Update about the Scout update #3

I love it when Valve basically reveal three things in one update.

Pay note to the background image: the new game mode will clearly be some sort of Payload race, since there are two cart tracks, one in red and one in blue. Intriguing! I'm definitely looking forward to hearing more about it, the idea definitely sounds fun, at least it's not about the same old attack-defense mechanic.
And the second one: that is not the Scattergun the Scout's holding in the image. It looks similar at first glance, but if you look closer, you can see that it's not the same, it's missing the round chamber of Scattergun, and it looks shorter. It rather looks like a regular sawed-off shotgun. AND when you check out the achievements, there's "Fall Classic" which sports some kind of a buzzsaw in its image. OH I WONDER...

ILU Valve.

Scout unlockables? Curious about the mechanics of the Sandman, will probably start using it (if I ever manage to get it, that is. I'm not the greatest Scout, so getting the achievements might be a bit trickier than with other classes) because I'm not a very jumpy Scout anyhow, and the Energy Drink seems interesting as well. I kinda dislike the pistol since it's got so ridiculously low ammo, but I use it a lot to finish off enemies out of Scattergun range and - naturally - take potshots at distant sentries, so I don't know if I want to replace it. And if a sawed-off shotgun replaces Scattergun I'm extremely curious to hear about its tradeoff, since Scattergun is basically a sawed-off shotgun: both are defined by the larger spread. It also bothers me that they would look so similar, and Valve's been careful to make the unlockable weapons look different from the regular ones. Maybe it IS the Scattergun in the image, idk, I just can't see the round chamber no matter how I look at it.
Conjecture, conjecture, we'll see once it's officially revealed.

And I love the subtle slap on the wrist of all exploiters: see the Announcer's post on the official TF2 blog. There are so many reasons to go "ILU Valve" right now.

\o/!

Hee hee, it would appear that Valve is giving me quite a nice birthday present.

Yes, my birthday is next Tuesday. Maybe getting old won't feel so terrible when I can get on server and kill some Scouts. (And then Valve Time comes in and the update doesn't come out till Wednesday and then I can say that Valve ruined my birthday, haha).
And this blog has its first anniversary next Monday, so this all is coming together quite nicely!

I have a bigger entry in the works, mostly about Bioshock and TF2 custom maps (and I'll probably address the Scout unlockables and everything else the update will be bringing too), but this will do for now. Just hang on.

Celebrations!

There was a huge Left 4 Dead update just now and I can't stop feeling happy about it! So many changes to versus, Valve addressed basically all the problems I had with it, namely:

- Tank spawns at the same % through the map for both teams in versus mode

Hunter
- Easier to pounce a Survivor who is meleeing

Smoker
- Smoker now has to be killed or the tongue destroyed for the tongue to break
- Tongue attacks that fail to paralyze or hang a Survivor will use the shorter ability delay timer
- Fixed case where you could point at a Survivor but not register a tongue hit
- Smoker tongue does damage every second while dragging paralyzed Survivors

Tank
- Reduced autoshotgun damage against Tanks

So much for unfair Tanks! So much for getting frustrated at continuous meleeing as Hunter! So much for hating to play as the Smoker! I always hated being the Smoker, because I couldn't seem to be able to do SHIT as one. The tongue targeting was horrible, even if the aim indicator was red and the survivor in plain view, I couldn't score a hit. And if the drag failed, it was a bitch having to wait the minute or so for the attack to recharge and trying to change vantage points in plain sight. Dragging survivors long distances felt pointless at times since there was no damage until the drag was complete. Not even mentioning how frustrating the goddamn melee got. All that, fixed!
And autoshotgun was goddamn imbalanced GOD TIER against Tanks: they were dead in a course of seconds if you just ran behind them and unloaded a few clips into their oblivious backs from point-blank range. Yeah. I know it because I used to do it a lot in finales. The assault rifle is my weapon of choice, but whenever there was a Tank coming (and no one had a molotov) I changed to autoshotty and ran after Tanks while they were chasing some other team member. Yeah.

Too bad that I'm leaving for a family vacation today, and won't be able to play and enjoy the changes until some time next week.
Yeah, I would much rather stay at home playing videogames than go to Rome.

Kidding. I'll be off then.

P.S.: We finally completed two campaigns on expert. No achievements, though. Stupid cheat-proof achievements, we even restarted the campaigns once so that everyone saw the intro, but nooo, no one got Zombicidal Maniac or any progress to What Are You Trying to Prove. Sucks. But at least we did it once, we can surely do it again. We even completed Death Toll without restarting even once. That was pretty impressive.

Wb, me!

Guess who's back in the game.



And as you can see, the new PC handles L4D pretty nicely, the resolution alone is pretty insane (yes, I am playing with 1280x1024 and near-highest graphics settings, and it runs as smoothly as it possibly can). For now I'd say getting this PC was worth the while.
L4D seems to be pretty light either way, back when I played the Demo on my old PC, the game actually ran pretty nicely. I mean, I wasn't even playing on the lowest graphics settings - at least texture detail was high - but my resolution was 640 x 480 (this is how it looked, yay PSOne graphics ftw!), and I got all the lighting effects, and actually a pretty decent FPS. And I had been quite sure that the computer would refuse to run it in the first place.

So how about Team Fortress 2?
FPS stays on green almost in every situation (saw it flicker in yellow when there was dozens of stuff on the screen at once), and I get about the same graphics as I did playing on little brother's computer last summer.
So all in all? I'm pretty much extremely satisfied.

I have much to do, organizing files, installing stuff and so forth, so I'll leave a more in-depth entry about Left 4 Dead for later, for now I'll just say that I love versus. I got to play some bits of the co-op campaign on a friend's PC last week after the game came out, so I was somewhat familiar with it, and last night the first thing we did after I got the game, was to find a server and play some versus. I had played it once before, and the game whined to me about needing to play the campaign first, but I didn't really care.
And yes yes the best part about versus is getting to play as the Infected. The best part about playing as the Infected is spawning as the Tank. Okay, yeah, I can't really say since I was a Tank for about ten seconds last night. I spawned at the end of No Mercy just as the Survivors were stumbling to the evac helicopter. I managed to incap one of them, though, so job well done, and only one escaped alive, as rest of my Infected buddies managed to pin the others down. (Yeah, I'm the Tank in the screenshot I posted.)
I like being other Infected as well, Smoker's probably my favourite since you don't have to go get so intimate with the Survivors as the Smoker. I like lurking about rooftops. Hunter's fun as well, although I seem to be just horrible at aiming my jumps, haha. But I've had my best ownage moments as a Hunter pinning down a lone Survivor while others are being harrassed by a Boomer and subsequently a horde. Oh, love. Boomer's surprisingly fun as well.

