The two got sponsorships from nVidia, XFX, and others, and of course the backing of both universities, so this is a pretty big deal. Oregon State's gamers got into Reser Stadium's club level for their party. (Saturday's game will be played there). Oregon's in the Erb Memorial Union. They're playing tournaments on seven games, including CounterStrike, TF2, Unreal Tournament, Warcraft 3 and others.

In all, it sounds really cool, and hats off to OSU Gaming and the UO Cultural Forum for getting this together. I'm gonna be in Eugene for Thanksgiving; kinda wish I was there already.

Civil War LAN [camera]
Civil War LAN [site]

The Dark Knight (told in TF2 Death Signs) [Ubercharged]

The so called "Thor Bat" (?) can be seen in NSFW action in the clip after the jump.

We're told the custom weapon comes in four colors — blue, red, yellow and "realistic." We'll leave that up to your imagination.

Thanks, CyborgMatt. Thanks a lot.

Oh, and thanks to xcloudx for the updated video embed. We're beating the TinyPic servers with a massive rubber dong in retaliation.

Meet the Cow [machinima.com, via Ubercharged.net]

Team Fortress 2 Sentry [Lair of the Legomancer, via Shift Gamer, thanks reader Mohammed]

From there he explores the process of achieving that goal, including constraints (will the changes overpower the Heavy/Medic team?), entertainment value (will the new tools be interesting?), and weighing the changes against the basic skillset of a successful Heavy. It's an intriguing look into the process behind making Team Fortress 2 a better game, and a great read overall.

A Heavy Problem [TF2 Official Blog - Thanks Overcow!]

Doesn't Scout carry a bat? Seems he'd be obvious for the first batch. Hi res cards after the jump, or you can go get 'em from TeamFortress.com directly.

TF2 Trading Cards [TeamFortress.com]

No sooner than Pyro's unlockable weapons drop than does the grinding and achievement farming begin again with great intensity. Alec visited an achievement servers to witness the depravity himself firsthand and, of course, found himself unlocking 14 achievements and getting the Flare Gun. "It’s as though someone’s stamped LIAR on my Steam page."

Loads of good vignettes in this piece. If you like TF2 or have an opinion on achievements, give it a look.

Achieving Nothing in TF2 [Rock, Paper Shotgun]

On top of the main weapon tweaks, the Pyro is also getting the Axtinguisher, which we've already covered, The Flare Gun, teased in yesterday's Meet the Sniper vid, which allows you to set opponents ablaze from afar, and The Backburner, a flamethrower for the sneakier firebugs out there. While it lacks the compressed air feature, The Backburner guarantees critical hits from behind while granting the Pyro 50 more health.

Hit the link below for the full skinny on the Pyro update from Valve, including the two new maps and a full list of updated Pyro achievements!

The Pyro Update [Team Fortress 2 - Thanks David!]

Valve has released "Meet The Sniper," the newest clip in the expertly animated and hilarious character profiles from Team Fortress 2. The introduction to the Sniper may rival "Meet The Heavy" in terms of laughs—especially if you pay attention during the time-lapse segment—and stands head and shoulders above every other release in terms of direction. Possibly my favorite "Meet The" so far. Thanks to everyone who reminded us of the new clip's release today.

This is shot through with Kodak moments:

• "I own Titanic on VHS. All four fucking tapes."

• The bitching about Titanic at the beginning. "All the hype around it just drove me away." He says it so sincerely. Like it totally would have been his kind of movie otherwise.

• "I'm in key, fuck you buddy."

• The rocket fire accompaniment to the chorus. I'm just imagining Celine Dion in the studio, belting this out, while the footage rolls. Yes, this is the kind of emotional climax that deserves her French Canadian ministrations.

• The death montage at 3:29. Right on time.

• The singing gets so intense I swear it causes server lag.

If you can make it through sudden death, you probably don't have any eardrums right now.

