And those lucky few, the pioneers who played their first game within the first three months of the game's launch? You get the gold "grizzled veteran" medal. Wear it with pride, soldier. You deserve it.

Sounds paltry, but for a community so passionate and loyal (not to mention vain) as Team Fortress 2's, they'll be seen as valuable commodities. And rightly so. If you're still playing an online shooter nearly three years after it came out, you deserve that medal.

To read up on the 119th update - and a great rundown of the 118 before it - hit Valve's blog below.

119 [Team Fortress 2]

We've been complaining about the lack of Team Fortress 2 collectibles for months now. We even did it yesterday. That complaining stops today, however, with the reveal of a gorgeous statue based on the game's "Heavy".

It'll stand a whopping 12 inches tall, and come in both red and blue flavours (with exclusive variants with different facial expressions), so as not to have anyone feeling left out.

Best part? It's just the first in an entire line of them, so hopefully we'll see each and every member of the Team Fortress 2 team represented.

Actually, no. That's not the best part. The best part is that Gaming Heads, the studio responsible for the statues, is also releasing a line of statues based on Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead, as well as "life size props". The presence of a Portal logo on the company's website has us thinking "life size portal gun".

Life size props? Half-Life 2 statues?

Goodness me.

Pre-orders for the Heavy begin at 9am on May 3. Get in line.

Valve sent word five minutes ago that the public release of Steam for the Mac will be on May 12. No other details were included in the statement.

Originally due for release sometime in April, there was, of course, less than two days left to make that deadline. Valve gave no reason for the delay.

Steam for the Mac will bring with it Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike, Portal and the Half-Life series.

Renowned custom toy creator Jin Saotome, who you've seen before, is back and telling Valve how it should be spending its merchandising budget: on action figures.

Jin's custom Spy figure, from online shooterTeam Fortress 2, may have ridiculous knees, but everything else about him is spot-on, from his stupid grin to the "masks" he can wear to sneak around behind someone braver and shank them in the ribs.

If you're up for an online adrenaline rush it's available on eBay. Failing that, you could just head to Jin's DeviantART page and check it out in detail.

Spy vs Pyro vs Scout vs etc [Jin @ DeviantART, via Tomopop]

Items in Team Fortress 2 will drop more frequently under changes Valve just rolled out, ones that the publisher hopes will discourage standing around idly in the game waiting for them to happen.

The old system would determine, at random intervals, if you would experience an item drop. Now it determines at random when the next drop will occur. Subtle difference but "you're guaranteed to find items at fairly regular intervals," according to Erik Johnson on the official Team Fortress 2 blog. "The bulk of drop complaints we've received in the past have been from players having unlucky streaks, where they didn't find any items for weeks. That won't be possible now."

In addition to that change, Valve promises that they've significantly increased the rate at which drops occur. Further, they capped the amount of playtime per week in which you'll see item drops. Logging playtime beyond that won't equal more opportunities at item drops. "The amount varies, but if you play an hour or so a day you're good," Johnson said. "Some of your unused time will rollover to the following week, so if you're an intermittent player you'll also be fine."

That means that idling, whether done through a scripting program or server or just the old fashioned standing around way, won't get you any closer to the goodies. But bully for Valve for increasing the frequency of item drops, which is a proactive step that provides incentive for playing, as opposed to ramming in some disincentive for cheating. Two different things, and they get the difference.

Thanks for Standin Still, Wanker [Team Fortress 2 Blog]