What sucks about versus is the crazy console-reminiscent lobby system that absolutely sucks because you don't know what kind of ping you'll have until you're actually in game. So it's mostly just jumping from one server to another until one with not-as-crazy latency comes along.
Or since I usually have at least three buddies to play with at any given time, we make a server of our own and then search for a dedicated one, which seems to work pretty well. We get nice ping, and the server usually fills up quickly.
And then we get our fair share of idiots: one of my buddies was playing versus for the first time last night, so of course one of our team-mates started whining at him that he sucks, but. Me and Slaver kindly told him to stfu, and he still had the nerve to start a votekick against my friend. Which backfired royally, because after that there was a vote to kick the whiner, which - needless to say - passed 3 to 1.
I can only imagine how much he must've been raging, hee hee.
But just what the fucking hell, you choose a random public server and then start whining about the noobs? Besides, dear idiot, you weren't doing too hot either (I was kicking your ass in scores and I was playing for the second time), so please do take a look in the mirror before mouthing off a "noob."
Yeah yeah, I know, the whole teamwork thing, of course it sucks if someone on your team seems to be lost, but ffs you can still treat the player nicely and try to understand that the game's been out for a week and not everyone can be fucking brilliant at it already.

But yeah, it's like fighting windmills, fighting these idiots in online multiplayer communities.

L4D and Fallout 3

I'm dying with this lack of a gaming computer.

So, Left 4 Dead's demo came out some time ago, and I had to start my broken computer just in case it runs, and I could spend a few hours on L4D with friends. I had already tested the game out on Slaver's computer, since he bought the game in advance and thus got the demo beforehand, and needless to say, I wanted more.
So my graphics card stayed alive so that I managed to play 1,7 hours of Left 4 Dead with PlayStation graphics. And then it screamed in agony and promptly died. So much for L4D demo then.
I have a new computer underway, finally, and it should arrive this week if everything goes well. Intel's quad core processor, ATI Radeon HD 4670 (I wanted a GeForce, but the Radeon was much cheaper), 2 Gb RAM, I should be getting nice graphics and a constant high FPS in TF2 and other games.
And I can't fucking wait to get to play TF2. The first thing I do when I get the new computer, I'll install TF2 and play. For hours. Everything else be damned, I need it.

But Left 4 Dead? Is simply awesome. The AI Director is, apart from being a complete fucking sadist (it always spawned a goddamn Tank when half of my team was dead and the rest had like 1 HP left - yes, we kept playing on Expert, because that's where the true L4D experience lies) a marvellous invention, it really does make the game feel fresh even if you do play the same two maps over and over and over again.

I love the soundscape, I love the true feeling of panic the game causes (I still get a chill every time I hear the "horde's coming!" soundcue, and automatically look for a wall to press my back against), I love the atmosphere, I love the hordes of running zombies, I love it how it almost feels like slow-motion when you fall down and there are zombies everywhere screaming and clawing at you and you shoot and shoot and it's completely in vain and you're on the verge of dying, heartbeat deafening you and eyesight going and then there's a friend blasting through the wall of zombies with a shotgun and helping you up.
It'a fucking brilliant.



Then everyone's a team-killing fucktard, everyone shoots at cars, giggling while they're at it; you throw a molotov when a friend is getting pinned by a Hunter and there's a horde coming and after that you beeline straight towards the safe room and lock everyone out; you always refuse to put out your flashlight when you hear crying and you HAVE to shoot at the Witch, and it's all fun and games even if everyone gets completely slaughtered by the Tank when half of the team is dead and the rest have 1 HP left. Seriously, having done all of that, or been in the receiving end of the molotov and being locked out of safe room, it's always a blast. Maybe not playing with strangers, but with friends shits and giggles is always a good thing.

And almost all the guys on my class got totally hooked on the game, so at least I'm bound to have company to play with whenever a need arises. I don't know when I'll be getting the full game, probably at 21st when Europe gets it. Providing that I have the new computer at my disposal.

What else? I've been actually playing quite a lot of Fallout 3 at a (boy)friend's place, and I'm loving it as well. I'm playing as a woman named Steve, she's a greedy and impatient wannabe bad guy specialised in all kinds of thievery and bullshitting. Deep inside she's a real doll who fights for the good. I blame it on the fact how devastated she was when she learned the truth about her father and the whole Vault 101 dealio: she wants revenge, but she doesn't know how to pull it off, thus she's lost and trying to do mean things, only to fail gloriously and end up doing ... nice things.
I mean, I was supposed to blow up Megaton. I talked to Burke (and ew ew EW the most disgusting conversation EVER, stupid Black Widow perk and my greediness!), and got the thingamajig to rig the bomb with, and I wanted to kill Moriarty because he was a complete fucking ass for being right about my dad.
But I couldn't do it, because I liked Gob too much (I love ghouls, and Gob made my day by always having his day made by me. I couldn't just blow him up, not when every time I talk to him he's relieved and genuinely happy to see me, calling me a friendly face. And while I want to steal something from Moriarty, anything, fuck I just want to see him suffer, I CAN'T because Gob would probably get mad at me or worse, Moriarty would blame it on Gob and make his life even more of a hell. Yeah, I should probably stop from getting attached to NPCs), and I also took some really weird sort of liking to Moira of the supplies. Who's batshit insane and cheerful to the point of being so obnoxious I just want to hit her. So I'm helping her to write her book, and this far I have been blown up my mines, sniped by a sniper, raided a Raider-infested ancient supermarket, walked into a grenade - twice, jumped from a roof and drank lots and lots of radioactive water, just for her.
I seriously don't know who's more insane in the end: she, or I.
So in the end I couldn't blow Megaton up. So I didn't. I disarmed the bomb, got hooked on Mentats in the process (cheers, Megaton, you fucking owe me) and settled down with my creepy robotic butler.
But at least I could finally empty my pockets. I'm a compulsive junk-gatherer, I take everything cool with me and carry it around until I can't anymore, and then with heavy heart I part with my teddybears and toy cars and all other cool stuff I had found. Sigh.

And I might have to kill Moriarty anyhow, I might have to put a grenade in his pocket. I want the stupid asshole dead. And I don't want to have some Jesus-level karma, geez! I'm a bad person, bad, grr.

