Author: John Irwin

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Cockfighter! There, I said it. Possibly the stupidest name for a hat we’ve had yet. What makes even less sense it that it’s the tie-in for Scribblenauts Unlimited’s arrival on Steam. So it only seems fair that the idiocy continues with ducks being used as the tie-in for a super violent garrot and run, Hitman: Absolution. Here is where fairness gets out of the car then rolls it off the cliff just to hide its tracks. Facepunch reveals the badass weapons that didn’t make it into the game with this cross over.

In other news, TF2Mixup has only a few days left, ESEA LAN happens without eXtine, Sonic All Stars gets some TF2, Russian card scammers make a profit from buds and PubComp becomes the living dead.

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Its all over guys. Halloween has left us. But don’t despair  so much awesome stuff has happened in the TF2 world this week. This is the week that Gabe revealed to the world (via 4chan) That valve is working on source2. The new Graphics engine to drive Valves future releases. Click here if you want to see this histroric moment. Speaking of historic moments, This week Steam arrived on Linux….for a small number of people. This marks a huge moment where TF2 can be played on 3 different Operating systems in the same game. Is this the first game to do this?

How could we top news like that? By telling you that YOU…Yes YOU, Could be playing a match with Notch, Robin walker, Tay Zonday and Day[9]. Thats right TF2 Mix up is giving you another chance to play a game of Team fortress with a great selection of Game developers and Internet celebrities. Check out TF2mixup.com to find out how you could be part of it.

Elsewhere in the world of TF2 we have been blessed with all kinds of viewing pleasure. How about a Highlander game between eXtv and Vanilla TF2 Casted by kritzkast. Sound good to you? maybe you like your TF2 more main stream. How about a robot chicken sketch featuring TF2? Or maybe your into Community driven content, Then we have 2 Saxxy Videos you need to see now. Bad Medicine and Pyro in love.

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This week we have the wonderful Droogie on the show. If the names sounds unfamiliar to you, this is the man who uncrates 100 Crates each month and publicly gives away their contents (with the exception of unusual hats). However, Halloween is not over yet (when this was recorded) so valve have added more stuff to keep the fun going. The biggest change is how Merasmus levels up. Each time he is killed in a game, he levels up and come back even harder. Now killing him once, is just not enough. He must be killed over and over again.

Outside of the halloween update, Valve seem to be prepairing. They are prepairing for linux by updating the Beta. However, More importantly, they are prepairing for the Saxxys. you can now submit your entires on the website. Not only that, but you can submit them directly from SFM. But do it quickly, the closing date is on Thursday (November 15th).

Have you heard of Faerie Solitaire? You might be hearing it a lot soon, Because this page……..click it, Would lead you to believe that Faerie Solitaire and TF2 are going to be smashed together in the form of promo items. Also in this episode we talk about how valve fire people from the company and tell you where to find all the Vods from i46 ….Oh, I almost forgot……HAPPY BIRTHDAY GABE!

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Its that time of year again. When the world is full of spooks and specters and TF2 is full of awesome. Its time for Scream Fortress. This year Valve (and the community) have done an amazing job. Starting with a hidden image and a Great Comic, we very quickly got exposed to the massive List of items that can be found in the way of gifts, Voodoo items and eerie crates. But on top of that, we’ve got 2 new haunted maps. One of which has a brand new boss, Merasmus. Besides a great boss fight, including elements of prophunt, The map also has the wheel of fate. That is hella fun.

The other map is wave 666. It looks like coaltown painted halloween…but with one big difference. Zombies, Lots and Lots of Zombies. (See picture above). However, it wasn’t just valve that got into the halloween spirit this year, we also had a massive boost of items from the Night of the Living Update II. Just like last year that gathered a large quantity of fan made items and gave you and easy way to install them in your game. This year however, they have developed a great way of showing off their items in a unique and fun way of exploring.

Additionally this week saw a full year of the workshop being open. seeing how most of the stuff we talk about in this episode was involved in with the workshop in some way, it feels fitting that we celebrate.

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Mann up you dogs! Saxton is on the warpath, gunning for all those fools who leave the MvM servers early. If you don’t understand the FAQ we have a crack at explaining it. Our apologies if we make it worse.

At least now one of the mysteries of the special boxes has been solved. A gift of unknown splendor awaits those who purchase the Portal Soundtrack on CD. While we’re on the topic of gifts, the XCOM preorder promo items are now tradeable, craftable, giftable and at least one more variant of “able”.

Coming just-a-little-bit late, the 2nd annual Mann Co store sale is now on. One thing you won’t find in the Mann Co store though is a the Pyro and Demoman figures created by NECA. These beauties are 6.5-7″ tall and an absolute bargan. Though with a first run limited to just 10,000 you’d better get yours fast. While you’re fingering your plastic, you may want to put some cash aside for this, soon to arrive in the Valve store, a painting of the Pyro.

Valve have a hiccup with Steam. A security exploit specialist finds a way to manipulate your PC using vulnerabilities. Fear not though, it’s already been fixed.

Lastly, one of the longest running tournaments of this year is finally finished. Agro got to shoutcast the closing donk donk donk minutes of the Ready, Steady, Pan! tournament, alongside Skully and Comedian of VanillaTV.

