Team Fortress 2 [official site] recognises that yes, Smissmas is a time for gibbing your fellow man then leaving their labelled hunks under the tree, but also somethings for coming-together. Valve’s free-to-play FPS has kicked off its Christmas event with an update bringing the traditional assortment of new icy items but also handy features for casual play. A new team autobalancing systems gives players gifts if they even up teams, while Casual matchmaking now keeps players together after matches to pick a new map and go again. This should mean more fun, less yelling, and an end to the Red and Blu sides of the family glaring at each other across the lounge on Boxing Day. … [visit site to read more]

Team Fortress 2‘s [official site] annual Hallowe’en festivities are upon us and, although there are nowhere near as many of them as Simpsons Treehouse Of Horror episodes, the Roman numerals are still contriving to make Alice feel hideously old. So that’s something!

So what’s the haps this Hallowe’en-tide? … [visit site to read more]

Valve launched matchmaking for Team Fortress 2 [official site] on Thursday but its reception wasn’t wholly positive. As well as introducing 6v6 competitive ranked matchmaking, the Meet Your Match Update replaced TF2’s casual ‘quickplay’ with 12v12 unranked matchmaking – and that second mode has frustrated some. Its problems included long waiting times and limited options, but Valve are working on those and more. Over the weekend they acknowledged these complaints and launched the first update aimed at correcting some of casual matchmaking’s problems.

… [visit site to read more]

Ranked matchmaking arrived in Team Fortress 2 [official site] overnight with the Meet Your Match Update, letting you and your pals leap in and scrap to prove you’re the roughtest, toughest, point-caputringest mercs this side of Dustbowl. Or find out quite how bad you are. How confident do you feel? Valve have also launched a little contest to decide which character class will next receive an overhaul: the Pyro or Heavy?

… [visit site to read more]

It’s been a long time coming but matchmaking in Team Fortress 2 [official site] is almost here. Valve today announced the Meet Your Match update, which I imagine likely means it’ll launch this week. Look forward to a ranked 6v6 mode, unranked 12v12 ‘quickplay’, and all sorts of levels, medals, and statistics tracking your performance. Three new community-made maps are coming too, and sportsball mode Pass Time will launch out of beta.

… [visit site to read more]

Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.>

If so, which version did you play? Team Fortress 2 has changed so much during its lifetime that it might have been a tight, retrospectively austere cartoon multiplayer shooter that valued teamwork, or a cavalcade of wacky weaponry and that seems more geared towards chaos than consideration.

… [visit site to read more]

We’ve known for almost a year that Valve have been planning to add competitive matchmaking to Team Fortress 2 [official site] buuut well, I imagine Valve got distracted chasing a squirrel in the park or something. After many months of staring at the tree the squirrel vanished up, Valve have shook off their coating of snow and come back indoors to crack on with TF2’s competitive matchmaking. They don’t have too much to say about it yet, such as when it’ll properly launch, but closed testing is beginning within a week or so and you can sign up.

… [visit site to read more]

I’ve realised I miss watching other people play games. That’s perhaps a strange thought, given the ubiquity of Twitching live-streams and long plays on YouTube – but that’s really not what I mean. I mean sitting in the same room and watching as someone I know plays the game. It’s just not something that happens to me any more.

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Valve crept in during the night and left a little present under your Christmas PC (I’ve seen it, stuffed full of lights and gingerbread with a case window to show them off), a nice, big Team Fortress 2 [official site] update. Okay, yes, much of Tough Break Update is reserved for people who spend $6 to buy into the Tough Break ‘Campaign’ (a series of challenges like CS:GO’s Operations), and yes the new taunts it also adds are expensive, but the greatest gift of all is free: a look at the TF2 gang doing aerobics (sorry, Mannrobics) together.

… [visit site to read more]

“Laughter is the best medicine,” say people who are about to discover laughter actually makes a broken nose worse. Laughter’s pretty okay, though, as are other emotions – and creative mediums can help stimulate them. Valve have rolled out the red carpet (it smells rusty?) for the year’s finest Source Filmmaker machinima, little films mostly starring Valve characters, declaring which are the bestest best so you too can easily experience such human emotions as Action, Comedy, Drama, Short, and Extended.

… [visit site to read more]