TF2 Karaoke: My Heart Will Go On[StumbleUpon Video]

The Axtinguisher does half damage as a regular axe, unless the target is on fire. Then it's an automatic critical hit. So my friend Sander, who plays Pyro relentlessly, will now add "swing ax if anyone gets close" to his "backpedal and barbecue" combat strategy.

Valve didn't say when the new stuff hits, only that it's "almost completely wrapped." This latest build incorporates feedback from the April update to the Medic class. That one delivered three new unlockable weapons. However, in addition to the Axtinguisher, Valve says there will be "significant changes to the Pyro class for everyone," regardless of unlocked items, but didn't specify. So stay tuned.

Axtinguisher, Other Changes for Pyro in the Works [Steam]

Meet the Scout [Gametrailers]

Good ole Engie. And just to justify this so-win picture, Machinima has an excellent video on how to play him in Team Fortress 2, including a sequence on playing him offensively. I mean, on offense. He's definitely playing offensively in that shot above.

How to Play the Engineer [Machinima.com, by EvilDaedalus]

Update: Reader Andrew "Duderman" Macintosh (commenter dudenextdoor00) claims responsibility for this picture. Nice job! Original is here.

We contacted Valve to clarify and their VP of marketing Doug Lombardi informed us that, "The platform holder owns the final call." So just as we'd suspected, whether or not we see these maps for free is indeed up to Sony and Microsoft.

Team Fortress 2: Free Weekend in Germany

All gamers in Germany may experience what many are calling the best multiplayer game of 2007 during the Team Fortress 2 Free Weekend, offered exclusively to German gamers via Steam January 4th through 6th.

The Free Weekend is open to all gamers in Germany during the event. To participate, simply visit steamgames.com and install the free client. To maximize the free play time, Team Fortress 2 is available now for pre-loading, so players can have everything installed and ready to play the moment the Free Weekend begins on Friday, January 4.

The Team Fortress 2 Free Weekend in Germany will conclude on Sunday, January 6 and no purchase is required to participate in the free weekend.

Team Fortress 2 is one of three new games introduced in The Orange Box, a unique collection of new critically acclaimed games from Valve available for the PC, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360 that is winning Game of the Year awards across the world.

For more information, please visit www.steamgames.com

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—--

Team Fortress 2: Gratis-Wochenende in Deutschland

Exklusiv und nur für die deutsche Community: Team Fortress 2 - von vielen Spielern als bestes Mehrspielergame aller Zeiten gefeiert - gibt es vom 4. bis zum 6. Januar für ein Wochenende gratis!

Dieses Gratis-Wochenende gibt es nur für deutsche Spieler. Zur Teilnahme laden und installieren Sie bitte Steam kostenlos von www.steamgames.com und folgen den Installationshinweisen. Sie können Team Fortress 2 umgehend im vorraus herunterladen und am Freitag, dem 4. Januar, sofort loslegen und das gesamte Wochenende voll ausnutzen.

Das freie Wochenende endet am Sonntag, dem 6. Januar, und verplichtet Sie nicht zum Kauf.

Team Fortress 2 ist eines von drei neuen Spielen der Orange Box, einer einzigartigen und von Kritikern gefeierten Kollektion brandneuer Valve-Spiele für PC, Playstation 3, und Xbox 360 und die Orange Box gewinnt momentan mehrere Auszeichnungen als bestes Spiel 2007 weltweit.

Für weitere Informationen besuchen Sie bitte www.steamgames.com.

Our conspiracy theory about this second clip: Nintendo, facing crazy Wii demand during the Christmas holiday, decided that the only way to quell Christmas shoppers was...well, you'll see.

Thanks Michael!

The next thing I'd love to do is not based on realism, but stylizing with a little more in-depth look to the materials in the world. Instead of just having an impressionistic background, or having highly stylized characters. Making the characters a little bit more believable, even incorporating bold design, getting a little bit more specific.

So it would be a little bit slash realism and stylization all at once. And it can be achieved. We've done experiments like this, where you take a character and you make them — instead of taking photographs of the character, you base it off of lots of drawings and studies and paintings of the character, with real proportions. But with true design to it. You'll be amazed at what you can do.

