FIAH! FIAH!

[prog]

I finally played a little bit of TF2 via XBox Live. It's fun! I took ahkond's advice and stuck to the newbie-friendly Heavy and Pyro classes, and then just wandered around frying dudes, taking short breaks when suggested. (Suggestions usually being implemented as headshots.)

You know a game with this structure is successful when getting killed doesn't make you say "dammit" but "ooh, I wanna try that!" (You can see who killed you, where they were, and how they did it.) See also "Street Fighter 2", back in the heady days of Sputnik and Gagarin.

Sorry I can't play with you PC peoples...

Comments

[mogaribue.livejournal.com]

Medic is a good way to learn a level layout, just figure out how to uber correctly or people will be miffed. The only really difficult classes to master are Spy and Demo imho. Engie definitely helps if you know the level and where the good spots are to put a sentry gun.

HUDDA HUDDA HUDDA

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

I agree with lone_phaedrus, although some people have found Demo pretty easy to play too. I'm not very comfortable with it but I frequently get more kills than deaths as Demo (something I don't do regularly with most classes). In many cases you can just hang back, away from the scrim, and lob bombs in for random kills.

Spy and Sniper are tough for me; Spy is complex and subtle, while Sniper just requires hella-fast aiming reflexes (and so does Scout, really). Naturally that's a whole different proposition on the PC than on the Xbox because of the controls.

I know I've said this before, but in case other people are reading this, I have to say that on my usual servers there's usually about one person a week who appears and says "oh my god you guys I've been playing this on the XBox and this, on the PC version, is so much better I can't even tell you".

Apart from the different controls (mouse aiming in particular), we have custom maps and special unlockable weapons. My favorites are the Pyro's flare gun (for setting people on fire at a distance) and the Heavy's "sandvich" which is just a ham and cheese sammich that he pulls out and goes OM NOM NOM and restores a bunch of health. Having three or four Heavies standing around in a circle during setup going OM NOM NOM is just priceless.

Shameless community plug: http://tf2.deadworkers.com (podcast, forums, servers)

Re: HUDDA HUDDA HUDDA

[prog.livejournal.com]

Aw, I was wondering where the sandvich was. :( (Had seen the MEET THE SANDVICH video.)

Noted that the PC is better... even without the controller differences or PC-only powerups, the fact that you can have community-based servers and player-created maps makes all the difference. Maybe when I am feeling motivated I'll see if the game works on this PC I'm borrowing. (It has a hot new video card I bought, but cannot speak for the rest of it.)

Re: HUDDA HUDDA HUDDA

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

Right. I know that some people play the PC version on Windows emulators like Wine or VMWare, but I also understand that lots of Mac users in our social circle use older Macs that don't support VMWare because of different processors/chips or whatnot (not to mention the added expense), so that's how it goes. Oh well.

Games like this are one of the two reasons I still have a Windows machine; the other is recording radio with the RadioShark. I use Ubuntu for everything else (at home) now. Work is still very Windows-centric.

Meet the Sandvich is fun but it doesn't actually show you the sandvich in action. The clearest-looking example I've found in a brief search is this: http://www.vimeo.com/1593448 (plus extraneous music and people talking in Finnish(?)).

If you do get it working on the borrowed PC, see if I'm around using the Steam friend/community stuff, and feel free to hit the "join" button to join whatever game I'm in, or send me a Steam text message. My Steam name is '[sn]-ahkond'. I'll be out of town most of this week but I'll have my snazzy new laptop and I might be playing anyway.

Re: HUDDA HUDDA HUDDA

[prog.livejournal.com]

I'm laughing at the video. Also apparently OM NOM NOM in Finnish(?) is pronounced Om-nuh-nom-nuh-nom.