Well, yeah, my badness is strictly tied to how I feel about a person. The "mayor" of Arefu, you know the guy, I hated him. He was an idiot, and a complete wuss for not doing anything about the Family, and taking care of the citizens of his crappy little village (and Jesus Christ that one woman in Arefu, she is SO OUT THERE you wouldn't believe!). So I broke into his house and stole everything I wanted. That oughta teach him.
Or this one sad little village full of idiots who were completely pussywhipped by Super Mutants. There was this girl, though, who tried to hit on me, that was fun. But anyway, I left their stupid village just to run straight into some minigun-wielding Muties, and because I'm a total coward when it comes to fighting (I'm a thief! I'm sneaky, I sneak behind people's backs and stab them, I don't engage in firefights with ugly giants with miniguns! At least not when there are two of them! I even try to avoid Raiders), I of course ran away. And lead the mutants right into this idiot village, and left them fight them off. Sorry, idiot villagers!
Or the Family, goddamn I wanted to kill Vance. And his wife. And all the idiot vampire brothers of his. One day, one day I'll sneak there and steal all their stuff and kill them when they sleep. I just don't get the logic, oh no we can't be cannibals that's barbaric, let's just drink blood instead. Absolute bullshit.

So if I don't like an NPC I break into their house and steal their stuff. Or plan to put a grenade in their pants. And if I do like an NPC I'm a total angel to them. But even to people I like I act impatient and I always ask for more money or whatever for my services. Adventuring's not free, you know. I need money to buy stuff for my house. But it's got me some really nice deals, so at least it pays off.
And to ghouls? I'm always an angel. They have hard time anyhow, if there's anything I can do to make them feel better, I'll do it. I'm planning to go visit Underworld as soon as I have a good excuse to enter DC. Gob wanted me to say hi to Carol for him.

So yeah, I really like Fallout 3. It's tons of fun, there's so much to do, the NPC's are compelling (even when I don't like them, and hey, it takes character to be obnoxious!) and I've really taken liking to my character. I really don't know what I'm set out to do, I guess I'll keep thieving and trying to do bad things, and helping out ghouls as much as I can and whenever possible. I guess I'll just go where adventure takes me.
Can't wait to buy the game for myself and make a male character with a girls' name and be total fucking antichrist and blow Megaton to high heaven. I won't even talk to Gob, if I never knew him, I can't feel sorry for him. And who knows, maybe the-guy-with-a-girls'-name really hates ghouls.

I guess that's all I wanted to say. For now.

Well, I've never been this happy about being wrong before...

Okay, I was completely ready to squee over Meet the Sandvich and talk about Companion Cube Soccer since I was quite sure that the update won't come tonight, but SORRY, I WAS WRONG.

So at least I know what I'll be doing for the rest of the night. LUMBERYARD, STEEL, BADWATER BASIN, HERE I COME.

Expect a freaking massive entry tomorrow.

More Medic content to come? In MY TF2? It's more likely than you think!

Badwater Basin, the new Payload map was revealed last night. I am intrigued, it would seem like nice deviation from the Dustbowl-esque Gold Rush, and I'm definitely looking forward to getting to play a game on it.

But that's not why I post, because I'm finally about to post some real actual CONTENT in this blog apart from personal gaming experiences and commenting on news everyone already knows about. YOU MAY NOT EVEN KNOW ABOUT THIS YET, GASP. No, it's not exclusive info, this comes straight from TF2Chan, which I frequent like the little faghag that I am.



So, an interesting little fact came up when someone emailed Valve about the removed broken "Oktoberfest!" Medic taunt.

I don't know if you are aware, but some time ago someone found another medigun taunt from TF2 GCF. It was broken, so someone fixed it and made it work in-game (...an awful lot of "someones" here...), and I believe it was on Youtube as well (oh, here it is). Later on the taunt was removed in a patch, which made us all sad, because we had grown to love the crazy medigun-huffing Doctor.

So, Robin Walker responded to the question about reinstating the taunt with

"The reason we removed it was because we weren't done working on it, and had never intended to ship the content behind it yet. It's still coming, and when it arrives, it'll be even neater than what you've seen so far."

The rest is open for speculation, and oh my. New Medic content? Could it be?
This is also quite interesting in the light of the rumoured Heavy unlockables: if the Heavy really does get a healing sandwich to taunt with, could it be that this new Medic taunt would heal the good Doctor as well?
Oh how do I love speculation.

Lots of raeg. Again.

ILU VALVE.

Removed health bonus from the Backburner

Finally. The days of overpowered kamikaze Pyros are finally over, I hope. Maybe they'll finally go back to ambushing. And finally I can go back to playing the Soldier! And yes, Backburner Pyros were the number one reason for why I haven't played much as the Soldier since the Pyro update. They were just goddamn impossible to kill with their ridiculous amount of health and I got so frustrated with them.

And the following updates and changes also make me happy:

Added a gear symbol behind the health bar for Engineer buildings, in both target IDs and freeze panels

Players killing themselves will now give a kill credit to the last enemy who damaged them

Because as a Medic I'm constantly checking everyone's health and it annoys me to hover over a bunch of people, see someone with low health and rush in only to find out that it was a damaged dispenser or something.
And now I won't feel so bad about suiciding as a Demo or a Soldier anymore. Except when I'm feeling like an asshole and the guy who almost killed me before I suicided is someone who's dominating me or otherwise being a total dick to me and I wouldn't want to give him any credit for getting the kill.

Now I'll just settle down to wait for the inevitable Demoman sticky nerf and the Heavy update.

And then back to out usual schedule of wanton babbling:
I was once again playing on a HK's Newbies Only server last night and it seemed like it was an Official Butthurt Day, because people were complaining about something, all the fucking time.
First someone complained about Demomen being overpowered for half a round on Gravel Pit. I was on RED, the whiner was on BLU, and there were two Demos on our team, me being one of them. I wasn't doing very good: I was close to the top of the scoreboard, I think, but I didn't have very much kills or anything, and at least I felt like I wasn't doing very good (which can be taken any way you want to, since I'm known to own everyone and still feel like I suck, so). Anyway, this guy, he kept on complaining about stickies, how even Valve calls them "winbombs" (old fucking news, dude, change the record), how they're ridiculously OP and how Demomen are cheap cheap cheap.
Christ, I raged.
I admit it, stickies are a bit overpowered, and they will be nerfed in some way or the other sooner or later (maybe they'll prolong the time in which a just-fired sticky can be detonated, or maybe they'll do a damage reduction, or no crits...), but they are not impossible to deal with! I get so angry whenever someone complains about stickies, because it's your own fucking fault if you step on them! What the fuck were you expecting, a simple flesh wound?!
Here, let Auntie Chrome a.k.a. Captain Obvious give you a little lesson on stickies and How To Deal With Them.