Valve's Francke: Game Art Direction In Its 'Infancy' [gamasutra]

In fact, the patch is out Valve's door and just has to pass Microsoft certification before getting distributed to LIVE players. Nice turnaround, Valve.

Valve Aware of TF2's Xbox Live Lag [via gamelife]

We've met the engineers, scoped the beautiful graphics and heard about the 9 character balance to no end. Now we're left with one thing: actually playing the game. So hit the jump for our Frankenreview on Team Fortress 2: all the value you see in The Orange Box, squeezed into review form with way more disappointing content.

PCGamer
[A] Pixar comparison isn't fair. TF2's gurning murderers look better...It sounds like a small thing, to be able to tell what class someone is as surely and as clearly as you can...But stuff like this has an intensifying effect on your moment-to-moment experience: you feel, see and comprehend the game world in Technicolor. It makes all the relationships instantly clear and the importance of your actions explicit. In short, it makes everything you do 300% cooler.
1UP
Valve's rebalancing and outright revamping of key classes works; each actor in TF2's cast of nine owns his role with less overlap than ever. The football-like match flow is intact, too — Heavies and Soldiers wrestle at congested lines of scrimmage; now and then Scouts and Spies slither through for Hail Marys (expressive in-game taunts substitute high steps)

IGN
If nobody wins the game at the end of a round, TF2 transitions to an overtime round where teams are no longer allowed to respawn, health pickups disappear, and resupply cabinets no longer give out health. You need to instead rely on medics and dispensers to heal any damage. Strangely, if nobody wins in overtime or wipes out the other team, the round ends in a draw. Sort of defeats the purpose of overtime, doesn't it?

Eurogamer
The game also does a lovely job of framing your relationship with other players and nurturing them. If someone is dominating you, the game says so, and revenge is sweeter. The scoring system, of course, helps reflect this - if someone is dominating you, they get more points for continuing to do so. Valve also includes a range of Achievements...that - rather like celebrated Geometry Wars 360 achievement "Pacifism" - push you in the direction of new ideas as much as they celebrate or laugh along with your accomplishments.

Shacknews
So are there imperfections? Of course...There could be a few more maps. Of the included six, only a few truly capitalize on the subtle mechanics of the game, the rest often devolving into futile, tug-of-war stalemates or crushing defeats. The classic 2Fort map now feels somewhat stale, antiquated. Default respawn times seem a little high. The classes will never be perfectly balanced—such is the nature of class-based combat...[but] to sit and complain about such minor quibbles is tantamount to taking a magnifying glass to a great painting.
I'm picking this game up...as soon as we kick Gizmodo's whiny ass in Halo 3. Then I'm picking this game up.

The earliest version of TF2 that you guys never got to play was this ultra-realistic... it looked a lot like Counter-Strike to a large degree. We wanted to do all these things, but realism fought us every step of the way. In a realistic game it's hard to justify why everything isn't just a bullet or an explosive, because at the end of the day, that's what kills people in the real world...

So the point I was trying to make was that we spent some time squirming under this art direction that we'd chosen too early. Later, when we started thinking about humour, we had a lot of fun with being free. We realised we could do that thing that we'd joked it would be fun to do. Well guess what? Now we can do it. Let's do it!Let's see, art direction that provides genuinely funny humor that supports gameplay? Yes! Let's do it!

We're off to slip on a banana peel and dream about TF2.

RPS Team Fortress 2 Interview - Part 2 [rock, paper, shotgun]

In other TF2 news, stay tuned for a pretty big announcement next week. You're going to want to hold off on planning any vacations until you hear what we've got to say on Tuesday.

Florian Eckhardt as the Spy, debonair in lounge suit and matching leather S&M mask. Eliza Gauger as The Heavy, as befits her girth. Ashcraft — voted Kotaku Editor Most Likely To Be Mistaken for a Small Mammal — as Scout; Crecente as the Pyro, the most useless Team Fortress class.

