Archive for August, 2008

I was excited when I heard that Crytek, maker of Far Cry, was making a new game. I enjoyed Far Cry and it had beautiful visuals, so I expected much of the same from their new game, Crysis. As game release approached, I realized something very terrifying: I needed a new PC to play this game. I had planned on waiting before I got my new PC but this game was going to push up the date. It ended up being one of the first non-Valve game I installed, and I finished it not too long after. So, did Crysis justify the purchase of a new PC?

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Snapped this screenshot while messing around on the ravine_b2 map (which I abhor) and thought it a waste that it should sit unviewed in a Steam folder. I cleaned it up, tweaked the lighting to make it more “dramatic,” and turned it into a parody of those cheesy motivational posters that line business walls to make one work harder (and longer hours).

Download:

• 1680×1050
• 1440×900
• 1280×1024
• 1024×768

This is a video of us screwing around on the OWS servers. This was recorded not too long after the Pyro update. The high ceiling of canyon_b2 allows for sending people really high with the Pyro air blast with low gravity on. Notice the Medic in the back killing the Heavy with the bonesaw.

Some people find the sound that Steam plays when you receive an IM from a friend annoying. For other people, it’s just too loud. Here’s a quick “How to” on changing the wav file:

1. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to “C:\Program Files\Steam\friends”
2. For backup purposes, rename the file “message.wav” to another name, something like “message_old.wav”, for instance.
3. Copy the wav file that you want to use into the directory.
4. Rename the new file to “message.wav”.
5. Right-click on “message.wav” and select “Properties”.
6. In the new window, select “Read-only” at the bottom and click”OK”.

It’s as easy as that.

Wolf showing us how to melee a level 3 sentry during one of our tests. Wow.

Most people who have played a Valve game before know how to enable their console. But their are many people trying out first-person shooters for the first time in Team Fortress 2. Below are instructions on how to enable console.

1. Start Team Fortress 2.
2. Click on “Options” from the menu.
3. Make sure the “Keyboard” tab is selected.
4. Click the “Advanced” button.
5. Check “Enable developer console”.
6. Click “OK” and then “OK” again.

That’s it. This will give you command options that are either hard to access or not found at all in the interface.

Seyon and I enjoy Team Fortress 2 a lot. So much that we go beyond playing the game and begin to explore the realm of Screwing Around. Empty servers become playgrounds where we test oddities in game mechanics, rocket-jumping, Engineer buildings, ubers, Spy abilities, Scout accesses, achievements, etc. Yesterday we were messing around with our friends, Domino and Taco, on our own private fake LAN and came across a few neato facts:

• The Pyro’s Backburner (available after Pyro Milestone 2 with sixteen unlocked achievements) has a considerably longer reach than basic flamethrower. The animation’s draw distance for both weapons looks exactly the same and is not a reliable tell of fire range.*
• One of the newest additions to the Pyro’s arsenal, the air compressor, has the ability to blow back Pyro flares, Soldier rockets, Demo grenades, Demo stickies, and sentry gun rockets in mid-air. Each of these projectiles has its own associated kill icon, though you may have to squint to see them.
• Catching a flare within the compressor’s AoE is particularly difficult to time as it is a tiny target and rather fast. If you successfully reflect it, the flare will change to the color of your team.
• Demo stickies will not change color if blown away but will still show the reflected kill icon if he dies by them even some time later.
• The flare does little damage to the Pyro (~20 hp), so try aiming it back at one of his highly flammable teammates.

* Kudos to our buddy, Scrub, for informing me about this ninja update.

We recently started playing Day of Defeat: Source. It’s an enjoyable game with one major problem: at the end of every round, a sound clip plays representing the winning team. This sound is blaringly loud. This is not a problem, you think to yourself, I’ll just go turn down the music. So you go into your options and turn down the music.  Next round ends and the music seems just as loud. You turn it all the way down and still the music deafens.

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