Jun 26, 2012

Team Fortress 2

At the end of the day, the Pyromania update is a celebration—not just of Team Fortress, but more importantly of you, the TF community, and even more importantly than that, of us, the TF blog post writers, and how great yesterday's blog post was. That Men Without Hats material was a career high. In fact, we decided to never touch this blog again in the hope that it might be preserved in a perfect state for future generations.

Jun 26, 2012

Only One Game Could Inspire a 1:1 San Diego Comic-Con Exclusive Sandwich Action Figure

Team Fortress 2

Meet the Sandvich, a San Diego Comic-Con exclusive piece of Team Fortress 2 history. ThreeA Toys' masterful creation is so limited you'll have to make an appointment to buy it.

That's right, one does not simply walk up to a booth and ask for Sandvich. Sanvich asks to see you, and only after you set an appointment for purchase at ThreeA's Bambaland Store starting at 9PM Eastern. You'll pick the day and time to meet Sandvich, and at the appointed time it will become yours.

How much is Sandvich? This is silly question. You cannot put price tag on such majesty. Not until 9PM.

Jun 26, 2012

Team Fortress 2's Pyromania Heats Up with New Weapons and a City on Fire

Team Fortress 2

A trio of heroes armed with powerful new weapons against the man (or woman) that would burn everything they've built to the ground. Day Two of Team Fortress 2's Pyromania update has me feeling the drama. I mean hell, just look at that still from "Meet the Pyro" up top. Oh yeah, I'm feeling it.

I haven't been keeping up with the lore surrounding Team Fortress 2 very well at all, mainly because I'm not particularly good at playing it. I'm not-too-shabby with the Scout and Soldier, but anything beyond that is also beyond me.

But when I see an image like this, I really want to get into it.

Team Fortress 2's Pyromania Heats Up with New Weapons and a City on Fire

That's the top of the City on Fire page linked in the Pyromania Day Two post on the Team Fortress blog. The writing accompanying the image describes Downtown Teufort, a city filled with sewage just ripe for a fiery cleansing.

The remainder of the update details new weapons for the Scout, Soldier, Sniper and Pyro, the latter getting a the flare gun seen in the "Meet the Pyro" scene above. I want to fire that in your face.

See? I'm in the spirit of things now.

City on Fire [Team Fortress 2]

Jun 25, 2012

TF2Maps.net King of the Hill Contest

Team Fortress 2

TF2Maps.net is putting on another level design contest to create a King of the Hill map that is designed around the Highlander style of play. STAR, an active community member, put them up to it and sponsored the contest along with some fun prizes. All the details and rules are available on the TF2Maps.net site.

Jun 25, 2012

Team Fortress 2 Pyromania event adds new map, new mode, Meet the Pyro incoming

Team Fortress 2

DOOMSDAY is the name of a new map added to TF2 today to celebrate the imminent release of the final TF2 class short, Meet the Pyro. The map commemorates the death of aeronautics monkey, Poopy Joe by having players recreate his demise. A quantity of precious Australium must be delivered to a rocket to provide enough power to launch, thus explosively initiating the space simian's ill-fated cosmonautical career.

The addition of Doomsday celebrates the launch of the three day update, which will conclude with the unveiling of Meet the Pyro on Wednesday. You can keep up with the latest updates on the Team Fortress 2 Pyromania page.

Jun 25, 2012

Pyromania: Day One

Team Fortress 2 - SZ

You read that right (presumably): the long-awaited final Meet the Team short, Meet the Pyro, is dropping in less than three days, and we decided to assemble a massive update to celebrate it.

<a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/pyromania"><img src="http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/blog_pyromania_x.jpg" height="155" width="420" border="0"></a>

That only left the issue of what to <i>call</i> the update. Luckily, at the very moment we were thinking about it, someone turned on the radio. Guess what song was on? That's right: 'Safety Dance'.

"That's a pretty catchy song," we said. "Who sings that?" Well, we don't want to upset you, so we won't type it here, but suffice it to say the band that wrote 'Safety Dance' has the most unthinkably offensive name we've ever heard.

Then 'Rock of Ages' came on, off Def Leppard's album <i>Pyromania</i>, so we turned off the radio because it wasn't helping. Suddenly, no thanks at all to music, we came up with the name on our own: <a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/pyromania">The Pyromania Update</a>.

Day One of Pyromania reveals <a href="http://www.teamfortress.com/pyromania/doomsday">Doomsday</a>, a new map with a brand new game mode that lets you relive one of the darkest days in TF history. It's all pretty heartwrenching, until you discover you'll get achievements, which are also detailed in today's update.

Keep your eyes open, folks. We'll be announcing a bunch of new stuff this week, right up until the premiere of Meet the Pyro this Wednesday.

Jun 25, 2012

Pyromania: Day One

Team Fortress 2 - SZ

You read that right (presumably): the long-awaited final Meet the Team short, Meet the Pyro, is dropping in less than three days, and we decided to assemble a massive update to celebrate it.

That only left the issue of what to call the update. Luckily, at the very moment we were thinking about it, someone turned on the radio. Guess what song was on? That's right: 'Safety Dance'.

"That's a pretty catchy song," we said. "Who sings that?" Well, we don't want to upset you, so we won't type it here, but suffice it to say the band that wrote 'Safety Dance' has the most unthinkably offensive name we've ever heard.

Then 'Rock of Ages' came on, off Def Leppard's album Pyromania, so we turned off the radio because it wasn't helping. Suddenly, no thanks at all to music, we came up with the name on our own: The Pyromania Update.

Day One of Pyromania reveals Doomsday, a new map with a brand new game mode that lets you relive one of the darkest days in TF history. It's all pretty heartwrenching, until you discover you'll get achievements, which are also detailed in today's update.

Keep your eyes open, folks. We'll be announcing a bunch of new stuff this week, right up until the premiere of Meet the Pyro this Wednesday.

Jun 25, 2012

Valve Invite You To Meet The Pyro…Soon

Team Fortress 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Adam Smith)

Edit: Errrrr, also a massive update for TF2. Details below.

So, that Valve/Adult Swim collaboration. As many speculated, it will be the Meet the Pyro video and, yes, ‘will be’>. It was foolish of us to think that the video would just appear without any foreplay, so instead there’s the image above, which tells us that something else will happen on June 27th. I’m guessing that actually will be the video, unless they choose to release one frame every couple of days, some hidden at secret locations around the world, the precise position hidden in Morse code messages transmitted on secret websites that can only be found by reading tea leaves through a specific kaleidoscope constructed in 1924.

(more…)

Jun 25, 2012

Team Fortress 2's Meet the Pyro Will Debut on Wednesday, New 'Doomsday' Mode Added

Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 fans will finally "Meet the Pyro" in "less than three days," according to the official blog for Valve's popular multiplayer game. (A countdown clock seems to place the debut at 2pm ET this Wednesday.) This may tie into Valve's tease last week that it was teaming up with the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim for... something.

To celebrate, Valve will release a new TF2 map and mode called Doomsday, which has players on the Blu and Red teams competing to transport the precious element Australium to famed (and assumed dead) monkeynaut Poopy Joe's rocket so that he might win the simian space race against his rival Vladamir Bananas.

The new Doomsday mode will add 11 more achievements for the Steam version of the game. Valve is promising more TF2 news over the next couple of days, leading to the premiere of the new Pyro video.

There have been "Meet The..." animated shorts for the eight other character classes in Team Fortress 2, but none released since June 2011's Meet the Medic. The wait for the Pyro, has been a long one.

Pyromania: Day One [TF2 official blog]