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…)

They said it couldn’t be done, but they did it anyway: Valve’s free-to-play FPS, Team Fortress 2, has been updated with new items and stuff! Seasonal weapons are now available, with “naughty and nice” crate gifts appearing across levels in the game. You can learn about the new stuff in detail here, or just jump into the game and get automatically updated with Christmasness. And I have to admit, it does seem like the time of year to spend your hours blasting people into chunks with exotic weaponry, doesn’t it?

“Level with Me” is a series of conversations about level design between modder Robert Yang and a level designer of a first person game. At the end of each interview, they collaborate on a Portal 2 level shared across all the sessions – and at the very end of the series, you’ll get to download and play this “roundtable level.” This is Part 3 of 7.>

Of everyone I spoke to, Magnar Jenssen is the only one still actively working in the game industry as a level designer at Avalanche Studios. Before, he also worked on Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2 (GRAW2) and Bionic Commando at GRIN, up until the studio’s demise. When he isn’t raking in all that sweet map-stamp money from arena_offblast for Team Fortress 2, he tinkers with some less profitable but absurdly polished single player Half-Life 2 mods.

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While Valve prepare to release their Team Fortress 2 Halloween update, the mod community have been highlighting some of the most bone-chilling, spine-tingling items submitted to the Steam Workshop in a week-long event rather splendidly titled, Night of the Living Update. So, do you want the temperature of your skeletal apparatus to decrease? Do you desire spinal sensations of a peculiar nature? Traipse to the website and explore the blood-soaked offerings on display, some of which may make their way into the official update. This is particularly horrible. With two more nights of updates to go, I’m hoping for a Cthulhu mask. What’s the neatest thing you’ve found in the Workshop?

Needless to say, they’re celebrating with a big old hat-infrastructure update to Team Fortress 2. The ability for people create and submit and submit items has apparently now earned the community creators $2m, and Valve obviously want that trend to continue, as the update is a big ‘un in that direction. They explain: “The Manniversary Update includes several new features, including Steam Workshop, an improved item submission system that allows community item-creators to test, share and track the status of their creations. The entire TF2 community will also be allowed to participate by browsing, rating and offering feedback on all submitted items. The Steam Workshop will be fully integrated with the Steam community. In addition to the Workshop, the Manniversary Update will also ship 30 new hats and cosmetic items, an item decal system, weeklong “try before you buy” item tryouts, loadout presets, multiple miscellaneous items slots, improved game performance, and a new taunt.”

Everything will be on sale until Monday, too. The details, they are here.

Adam wrote about visually delightful side-scrolling TF2 demake Team Fortress Arcade just the other week. It’s true, he did! I have proof. The problem was the game wasn’t actually out then, which looked like we were teasing you with a cool thing you couldn’t actually play. That’s because we are rotters, and want you to experience only suffering. But now it is out, which means you can play it right now.

Don’t think that gets you off the hook, though. We’ll find some new way to make you suffer any minute now. Maybe it’ll be my forthcoming Xenonauts hands-on preview. Maybe it’ll be Jim’s review of the Deus Ex: Human Revolution DLC. Maybe it’ll be that dead stoat I hid under your bed. Or maybe we’ll say something you disagree with about a game you’re fond of. Truly, our cruelty knows no bounds.

Some of you may remember a dinky demake of Left 4 Dead that Alec posted about at the tail-end of the previous decade. The chap behind it, Eric Ruth, clearly loves nothing more than making retro-pixel-tributes because he’s done a few more as well. There’s one about electronic rackets (not to be confused with Pong, which was electronic racquets) and another starring some gaudy green space marine. You know of what I speak>. His upcoming project is another Valve-inspired title though, and it looks like a lot of fun. It’s Team Fortress 2 Arcade: a sidescrolling beat/shoot ‘em up. Here’s an interview and some gameplay footage captured on film by piki geek.

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A few weeks ago, Valve started beta testing its Steam Trading feature and people have swapped over a million items since then. Were the majority of them hats? I don’t have those figures, but the entrails in this animal say “yes”. The trading feature is now officially live and you can trade all sorts of gubbins with one another. Clarification: “all sorts of gubbins” means Team Fortress 2, Portal 2 and Spiral Knights items so not a great deal has actually changed. Perhaps more interesting than item swapping is the ability to trade unredeemed games, although do note the qualifier ‘unredeemed’. Steam is not letting you swap grubby used goods. There’s a FAQ here. The fact that every public profile now comes with an inventory means that Steam is officially an RPG in which buying cheap games is the grind. The plan is to bring more developers on board in the coming months, so one day you may be able to trade the Incas for a pair of cowboy boots. Truly, we live in exciting times.

Oh, I guess this is just about expired, but there’s probably still time to get on Team Fortress 2 and receive your party bag for the 15 year birthday hurrah of Team Fortress. Yes, it is that long since the class-based mod originally appeared, spawning an entire sub-genre of FPS, and some of the most popular games of all time. If you log into TF2 before the 24 hours expires (I am not quite sure how long is left) you will get a party hat (obviously), a noise-maker, and a free cake (remodelled health pack). Mmm, virtual.