Good Demomen of course hide their stickies to their best abilities, putting them to the ceiling or around blind corners, but if there's a very visible sticky carpet on a point, on a chokepoint or in a doorway, why the hell would you stand on them?! You either find another way, try to deal with the Demo (who's undoubtedly somewhere near because he usually has a clear line of sight at his bombs, unless the stickies are on a point, in which case the Demo can be anywhere, because the HUD is all he needs to defend), or simply try to scatter the stickies, which makes them less deadly. One sticky kills weaker classes, but with the ones with higher HP just one doesn't do the trick (unless it's a crit, but that goes without saying. And in stickies' case you can see the crits, so you're a complete fucking idiot if you go near one). So if the stickies are scattered all over the place, they're not nearly as potent. Or you can be The Good Guy and sacrifice yourself for the greater good, ie. your team's cause: walk on the stickies, the Demo detonates and kills you, but the rest of your team are now free to charge the bastard, and he has no time to set his stickies back up. Unless he's very good. But yeah, hardly anyone ever thinks about the Team, at least not on pubs.
Or waste an über to take the Demo down. Stickies send charged people flying (best defense on Dustbowl stage three: just sticky the only way to the first point and detonate when the übered enemies try to charge in and take down sentries. Works every damn time, and people just don't pay enough attention to stickies when they're übered. Which is probably why people whine about them. Dammit, stop being so ignorant and do something about the stickies!), but in case it's a narrow hallway with a low ceiling, it's not like you'll fly anywhere.
Easiest way of course is to find a way around the stickies. If a Demoman is camping some doorway, just go around it, get behind him and hand him his butt. Scouts and Pyros work wonders, Scouts especially tend to be preeetty tedious (my damn nemesis class as a Demo, no, I'm not kidding. I hate good Scouts, can't hit them for the life of me and then they just bonk me to death. But that's how it is, Demos are weak against Scouts, it's part of the game balance, and I'm admittably not that good a Demoman, as you probably know). If there are Demos camping every damn doorway, well, then, maybe you're screwed. Or maybe you should, I don't know, be another Demoman, a Soldier, maybe a Pyro?
Because silly Pyros, so enamoured by the now-nerfed Backburner that they don't realise the awesomeness that is the regular flamethrower and its all-powerful airburst. Airburst scatters stickies very easily and makes a well-planned-out sticky carpet considerably weaker or downright useless (I don't understand why people still insist on standing on Dustbowl's second stage's last cap while it's thoroughly stickied. One airburst, a rocket, or setting of your own sticky clears the point and I rarely ever see anyone do it! Which is why I usually own as a defending Demo on Dustbowl). As a Demoman you hold one of the best weapons against stickies: stickies. Just fire one or two in the middle of the carpet, set them off and poof they roll into every direction, clearing way. I've seen Heavies clear sticky carpets pretty effectively. Shotgun works with lonely stickies, but against a carpet... I'd suggest you go find the nearest Pyro.
So for fuck's sake, the stickies are not all-powerful, not even in the hands of the world's best Demoman! Just learn to deal with them and you make many career Demomen cry in frustration! Although I'm quite sure that good (career) Demos don't really do sticky camping, since stickies are even more frightening when used like any other projectile (which is why I think that the "prolong the time in which a just-fired sticky can be detonated" nerf would be perfect and force Demos to do sticky camping, which is arguably easier to deal with - like I've just shown you - than those crazy sticky-chucking harbingers of carnage and destruction).

I have spoken.

Now back to my Official Butthurt Day story. So the guy was whining about Demos being overpowered, and I remember at some point I got a Medic with a full charge sticking to me and we went to demolish a sentry nest that the enemy had got up in the hallways leading from A to C.
And in a moment the guy said "There are the cheap Demos again. RED is so cheap."
So you think that an übered, somewhat skilled Demoman shouldn't be able to clear a sentry nest and kill half a team that's obliviously camping a narrow hallway? Really now? Butthurt much? Maybe we should just sit there twiddling our thumbs and watch as you take control of the hallways, and cap the point? You'd like that, huh? Just get your own über and come rape our sentries, for fuck's sake, and don't whine about us doing our goddamn job well.
But yeah, someone's always the sore loser.

So the map changed, we were in Dustbowl, defending, and suddenly some guy tells Slaverstrike to GTFO because his ping is too high. Apparently Slaver kept headshotting the guy through walls. And for the record, Slaver's ping is about the same as mine, 130-150.
And he wouldn't shut up about it. And I raged so hard, almost telling him to shut the fuck up (sure, I get defensive about my friends, don't fuck with them). Instead I kept on owning him with the bonesaw (I was playing as Medic, and he was too. Kept losing the melee duels, poor thing), and waiting him to tell me to leave because I was bonesawing him through walls or some shit. And it felt good to own him fair and square in melee and return to my team, sporting a full charge. Ha.
I don't know if servers compensate for lag, but do you have any idea how the lag works? ~140 ping is not that high. I myself don't notice any freaking difference when I play with 140 ping and when I play with 20 ping. I don't know how much others need to compensate to kill me (but do tell if you've played against me when I'm lagging. All I know is that with over 300 latencies it becomes a fucking job to kill the player who's lagging because they're just twitching all over the place), and since I don't play as high-accuracy classes such as the Sniper, I have no idea how much I would have to compensate to get a clean headshot. My little brother says he needs to shoot just a little bit in advance, so I'm gonna trust him, and figure that it takes some skill to be a good Sniper when you are lagging slightly.
But the point is, 140 ping is not high. Sure it's unacceptable in competitive play, but this is a freaking public server! Which of course gives you the right to whine about every single thing.
I wasn't the only one irked by the guy's whining: someone on his team said after a while that Slaver just got him with a clean headshot, he can't be lagging.
And if I remember correctly, there was a player with ~400 ping, and the guy never whined about him, which kinda proves my point on why's the real reason he was being an asshat. Sigh. Way to get butthurt about getting headshot by a good Sniper. Face it, there are better players than you. Stop whining about it like a little kid (...unless you are a little kid, and still it doesn't entitle you to anything).
Also, it's not a fucking dial-up, you do realise that people from other countries might be playing the game? We're on the other side of the fucking globe, of course our ping is higher.

