Here I go!

Whoa, this took longer than I thought. Besides, been playing. Haha. So I'll just cut to the chase.
(I wish I could play on better graphics and post some screenshots: now this is just a wall of text.)

The Heavy unlockables

No, I haven't played much as Heavy (my FPS, and so forth and so forth, but I did pick it up at some point just to try it out a bit), but I have seen the unlockable weapons used in game. I still don't have much to say about them, so:
- The OM NOM NOM sound he makes while eating is priceless.
- Natasha sounds so fine! I really like the revving sound she makes while spun-up, and the firing sound is deliciously... hnngh. It's like Pulse Rifle from HL2: I love the sound it makes while firing. Sounds like it HURTS.

It took me a while to even notice when I was hit by Natasha. Random hits are barely noticeable since the slowdown doesn't last for very long, but when you're face-to-face with a Heavy and getting hit continuously while trying to make a getaway? Yeah, you're pretty much dead.

But yeah, I saw lots of unlockable weapons around already: about two hours after the update people were starting to show up with Natashas and KGBs and Sandviches. Hmph, farmers.
KGB I didn't see used in battle even once (ie. didn't get punched by it. I did saw Heavies running around with it), but I caught several Heavies with their pants down noming on their Sandviches. Easy to locate by the sound they make, easy to dispose of. Since they're usually on low health if they ARE eating.
But issocute.

And Meet the Sandvich was hella funny, even if it wasn't much more than a sandvich in a fridge. The voice acting makes the film, Soldier and Scout are... fuck, they're awesome. :D Scout's OHGODOHGODOHGOD YOU PUNCHED MY BLOOD OUT and his very manly scream in the end... and Soldier's usual "YOU CALL THAT BREAKING A SPINE?!" attitude... oh man, I love Solly.
And Scout abuse just makes me giggle uncontrollably (he had it COMING stupid Scout).

Anyway, I played about half an hour as a Heavy (when I noticed that my team didn't have any in Fastlane) and this far I have five achievements (Iron Kurtain, Red Oktoberfest, Rasputin, Communist Mani-Fisto and Marxman), so at least they aren't too difficult to get. No need to farm. :P

Badwater Basin

I like it. Very much. The map is huge, has lots of variation and as a Soldier and Demo I'm loving the higher ground (my big nerd moment: standing there on top of the cliffs near BLU's first respawn, going "I HAVE THE HIGHER GROUND!"). It's also very confusing because it's so large, and even after playing about an hour on it, I was still getting lost if I strayed too far from the cart tracks. In RED I was completely lost because I didn't have a cart I could follow, haha.
But it's very good map, I like it this far, and it's becoming my ultimate Demoman playground: I broke Demo's most points record just a few days ago while defending on Badwater.
And let me just tell you this: I'm a lousy Sniper, okay? I have a bad framerate, and I'm bad at aiming, and I haven't played as Sniper in several months (except one Sudden Death a while ago when everyone was forced to go Sniper, and I kinda owned that and got like four kills, but it doesn't count). But I was playing on Badwater Basin, right, and this was RIGHT after the update hit, fifteen minutes after. So, the enemy team had something like eight people, and over half of them were Heavies. Slaverstrike was playing as Sniper and owning, saying it's a headshot heaven. But he's a kickass Sniper, he would be owning even if there weren't thousands of Heavies in the enemy team.
So I wanted to give it a try too, because we had enough Medics and I was sucking as Soldier and Demo against the hordes of Heavies. I was kinda sure I wouldn't get any kills (and because Slaver's so much better, he would definitely headshot the guy I had in my sights just as I was fully charged, heh). But I decided to fuck it, and so I went Sniper.
And I owned. Haha.
Seriously, goddamn, just one Heavy after the other, inching their way forward while shooting, STANDING AROUND LIKE BLOODY IDIOTS. Even I can score a full-charged headshot without any trouble. I think I broke MY own Sniper record (which was 8 points, if I recall correctly), since I got at least five headshots and a couple of regular kills during one life.
And after I changed to Sniper, the enemy team started going Spy and Sniper to counter my and Slaver's headshooting antics, and that's when I got my butt handed to me (because I always get outshot by enemy Snipers), but the bottom line is that if the enemy team has hordes of Heavies? I'm going Sniper. Might even try out Spy, o ho ho.