We are absolutely stoked for this game. Florian Eckhardt

First, Half-Life 2: Episode Two will be released simultaneously on the PC, 360 and PS3. The 360 and PS3 versions will feature all of the HL2 back content. This hasn't really been explained, but we assume it means at least Half-Life 2 and Episode One, in addition to TF2.

Not only that, but it will also include a new single-player puzzle game called Portals. It looks like we're not the only ones who noticed how fun portals were in Prey, pictured to the right. We'll let someone who actually saw it in action describe it, after the jump.

In addition to that bombshell, Newell revealed that all versions of Episode Two will ship with a separate single-player game called Portals. This is something of an insanely inspired puzzle game that takes advantage of the Source engine, judging from the hilarious trailer that Newell showed. The trailer took the form of a training video for a new employee of an advanced corporation in the Half-Life 2 universe.

The video shows a diagram and explains that as an employee of this company, you may have to find the emergency exit to a certain room. However, there are often obstacles in your way, like a gaping chasm. No problem, because all you need to use is your Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device to create dimensional doorways that let you mess with reality. For example, if there's gaping chasm between you and your objective, just shoot a portal on the far side of the room, then shoot a portal open on your side, then enter the portal. You'll instantly transport from one side of the room to the next by walking through the portal (you'll even see yourself going through the portal).

That's the simplest example of how to use the portal gun. In other situations, you may be under fire by a gun droid. So all you need to do is shoot a portal open over the gun, then shoot a portal open beneath a crate, then watch the crate fall through the hole and crush the gun. It gets even crazier, and the diagrams shown in the trailer showed some incredibly crazy things that you can attempt, like creating a series of portals so that you're constantly chasing yourself. Some of the puzzles sound like they'll be "impossible," so the challenge will be to figure out how to use the portal gun.

This promises to be an incredibly puzzle-style first-person experience, which Newell says is part of the goal. "We wanted to take physics out of this domain as a tool that lets you bounce grenades around to how can we really change the game experience for our customers," he said.

I don't really want to risk enraging Mark Rein into looping my scrotum around the bumper of the Epic Games E3 party bus, then taking it for a drive in a granite quarry. But I'll risk it: I love Valve. Florian Eckhardt

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - The Return of Team Fortress 2 and Other Surprises [Gamespot]

In sloppy 'live blog' style, Gamespot described what they saw of the game:

TEAM FORTRESS 2. WHERE DID THIS COME FROM? Hey, they're still making it! It's got a totally exaggerated, crazy art style now. Looks a little like Spy vs. Spy or No One Lives Forever, kind of a '60s spy feel. It's going to be the included multiplayer mode in Episode 2! Class-based, etc. You know the drill. Great news for shooter fans. We all thought this game was dead years ago.

We haven't seen any pictures of the new art style, but those of us who have had the privilege of getting various Valve employees drunk have heard mumblings that this project is still very real for years and would feature a stylized Cold War feel, so this is less a pleasant surprise than a confirmation that they weren't so drunk on Kotaku dollar they were hallucinating. Florian Eckhardt

360, PS3 Half-Life 2 top EA's Summer Showcase [Gamespot]

So what's up next for Gordon Freeman? A rabid Half-Life 2 fan over at the Steam forums was kind enough to give us a summary from the preview of Episode Two in the latest issue of PC Gamer. We'd recommend you go buy it, but print's dead.

So what's happening in Episode Two? We're due to learn more about the Vortigaunts and the mysterious G-Man. About time. The Gravity Gun is due to get an upgrade... hopefully to rip enemies inside out by their sphincters.

The biggest news is the insinuation that a "new, yet-to-be-announced multiplayer game will ship with Episode Two." The author of the post hopes it's TF2 set during the 7 Hour War, but the "new, yet-to-be-announced" part seems to contradict this. Still, if anything could make people care about Team Fortress again, it would be that.

The worst news is that it looks like the release on Episode Two has been pushed back to Spring, 2007. A year between chapters? That's just not going to work as a model. Florian Eckhardt

PC Gamer World-Exclusive Episode 2 Article [Steam Powered]