And the grande finale, the final whine before we capped the last point on Dustbowl and I called it quits for the night: someone said "These pro players need to go play on the advanced server."
At that point me and Slaver were at the top of the scoreboard as a Medic and a Demo with over 100 points (...I think no other player on either team had over 100 points, but truth to be told I think we were kinda steamrolling by ourselves...), so I guess he was talking about us. Oh wow. Whoops?
Honestly, I was just kinda flattered. I've never been called a pro before. Haha. So do I need to find a clan now? I did feel a bit bad since I don't want to seem like an asshole who comes to play on a "noob server" to get easy points and point and laugh at players who are not as skilled as I am. Because that's not the case.

I've actually never played on the Newbies Only Advanced server, to be honest. I still think I'm not that good and I'm afraid I'd just end up getting steamrolled. I like playing with the "newbies" because the skill level is somewhat on par with mine. Except that, uh, yeah, I'm often on top of the scoreboard which might indicate that I'm better than others, and... I don't know! I still get killed very easily, even if I do get lots of points! Besides I don't know if my teamwork is good enough. Sure I keep talking about the importance of teamwork, and I try to be a good team player, but I have no idea if I really am.

And since I mentioned finding a clan to play in... I think I need to make clear that I am so joking, and I'm not interested at clan faggotry at all. Sure I've toyed with the idea of finding and joining a clan and trying out competitive playing, but then I realise that I don't want to do competitive gaming, I just want to play for fun.
Besides I would probably have to join a Finnish clan because of latency issues, and I'm horribly prejudiced against Finnish players. Guys especially. And although I just said that any male gamer with half a brain realises that girls too play FPS, I think it might be a whole different issue in competitive gaming. I don't know! I don't know if there are many girls in TF2 clans in Finland!
But I would sure love to see how an easy-going yet somewhat serious local clan would accept a girl as a member, but I don't think I have it in me. Because I'm not that good.
And I'm still too scared to communicate, so.
And the number one reason I don't want to join any clan, is that I don't want any clan tags ruining my name, haha. I would love to show my support for HK Central with the community tag, but aargh I hate wearing tags! I want to be Chrome, just Chrome, not [Clanfag]Chrome! (Sure it would help with identification, I'm sure there are quite a few Chromes on Steam, but my identification is my avatar: you'll know it's me. And the regulars on the servers I play on probably recognise me anyhow, so).

Lots of rage today. I just have zero tolerance for asshattery and general stupidity.

I'd love to show you some screenshots but alas, they're on my little brother's computer.

I'm getting nicknames already...

VALVEEEEE. <3
Newest TF2 update: "Added back some damage falloff to the Pyro's flamethrower. Not nearly as extreme as it was before the Pyro class pack." FUCK YEAH AWESOME. And so ends the reign of terror.
Well, no, but you get the idea.

And according to the official blog the Heavy seems to be getting the next unlockables (I already heard rumours about it a few days ago). Well, at least it will probably mean a field day for me as a Medic. What I'm really waiting for are the Soldier updates, and, uh, Demoman too. And I think Engineer seriously needs something to help him, playing as one is really starting to feel like a job, ie. it's not particularly fun anymore. But maybe it's just me, the stats are telling that Engineer is the second most played class right now.

Nothing else to say, really. Been playing a lot of Demo (and Medic because I find it extremely difficult not to go Medic whenever there are none in my team), unsurprisingly.
And last night I was dubbed "The Guy Who Never Misses" by a server regular who was apparently unlucky enough to always get a pipe bomb exploding at his face. And then I dominated him.
Thankfully he didn't know I had played Demo for only about five hours. It probably wouldn't have made him feel any better about it.
And I kinda like being a guy on default. Not that anyone has any reason to think otherwise since I still don't use my mic. I should, though. Because being able to communicate would be pretty useful. And I figure some regulars would be surprised to find out that The Guy Who Never Misses is in fact a girl. GASP. Not that I like to go around flaunting my gender, but if I open my mouth it kinda does become glaringly obvious. That, or everyone thinks that I'm twelve.
And oh, now I want to rant!

I hate the so-called "Girl Gamers," those who do flaunt their gender, basically scream "LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME I PLAY HALO I AM SPESHUL!" and make it such a gigantic deal that they are GIRLS who play GAMES. Like they think that they're really special because of it. Wtf gender has nothing to do with it! I hate stereotypical gender roles anyway, and I think it's kinda funny that while those girl gamers try to fight against the assumption that girls don't play games, yet they actually promote such gender roles by assuming that they exist in the first place (I believe any male gamer with half a brain realises that girls too play games. "Guy games," even, like horribly violent first person shooters). Damn, even industry's slowly realising that girls play games as well (although I hold infinite amounts of RAGE against all the games that are geared towards girls. Nintendo, I am looking at you. They are nothing but insulting, and that's about the only thing I admit having in common with girl gamers. That, and boobs). Can I just be one of the guys and play the goddamn game without making a big deal out of it? Well, apparently I can.
I hate "girl gamers" just as much as I hate all the guys who think that girls don't and can't play videogames. And if they do, they're casual players who play stuff like Sims and maybe WoW. Or JRPGs like Final Fantasies. FPS is out of question. Girls don't play FPS! No way!
I am not that good at TF2, for example, but I don't think that has anything to do with my gender. Come on, people.
Yeah, I'm a girl, I play games (and I have played videogames for nearly two damn decades, so I figure the whole gaming culture is pretty much ingrained in me by now), but I am not a "girl gamer." I am not a casual gamer either. Even if my Nintendo DS is girly and pink and I play Final Fantasies.

But yeah, I know lots of girls who play TF2, and there are several regular players who are girls on the servers I play on, and I've never seen anyone fly off the handle when they hear a girl voice over the voicechat, so. I only need to get over my irrational fear of sounding like an idiot and starting to stutter when I use the mic.

/end rant.

