team-fortress-2 posts

The weekend, and indeed the end of the month, is fast approaching. We have plans to check out Darkspore. What about you?

• Steam has new automatic updates for Tommy Tronic, Cities in Motion, Team Fortress 2, The Settlers 7 and Sol Survivor.
• The country of Australia is thinking about replacing the R15+ game rating to R18+ but there's a catch.
• IGN has posted up a preview of the Free Comic Book Day edition of The Darkness II comic.
• Do you want a Duke Nukem Papercraft doll? Of course you do.
• Portal + Super Mario = This video.

The latest Team Fortress 2 tie-in with another game has been revealed. This time it's for the upcoming RPG stand alone expansion pack Mount and Blade: With Fire and Sword. People who own Valve's multiplayer shooter and pre-order the Taleworlds developed (and Paradox Interactive published) game by May 3 will get access to two exclusive items in TF2.

The two items are, naturally, in-game hats; the Hetman's Headpiece for the Engineer players, and the Janissary Ketche for the Spy characters. In related news, the recently released puzzle game SpaceChem has added three new team Fortress 2 levels to the game.

So we suspect a lot of you lost some sleep last night to try to complete Portal 2. Don't worry; we feel the same way.

• Steam has new automatic updates for a number of games including Team Fortress 2, King Arthur The Roleplaying Wargame, Audiosurf, ProtoGalaxy, the Mac version of Civilization V, and Garry's Mod.
• Retailers in the UK are breaking the embargo on the planned Friday launch of Portal 2 due to the PC game being released early on Steam.
• As promised the fourth DLC pack for The Settlers 7 has been released.
• How much work has been put into Duke Nukem Forever? Between 6,000 and 7,000 man months, according to Gearbox's Randy Pitchford.

We have been wondering when there will be a Portal 2-Team Fortress 2 crossover and, well, we were not disappointed. Developer Valve has announced in a funny post on the Team Fortress 2 web site that owners of the multiplayer first person shooter will find that a number of its hats can be used by Portal 2's co-op robots if players own both games.

Specifically, the TF2 hats that are available in Portal 2 are the Mann Co. Cap, the Prince Tavish's Crow, the Pyro's Beanie, the Fancy Fedora, the Master's Yellow Belt and the Tyrant's Helm. Have fun making the bots look sillier than they already do.

So that Portal 2 pre-launch dealie seems to have shaved off about an hour from the game's planned release. Something tells us that the release date won't be too early.

• Steam has new automatic updates for the Steam client along with Team Fortress 2, Killing Floor and Alien Swarm.
• PopCap Games is doing well for itself, apparently.
• Battlestar Galactica Online has reached the 1 million user mark in just six weeks.
• The Humble Frozenbyte Bundle is close to reaching the $600,000 revenue mark.
• There are rumors of a January 2012 release date for the still unannounced Grand Theft Auto V.

While Valve has been busy working with a bunch of indie games for its Portal 2 ARG, it released an old fashsioned free update for its multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2 tonight that apparently doesn't have any references to Portal 2.

The so-called "hatless" update adds some new feature such as a being able to be matched up to a virtual coach who will give you gameplay tips while you play. The Pyro, Spy and Demoman classes all get training levels. Plus there's new improvements for the game's voting system, AI bots, voice chat and the game's in-game paint features. Also there's a new dynamic model system that should boost performance. Finally there's a new and smaller King of the Hill version of the classic TF2 map Badlands.

Team Fortress 2 players like to buy in-game hats, even if they are priced at $100, for a good cause. That's the apparent lesson of the latest attempt to raise money to help the people in Japan who are still dealing with the earthquake that hit that country a month ago.

Tonight the official Team Fortress 2 web site announced that the three exclusive hats have now pulled in a whopping $430,543.65 for the Red Cross' effort in Japan. The three hats that were on sale in the multiplayer shooter have now been retired and won't be on sale or available by any other means ever again.

In related news, nine new in-game hats made by community members are now on sale for players of Team Fortress 2. And a bear. We have no idea what the bear does in the game.

Valve's efforts to raise money via Team Fortress 2 for Japan's earthquake relief efforts have been highly successful so far. Today Valve posted word on the multiplayer shooter's web site that the fund raising efforts from selling three exclusive in-game hats have already raised over $300,000 for the American Red Cross.

You still have until April 6 to play the game and purchase the limited edition hats (the Humanitarian's Hachimaki for $7.99. the Benefactor's Kanmuri for $19.99 and the Magnanimous Monarch for $99.99) via the game's Mann Co Store. The money raised also gives an indication on how popular the in-game store has become for Team Fortress 2 since Valve launched it back in late September.

Valve has joined the long list of game developers and publishing offering special deals and items on sale to help the relief efforts in Japan after the earthquake and tsunami hit that country less than two weeks ago. Valve's effort revolve around special unique in-game items that one can purchase from the Mann Co Store inside the multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2.

From now until April 6, three exclusive hats and two "noisemakers" will be on sale, including the Humanitarian's Hachimaki for $7.99. the Benefactor's Kanmuri for $19.99 and the Magnanimous Monarch $99.99. All the proceeds from the sales of these items will go to the American Red Cross' efforts in Japan. Valve states that after April 6, none of these items will be on sale or available in any form.

The funny Team Fortress 2 videos have showcased all but two of the multiplayer shooter's character classes; the Medic and the Pyro are the only two left. In a new post on the Steam message board posts by Team Fortress 2 community member "Political Gamer", he claims that during a visit to Valve's offices this week that the Medic will be the next TF2 class to get the trailer spotlight.

The report claims that the video is one of the best of the TF2 character classes yet made and that it is about 80 to 90 percent done so it should be released "soon". In related news the Source Engine film maker will also be released "soon", according to the report.

The report also has a audio link to an interview with Team Fortress' co-creator Robin Walker that should be of interest to Team Fortress 2 fans. The same report praises Valve's next game Portal 2 quite a bit (GOTY 2011 is mentioned) and even mentions being able to see DOTA 2 being played (no details, however).

[Via PCGamer.com]