Danish advertising firm Uncle Grey, in an effort to hire the kind of people they were looking for, decided against paying magazines and newspapers and websites for job ads, and instead paid some Team Fortress 2 players instead.

Those players had to change their names to that of the company, and while playing had to run around putting up posters advertising the vacant positions.

It's a neat idea as a one-off, sure, but I have to avoid enough spruikers as it is when I go out in the real world. If i have to put up with them in Team Fortress 2 as well, I will not be pleased.

[thanks Gaetan!]

Gamers work well in teams. We've slaughtered zombies, repelled rebels, routed RED (or BLU)—all with the help of our friends. Now we get to rob banks.

In a bit of pre-E3 flirtation, Sony Online Entertainment has announced Payday: The Heist for the PS3 and PC, a squad-based cooperative shooter that casts players in the role of a "hardened career criminal" attempting to orchestrate a number of dicey, large-scale heists. Developer Overkill Software promises prospective gamers the chance to raid a bank vault, manage hostages in a hijacked armored car, and infliltrate a top-secret, high-security facility.

The mission structure appears reminiscent of Valve's Left 4 Dead; law enforcement agents—rather than zombies—will spawn in waves, their deployment and behavior patterns guided by a "dynamic" and "adaptive" scripting system. SOE's press release describes "FBI agents repelling down on ropes through the skylights, SWAT teams crashing through the windows...special units crawling through the ventilation shafts," and emphasizes the importantance of cooperative teamwork in repelling foes.

Players will be encouraged to revisit missions in order to develop their character along a "massive progression tree," and will be given the option to select one of three specialties: assault, sharp-shooting or support.

Payday: The Heist is due to launch later this year on the PlayStation Network and PC via digital download, and, according to Sony, will run for "less than half the price of a retail game."

We've been told that we'll get a taste of the game at SOE's booth at E3— we'll try to keep you posted on the how the title shapes up.

Valve's competition to find the best short films based on Team Fortress 2 is now closed, and the finalists have been selected. As you would expect given the game's talented fanbase, many of those chosen are incredible pieces of work.

The one I'm highlighting above, by Sauctaliens, is nominated in the category of Best Cinematography, which is probably the best category to start in if you're after quick bursts of eye candy.

Note, though, that to vote on the finalists at the link below you'll need to be a Steam member who owns Team Fortress 2.

Saxxy Awards [Valve]

Unlike perhaps any game since the 16-bit era, Team Fortress 2 has a look that is almost timeless. To get characters looking that good takes not only years of development, but years of concept art as well.

The pieces in this gallery are all taken from those years of art and development, some of them clearly showing the way towards the game's iconic final designs, while others...don't.

What's really interesting seeing in the development of some of these characters is that the core concept was there early on in the process. The Demo Man, for example, may have changed outfits and even races more than once (at least when the "current" art style and direction was settled on), but he's always been Scottish and he's always been one-eyed.

You'll see that continuity in a lot of the characters and locations in this gallery. If you'd like to see what Team Fortress 2 looked like before it was the Team Fortress 2 we know today, head here. And if you'd like to read about the final game's art design, here's a great feature with some of the guys involved.

Paradox Interactive drops a dollar's worth of downloadable content today with Magicka: Nippon, three Japanese-flavored items (and a Team Fortress 2 Demoman cowl!) to aid your wizard's quest, with 50 percent of revenue going towards the Japan Relief Support program.

This a nominee for "Best Replay" in Team Fortress 2's "Saxxy" Awards, designed to celebrate the game's new replay camera feature. With the entry period closing yesterday, voting has begun on a field of entries numbering "in the tens of thousands," according to Valve.

The panel of jurists is anyone with a copy of the game on Steam (PC or Mac), so you'll have to have that and log in to Valve under the account owning it. Virtual statuettes of Mann Co.'s iconic Saxton Hale are up for grabs (as are in-game achievements and bling). There are 20 categories, ranging from "Most Epic Fail" to "Best Revenge."