And maybe I really am not that bad a Demoman, because our team usually lost immediately after I was killed and my stickies disappeared into thin air. Haha. Come on guys, why am I the only one defending, dammit?!
And I'm getting really angry at Medics who über Heavies or Soldiers on Dustbowl's last point to take down sentries. Okay, I understand if there are no Demomen around but FUCK YOU I AM STANDING RIGHT THERE. Then I go and take them down without a goddamn über (usually dying in the process, but sacrifices must be made). Yeah sure I'm not the best Demoman around, but dammit even I can take down a sentry so much better than any Heavy (if we're talking about distant sentries here, sure Heavies take down anything if they get close enough). And please Medic if you do über me, go first. Demomen are not Heavies, we can't push against the stupid sentry fire by ourselves and the closer I get the easier the sentry is to take down. It's just like übering a Pyro and trying to take down a sentry. You need to draw the fire to yourself.
And yeah, if there's another Demo, über him, not me. Haha. I can take down anything when I'm not under obligation of doing so (I like the slow and sneaky approach, even if I do take damage because of it), but I'm probably just going to fail because the pressure to actually succeed and not let my team and the Medic down is too much. I don't like being the one the whole team suddenly depends on. Maybe that makes me a bad team player?

Also got autobalanced in the middle of a match in Well, when my team was steamrolling. So I got switched to the losing team, AGAIN, but thanks to ME we fought the enemy team over the last point for almost five minutes. I had a Kritzkrieg-Medic backing me up, and while I disagreed with his decision to use the Kritzkrieg, I couldn't help but be pretty damn "OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK" when he used the charge on me in the middle of an enemy attack. JESUS CHRIST THE CARNAGE. Crit stickies! Everywhere! I probably killed half of their team with that. And they probably didn't even realise there was kritzkrieging going on before it was too late, because... well, I haven't actually seen a lot of Kritzkrieged Demomen around.
Anyway, we were fighting them off pretty well and then I suicided, completely misreading the entire situation (there were two enemies on the sticky-covered cap with me and I thought that was all, so I detonated, suiciding but killing the enemies. And unfortunately it was a grand mistake, there was another wave of enemies just coming), and we lost within a few seconds from that. Oh well.

Oh yeah, I bonesawed another sentry last night. And I killed the Engineer too. No, I wasn't übered. Well, I was, but it was my own über. I had to panic-launch my charge, and the Soldier I was übering was completely oblivious to everything around him and overlooked a sentry going up behind him. So I just ditched his ass, ran to the sentry in the protection of my charge, whipped out the Übersaw and killed the sentry. And the Engineer who desperately tried to escape. And then I went back to the poor oblivious Soldier with a half-full charge. Oh, Übersaw, how I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Yeah, I should use the mic.

Whoo-hoo!

HOORAY! Who cares about being a stupid overpowered Pyro or a suicidal Soldier, I'm back to being a Medic! Because I finally have the Kritzkrieg and the Übersaw!

Valve ILU.

Pyros! Every-fucking-where!

Okay, the only way to stay alive on TF2 now is to be a Pyro. At least that's the only way I can stay alive right now. Fight fire with fire, you know.

And I can't believe how much I actually nerd RAGE'd after realizing what Valve had done to the Soldier. I read the update message, "Removed Soldier's 40% damage reduction from his own rockets. Does not affect rocket jumps." but I didn't even realise (or think about) what it actually meant until I connected to the server today, saw the amount of Pyros and went Soldier. Because hey, at least before the update I was learning to kill them.
And guess what?
Nearly all my deaths? Suicides. If it wasn't some Pyro chucking my rockets back at my face (thank god nearly everyone is using the Backburner already, but more on that later), it was just me, playing like I've used to, and getting owned. Fuck, I'm so used to just shooting at my feet when a Pyro or a Scout or anything gets too close for comfort, and taking some damage but walking out alive. Now if I do that, I die. Not even mentioning the times my aim is a bit off and I shoot the goddamn wall in front of me and get a crit rocket in the face. Now such mistakes are an instant kill. It will probably take me forever to learn to jump whenever I shoot a rocket close enough to get damaged by it too (it apparently counts as a rocket jump then, I had to do some testing by shooting a wall in front of me while jumping, and I got the same old 40% reduction instead of the full damage of about 80 HP).
And imagine how much that must suck from the viewpoint of the player who was chasing me? They get NO points from chasing me down and actually making me suicide - which is not even their fault, but my own. I think that's kinda horrible. I know, because later on I was playing as a Pyro and a friend was a Soldier in the enemy team, and he was mercilessly dominating me. And after I had tried to kill him a dozen times, always getting owned, I finally managed to kill his Medic and chase him down and fuck me dead: he suicided. And I almost banged my head against the keyboard, because so much for my long-pursued revenge.
So at least Valve needs to do something about that, because it's downright unfair.
And if Demomen don't get the same fucking nerf I'm going to rage some more. Fucking unfair.

Okay, yeah, no one's going to agree with me on this, seeing how everyone else thinks that the Soldier is overpowered, the easy class that doesn't need any skill to be good at, and that it needs to be nerfed hardcore. It took me actually ages to learn to play as Soldier. Maybe it's easy to pick up by someone who has years and years of FPS experience, and be good at it, but I had to learn. And I've had fucking great times playing as Soldier. And it's not the easy class for me.
But yeah, Chrome vs. rest of the TF2 community. Valve did what they thought is for the best, and I want to understand, but it's pretty hard when one of my favourite classes is now nearly unplayable for me. And yeah, I feel quite horrible for whining about this, especially since I've been all "I wish I knew how to quit you!" with Soldier for the longest time. But yeah, it's a complete love/hate relationship. And it doesn't matter what I say, I have over 80 hours as a Soldier, I find myself going Soldier even when I think I shouldn't, so on some level I really must like playing as Soldier.
So I can still feel upset because of it, can't I?

But yeah, Pyros.
I'll just come out and say that Backburner is overpowered as hell. I mean ffs guaranteed crits from the back and +50 HP increase?! I know the tradeoff is supposed to be the lack of the airburst (which, I admit, is fucking awesome, and makes me think twice about starting to use the Backburner), but because the airburst is new and I rarely even remember to use it, Backburner just seems like an upgraded OLD flamethrower that has no drawbacks.
They could do without the +50 HP increase, for real. Both Slaverstrike and my little brother who played as Snipers today noticed that Pyros are fucking impossible to kill if they have the Backburner equipped. 225 HP is just insane. And when I did play Soldier, I am so used to juggling them into the air once, and the second rocket usually killed them. Backburner-equipped Pyros? Fucking unstoppable. Add a Medic and they're seriously invincible. So I needed to juggle them twice, which meant shooting at my freaking feet twice, which usually meant a suicide.
Flare gun seemed to correspond better as an alternative to the shotgun, and I actually didn't have anyone kill me with the Axtinguisher, so I can't really say anything about that. Only the Backburner seems a bit unbalanced, but, uh, I'll probably love it once I get my greedy little hands on it. Maybe I'll become a career Pyro. I mean, I was doing pretty fine without the changes (was I the only one? I never really thought the Pyro was underpowered, even against Soldiers. I died a lot, but once I adapted the kamikaze mentality - that I ambush and I might die, but it's okay - I came by pretty well as a Pyro. Maybe I was the only one.)