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If you thought that you had completed all of MvM, Then you are wrong. This week Valve added 2 new Tours of duty. If you think of what we’ve had so far as easy mode, then Oil Spill would be medium difficulty and Gear grinder is Expert mode. But for your more difficult task, you are rewarded with new loot. Also added in this update were 8 more mysterious gifts that are currently unobtainable. Is something big coming on the horizon?

Meanwhile, If you have a highlander team, make sure they sign up to season 3 of ETF2L’s Highlander league. The sign ups started Monday 15th and will last til the 23rd. Soon after that we will all be treated to more highlander matches then we can shake a stick at. But until then we have 1 Huge match that you’ll want to look up. SNSD and Sydicate, The 2 best highlander teams from North America and Europe went head to head on Sunday. What to know which continent is best at highlander? Check out the Vods here.

As for our “Community Corner”, We have 2 videos to show you. The first one is a single player map that lovingly smashes Super Meat Boy and TF2 together. The video shows this work in progress map taking you through all the levels of Super Meat Boy, But played out in TF2. Our second video is….well……Tell you what, Just click the link, you be the judge.

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It’s hard to say goodbye, especially to those who’ve given us so many happy moments. Which is why we’re saying farewell, so long and until next time to Shwiggan, the animator behind so many beloved and quirky (if somewhat dubious) SFM shorts. The irony of his departure is that it coincides neatly with the release of information about the 2012 Saxxys.

In other news arguably the best two Highlander teams from North America and Europe; Syndicate and SNSD, are to play a show match on Sunday 14th Oct at 9pm CEST. The dastardly fellows at VanillaTV will be livestreaming at the exact time of our live broadcast. I wonder if I can get away with hosting at the same time as watching?

At least we can play TF2 lobby again. At the time we recorded it was down and had been for several days. I guess the code was remastered to fix their problems.

Speaking of Codemasters. our friends there have sent us a promo copy of their new racing game, F1 2012. Rather than make a big song and dance about it, we figured we’d just give it out to whoever’s dumped the most cash into our donation box. Call it a big “Thank you” for keeping us afloat.

Also in line for a “thank you” in the form of a KritzKast Vintage Lo-Fi Longwave is TheMinttu. His artwork dons our show notes here but we’ve talked about him many times in the past. Click on the player of the week to take you to his TF2 gallery.

Lastly we have two snippets of news we think you’ll like. The first is the Unlocks Only Tournament where you’re old to leave your stock items in the closet and play with stuff that didn’t come in the box with the game.  Secondly the “Blood Bothers” comic to celebrate the dawn of the MvM era has been reconstructed into a living breathing YouTube video. Check it out below.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK2pdWPfE08?rel=0]

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Saxton Hale is a man’s man. Men want to eat like him and women want to, well ahem, I think the rest is obvious.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bd-9t-vogbE?rel=0]

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You have no idea how close I came to calling this episode “Cheese Kast”. Ahem, now that that’s out of my system we can talk about what’s in the show. The Dishonored promo brings us two new items, the Lacking Moral Fibre Mask and the Whale Bone Charm. There’s  SPUF anger generated by the Total War sale promo items which actually prevented fans of the games from getting such cool swag as the King of Scotland Cape and the Distinguished Rogue.

With only one in thirty thousand people affected by complete colour blindness it seems a little too small a population for the Valve guys to be working up a sweat to fix TF2 but  that number grows to nearly 10% of the population when you include the much more common red-green variant. Right now, Logan the Monochromatic Bunny is asking you to sign his petition to get something done to make the game more accessible for him and those like him, (including Chronos).

Talking about appealing to the few, Valve are finally making the Steam experience on Linux a possibility. Red hats and Pocket Penguins for all!

Valve are up against the world this week, since they have evoked the wrath of the European Union’s Supreme Court over their updated terms and conditions.

We’ve got a couple of videos for you too. First a fan film following Gordon Freeman.

And Player(s) of the week goes to the guy(s) behind the TF2 remake in Minecraft.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f2brU8hBWc?rel=0]

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What do we have to talk about this week? How about we start with the update which, besides fixing a few things with MvM, Added in new promo items for Company of Heroes 2. Like previous promo items, these are only available if enough people pre-order the game. So if you want 2 hats and a badge, get pre-ordering now. On top of that, valve have finally let people look inside their sandvitch gifts. What sandvitch gifts you ask? the ones you could only get if you went to comic con this year. Shame, because the robo sandvitch looks amazing.

Outside of the update, we have 2 videos to show you. The first reveals the best way to roll out as a Demoman. Showing you all the best spots for stickies to go and how to get to the center point as quickly as possible. If doing things the best way possible isn’t your style, maybe you’d like to know how to fly across the world to be in the finals of i46 and then kill yourself instead of the medic. I know i like that video. I’ve had it on repeat for 3 days now.

Outside of that, we talk about how you can now download “Valve Presents: The Sacrifice and Other Steam-Powered Stories” for your phone or tablet. even though you can get all of the content for free on valves websites, this still costs $16.99….is that right? Then of course we talk creepy items. This week saw the deadline for Night of the living update submissions pass and next week sees the deadline for valve submitted items pass. So if you want your Halloween items to appear in game, you only have 1 week left.