While only TF2 members may see the nominees, the good news is they're all up on YouTube. Do a search for "Saxxy" and you'll see plenty. If you spot one there that's impressive, feel free to share it in the comments. Those who get 1,000 YouTube views get a Director's Hat. Other goodies are up for grabs, too.

http://www.teamfortress.com/saxxyawards/vote.phpThe Saxxy Awards [Team Fortress 2 blog]

Street Fighter's Ryu and Team Fortress' Pyro face off in this epic mash up battle by Robert Kim. As they always say, fight fire WITH fire!

Related Rampage: Calm After Storm - MM Tribute

Fire x Fire by Robert Kim (deviantART)

Need your daily fill of geek eye candy? If so, head over to Justin Page's Rampaged Reality and get your fix. Republished with permission.

Team Fortress 2 now has its own replay system, letting every user of the game (at least on PC and Mac) save and view footage from the match they just completed.

If you're playing on a server that has the option enabled, every second of a round will be recorded for posterity. Users can then upload footage directly from the game to YouTube or, if the urge takes them, Steam itself.

To celebrate, developers Valve are running a little competition, looking for the twenty best TF2 videos of the next two weeks (May 5 until May 19). There are twenty categories to compete in, with the winners scoring...a foot-high bust of Saxton Hale. Which looks like an Oscar.

Oh, there's also a new comic.

The Replay Update [Team Fortress 2]

Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper is a work of art. So too is Team Fortress 2. In a way. So it's only natural to see the two come together like this. Especially when the combatants are wearing their best hats.

"The Last Sandwich" by EvGen1us.

The makers of such acclaimed single-player video games as Portal and Half-Life 2 want all of their future games to support connected, non-solo gaming, in some way, at all levels.

That assertion first appeared in the Final Hours of Portal 2, journalist Geoff Keighley's recent behind-the-scenes chronicle about Valve's newest game. It's an assertion he told me he heard directly from Valve founder Gabe Newell and the company's project manager Erik Johnson.

"Portal 2 will probably be Valve's last game with an isolated single-player experience," Keighley wrote in Final Hours, "What this all means is something Newell is still trying to figure out."

Keighley told me that he considered the comment "curious," noting that the quality of the solo-only main campaign of Portal 2 was a fantastic piece of work. (I've checked with Valve on this, but they didn't reply by press time.) The signs that solo-only modes are on their way are there, not just from within Valve but all around the pioneering games company.

Valve's Portal 2 introduced multiplayer to the Portal games through a two-player co-op mode. The company's recent 2008 and 2009 Left4Dead games were presented as a primarily-multiplayer experience, even on consoles where such an animal is about as rare as a Nintendo-made Halo game. Valve has also continued to aggressively support its multiplayer Team Fortress 2, a game launched alongside Portal in 2007.

The company's primary vehicle for single-player-only experiences has been the one that the public hasn't seen anything new of since 2007. The campaign portions of Half-Life put players in control of hero Gordon Freeman; other players haven't been able to join the game's main adventure. While Valve has used its Half-Life games to present a more lively, less lonely first-person-shooter campaign, it has done so strictly through improving the artificial intelligence and acting of Freeman's computer-controlled allies, namely Alyx Vance (pictured with our hero above).

Outside of Valve single-player-only games have been vanishing. After a long stretch as leading single-player franchise, Super Mario games on consoles now include second-player support. Series that launch as solo-only such as Uncharted or BioShock add multiplayer for their second installment. Hold-outs like God of War seem destined to add support for multiple players, somehow, some way. A company like Capcom doesn't just make millions with its four-player series Monster Hunter, but it's slowly but surely been pushing its formerly single-player-only series, Resident Evil, into a vehicle for multiplayer console Resident Evil games (the upcoming co-op and competitive Operation Raccoon City) and multiplayer portable ones (the co-op Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D). Even Capcom's Dragon's Dogma, though single-player, simulates a multiplayer experience by giving the main player a host of computer-controlled allies who behave as joining Monster Hunter gamers might.

The comment from Valve is striking, though, in that it doesn't sound like Newell and Johnson said they'd probably never ship a game that didn't have a multiplayer mode somewhere in it. Rather, they told Keighley they "probably" wouldn't make a game "with an isolated single-player experience." That would mean no more modes that couldn't connect in some fashion to other people. Would, say, letting a second player control Alyx in Half Life 3 do the trick? Or could Valve be cooking up something less expected?