At least I was doing pretty well as a Pyro today.



And that was the first time in ages I actually had some fun on CP Well. (Oh! That reminds me, I need to talk about CTF Well once I've said everything I need to about this Pyro stuff!)
I even got some achievements. I have Camp Fire, I Fry (and here I was thinking that there would be no Spies around, what with Pyros having a field day...), Burn Ward, Next of Kindling, Hot on Your Heels and Second Degree Burn. I'm also 13/15 through Fire and Forget, 8/10 through Spontaneous Combustion and Trailblazer, 15/50 through Makin' Bacon (and here I was thinking it would take forever... I would have at least 20 Heavies in this, but more on that in a moment...), about 25/50 through Arsonist (ahihi I dominated one Engineer, and he provided me with at least eight destructions: poor thing had always put a teleporter, dispenser and a level one sentry down when I came around the corner, and the whole little nest succumbed to my flames like a house made of paper), 250 through Firefighter/Fire Chief (...I was on a roll), and some others, but they're not yet worth a mention.
I also spent SO LONG on CTF Well trying to sneak behind enemy Snipers and use the Hadouken taunt on them (whoops! Chrome, acting like an idiot? On YOUR server? It's apparently more likely than you think!), but stupid friendly Snipers always managed to kill them right when I was behind them, readying my shotgun. Damn stupid Snipers!
And in one evening, I learned to use the shotgun. Seriously, I probably killed more people with the shotgun today than I've killed in those 30 hours I had as a Pyro. No, really. Too bad that most of those were fellow Pyros (which I used to be very weak against), so I don't have much progress on Combined Fire yet.
And yeah, about Makin' Bacon... I was kinda going crazy on Badlands. I think I killed about eight Heavies with the axe. I imagine them being beyond pissed: one crazy Pyro kept just ambushing them from behind and axing them to death. I even critted ridiculously often against them. But damn it, Heavies are so much easier to kill with the axe than the flamethrower! Usually they don't even have time to turn around before they're dead meat.
And then I realised that the achievement is named "Makin' Bacon" because I have to kill 50 Heavies with the flamethrower, and went aww dammit. At least I had lots of fun. And I imagine my Medic was having fun as well, following me around while I melée-killed Heavies (Medics liked me today).
Too bad that my axe kills record remained as two, I didn't get Lumberjack.

And finally, the regular flamethrower's new airburst. The best thing ever. It took me ages to remember even trying to use it, and luckily I remembered it just when an übered enemy Pyro was rushing at me. One poof, and flying they went. Another poof, and flying they went again. Goddamn, who seriously even needs Soldiers anymore: Pyros do juggling too these days.
Then I once again forgot to entire thing until I saw a crit rocket heading towards me. One poof, and the rocket chenged colours and I couldn't stop going FUCK YEAH THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER! when I saw the crit hit someone in the distance. Ahihihi. I didn't actually kill anyone with returned rockets although I did it a few times after that (I even started to remember using it after a while), but it's always a blast to see the crit rocket changing colours and directions and at least hitting something. I blasted people away from control points and the bombcart in Gold Rush. I saw a Medic/anyone combo approaching and blasted them once before hightailing and trying to get behind them.
I got killed once with a bounced grenade, though. It sucked, haha.

Oh! Yeah! CTF Well! Is actually fun now! I was really surprised when I saw the changes to it, and I was having a blast playing there! The new central area of the map is AWESOME, and the reduced size makes it easier to defend AND attack. I have to say that it's easily much more fun than 2fort has ever been, seeing that 2fort turns into an insane turtling fest nearly always and on Well there was this INSANE battling going on near the central area nearly all the time, because both teams tried to get control of it in order to get easier access to the enemy base.
Or then I'm just so happy that it's almost a whole new map and you probably know how much I love those.

That's about it for now, I think.
And yeah, I'll be playing as Pyro until there won't be as many around as there are now. And until I get over the Soldier nerf, pick it up again and learn to jump whenever I fire a rocket. Dammit, Valve...

Oh yeah! I also wish they would change the Medic achievements to correspond to the Pyro pack, and the Milestones would come at 10, 15 and 20. Because I'm slowly getting pretty sick of still being two achievements away from the Kritzkrieg, and I still refuse to farm any of them. My pride, it is my downfall.
Seeing that the Medic achievements are so much harder than the Pyro ones. Besides, everyone has the Kritzkrieg and Übersaw already, so it would be just me, har har.

And I fucking hope Soldier gets the next unlockables and achievements. Soldier needs some love after all that nerfing.

"Dad? Dad, put mum on the phone."

Yeah, I'm late to blogging about this, so without further ado, some extremely amazing things are heading this way some time tomorrow.
I've been following the news about the update ever since Steam told me it would be coming this week, but for a change I'm being a lazy blogger.

Also, Meet the Sniper, which immediately became my favourite yet (Meet the Soldier used to be my fav). Extremely well-done, seems like Valve kicked it up a notch after Meet the Scout, which was, in my opinion, a bit of a let-down. Demoman's little slapstick act was priceless (nooo, his good eye!), I lol'd at FOAD and the "I think his mate saw me. Yes, yes he did," (bit of Steve Irwin, eh?) and the whole parents thing was hilarious. I also always kinda imagined Sniper as an enormous prick, but whaddaya know, he's a really laid-back (resisted the urge to write "mellow") fellow. He's even pretty charismatic! Outrageous!
And noticing Pyro wielding a new flare-gun-like bright blue weapon that later turned out to be the Flare Gun was a source of much speculation and anticipation. Sneaky, so sneaky, Valve.



Jars of piss!

But! The Pyro update. I'm actually really looking forward to it, especially now after seeing what the unlockables are. Pyro is my fourth most played class with 30 hours, I like playing as one (although I don't play it that often on any other map but Hydro and sometimes CP Well), and I like to think that I'm not entirely horrible at it.
So Backburner is a massive DO WANT for me, since I'm always doing everything I can to get behind enemies' backs whenever I am playing as Pyro. Flare Gun sounds awesome indeed for teasing Snipers and Engineers, and Axtinguisher... well, sure, I want to have one, but I'm more afraid of what it will do to ME when I'm not Pyro. Guaranteed crit when you are on fire sounds... terrible. As if good circle-strafers don't kill me well enough when I'm playing as Heavy!

And sure, as a Pyro player I am really liking the sound of the changes to the regular flamethrower. Being able to deflect projectiles definitely helps a bit with the long range disability that Pyros have been suffering from day one. I mean, Pyro is supposed to be THE close range combat class whose defect IS the fact that they can't fight worth shit over long range, forcing players to seek ways to ambush enemies. Which made especially Soldiers somewhat overpowered against Pyros. Pyros still can't attack over long range (the new Flare Gun being the exception, but the tradeoff with that is the inability to finish off burning enemies), but they can defend theirselves, which improves their chances to survive. Which has been the number one turn-off at playing a Pyro: they generally don't live for very long.
So, excellent.
I also suppose there's gotta be some drawback to using the alt-fire (a few seconds between blows?). Without it all the Pyros would be just running around tapping alt-fire and being basically invulnerable.
/end a Captain Obvious moment.
What doesn't make me happy about the new change is naturally the fact that I play a lot as a Soldier.

Story time: I've told many times how I'm extremely weak against Pyros as a Soldier. I get owned by the BAD Pyros, those who charge right at me from distance rather than try ambushing me. I am never able to actually hit them and a confrontation with a Pyro ended in my death nine times out of ten.
That's how it used to be. Now that I'm only playing with good framerate instead of the sucky 20 (more on that later), Pyros don't actually stand a chance against me. Ever since I started playing with good framerate I can't remember a single Pyro actually killing me by charging right at me (when I'm on full health), and even if they DID kill me (afterburn is a bitch), at least they didn't walk out of it alive.
So I was actually never weak against Pyros, it was my low framerate handicap all along (I never even realised how much the bad framerate actually affected my playing). Now I just hit their feet with a rocket, send them flying, and aim another at where they land, and BOOM. So much for that.
(Btw, juggling enemies is awesome, I was never able to do it before.)
But now they're able to deflect my rockets, so, umm, I'm afraid I'll start getting owned by Pyros (and my own rockets...) again.
And the question is: if a deflected rocket kills the Soldier that had fired it, does the Pyro get a kill or a finish, or is it marked off as a suicide? We'll see.

But back to the Pyro update. It would also seem that Valve learned something from the impossible Medic achievements ("impossible" standing for "impossible to get during normal gameplay without acting like a total dick"), and all the Pyro achievements seem like something that anyone would be able to get while playing normally and doing just what Pyros do. I know it won't stop people from farming the achievements, but at least any achievement-seeking Pyros won't probably ruin gameplay for others.
I figure it will take quite a while to get Makin' Bacon, though, ha ha.

I am also wondering if achievements like Firefighter, Fire Chief and Pyromancer will take your existing stats to account, like Intern, Specialist and Chief of Staff did. Because it would seem that I'll be getting both Firefighter and Fire Chief right away, since I have 1,339 kills as a Pyro. I'm far away from Pyromancer, though, my damage dealt is only at 365,998. Ehh. That guarantees that it will take a good while until I get to enjoy from the Axtinguisher (yes, all the other achievements seem like something that I will and can get sooner or later).

Also OMGWTFBBQ raises an interesting question: does the Hadouken taunt actually do damage from now on?! If, it will be the most awesome thing ever.



And I'm so happy of getting two community-made custom maps wrapped in an official package. <3 I've been playing basically nothing but Dustbowl and Gold Rush for the last month or so (still not getting tired of them), because, you know. All other maps bore the hell out of me. I'd rather watch grass grow than play even a single game on 2fort.
I wonder if Turbine will make CTF fun.

I guess that wraps it up. I don't know if I'll be able to get to play the moment the update comes out (since I believe Valve hasn't given any specific ETA for the update - maybe they're actually learning...), but I am trying to. I don't think I'll be playing as Pyro (and add to the inevitable influx of gasmask-clad, gimp-suit-wearing, flamethrower-wielding pyromaniacs), but I certainly want to try out the new maps. I am itching to start getting the achievements and trying out the new flamethrower, but I think I will wait for the initial excitement to die out, just like I did with the Medic update.

So, "I'm only playing with good framerate instead of the sucky 20." That's right. I've been playing on my little brother's computer the last few weeks. He moved out two weeks ago (I am staying at my parents' house for the summer), so I thought I wouldn't get to play on his computer any more. So I sucked it up and tried playing on my own.
And I found it impossible. All the killing I did as a Soldier was out of luck. Playing as Medic was also nigh impossible with all the twitching: locking onto new targets was a total bitch. Playing as Heavy was completely out of question. The whole thing only made me angry.
So luckily my little brother is the most awesome little brother in the history of ever, and doesn't mind at all if I come over and spend a few hours playing TF2. I thought he wouldn't want his big sis hanging around his new pad (despite the fact that we're kinda close as siblings), but whaddaya know, I was wrong.
Of course there's something in it for him: I let him play Sniper every once in a while, and he doesn't have to buy the game just for snipan gaems. So from now, whenever you see me as a Sniper, it's my little brother.
I naturally can't play quite as often as I'm used to playing, but I'm happy if I can play few times a week with a good freaking framerate, until I get paid enough to buy myself a brand spanking new computer.

I also noticed it's not just my imagination that I'm a much better player with good framerate. I've been playing mostly on a 24/7 Dustbowl/Gold Rush server lately, so I went to check the server's stats at its Gametracker page, and much to my joy I noticed that my points per minute average was 0.75. Yeah, I know, not that good when you think about it, but stick with me. I've been checking my stats on my regular servers every now and then (because I'm a stats whore, you should know this by now) and they've mostly been around 0.4. In fact, my score/min average was around 0.5 on that server the last time I checked (before starting to play on my little brother's computer), so I really did get better. A lot better, in fact.
I'd provide screenshots of my recent awesomeness, but I'm afraid all the screenshots are on my little brothers' computer. Duh. Will show some at a later date.

And now for something completely different:
I've also been playing some Metal Gear Solid 4, but more on that later (this entry is long enough as it is). Long story short: it's made of awesome, I love it, and I'm dying to play it more. I have to play it on my friend's terms (the friend owns the PS3, see), so I've only had a massive eight hours of playtime as of now.