Steel

Definitely the best thing about the update. I LOVE THE MAP. I've been looking forward to playing a game on Steel from May, but I never found a suitable server running it. So I naturally had very high expectations, and I realised that I could be very, very disappointed.
I wasn't. At all.
It's just... it's fucking awesome. So much variety! So much different tactics! and you need to adjust to the changes in the map every time a point is capped. So much... oh man. I applaud to the guy who made the map, it's seriously... it's definitely Valve quality. It could be made by Valve. It's really that good.
People say it's confusing and it takes a while to learn (and the losing team always whines about being lost and not knowing where to go, but those are just excuses, fucking idiots), but I actually think Badwater is so much more confusing than Steel. :D I was so lost on Badwater all the time, but Steel has so many signs on walls, how the hell CAN you get lost? Just follow the signs, they are huge, and they are EVERYWHERE. The map's also not quite as big as it seems. Okay, it got confusing after the enemies capped every point but E, and the main route out of respawn got closed, but still it didn't take very long to find my way to E: all I did was follow the signs. Besides, the map's very logical once you start thinking about it.
Sure it's a bit confusing what with the changing routes depending on what points are capped, but it doesn't take very long to learn how it works. I've played about five full matches on Steel at this point, and I think I have the map down, both from attack and defense viewpoints (and while I usually like defending much much more, on Steel I actually like to attack).

The map also favours teamwork immensely. I mean, sure every Valve-made map promotes teamwork, and you can't win Dustbowl or Gold Rush without actually working together as a team, but with Steel? If your team doesn't communicate, you lose. Once every point but E is capped, there are just so many different routes to the point that it's impossible to win without coordinating your attack. With Dustbowl stage three, for example, pushing is fairly simple since there are only two routes to the point, and hardly anyone uses the canyon entrance anyhow. At least, hardly anyone ever forms pushes from there. Everyone's usually attacking from the same place, that is, the upper route. With Steel it isn't that simple, because there are three main routes to E, four if you count the lower level.
If your team is lost and everyone just tries to attack from different sides, you cannot possibly win (unless your team has all the superior players, ie. you're steamrolling). You need to coordinate a push, get all your team to attack from one place, preferably two to throw the defense off and cripple them. You can't expect to win if someone is attacking from the lower levels: someone comes in from A, someone comes from D, someone comes from C. It just doesn't work that way, especially if there's heavy sentry defense.
No, I've never won the map with a team that didn't communicate.

It might favour defense a bit, but it all depends on your tactic: enemy team capped every point but E when I was defending (and best feeling ever? Playing as Soldier and getting a crit when someone stands on E), and it was surprisingly easy to defend. Then again, if the enemy caps every point, defense does have harder time because it takes a longer time from respawn to the point.
The first time I was attacking, we got A, then got stuck battling over B, and when time was running out, I think a few Scouts went to cap E, which disrupted the enemy defense for a moment since E is all-or-nothing point, but we still couldn't keep a steady offense (I killed half of their team on the point, dammit, and then got killed, and we never capped the point. We were maybe minute on overtime at that point, so once we couldn't push anymore, the game was over).
The cramped spaces do favour some classes more than others, I think: Heavies are seriously going to have a field trip, but you just need to know how to deal with them.
Anyway, best thing about the update in my opinion, and you'll be finding me on 24/7 Steel servers. Best map, hands down.

Arena Mode

I TOLD YOU I WOULDN'T STAY ALIVE FOR LONGER THAN 30 SECONDS IN ANY GIVEN ARENA MATCH Haha. I suck at Arena. At this point, I don't like it very much because of that. Maybe it's a working game mode, maybe someone likes it, but I just don't think it's that fun. I always get killed thirty seconds into a round (well, not always, but most of the time. And if I do make it to the end, it's possible that I hadn't killed a single person because I was playing so carefully. Ehh), and since for some reason my team usually loses, I have to sit out the next round.
The spectating doesn't really bother me as long as there's a friend I can watch play, but it does get pretty annoying once all you can do is run out of respawn and get gibbed. Or burned. Or whatever.
Maybe it finally proves once and for all that I'm a horrible player.
Anyway, it was fun for a while - fun enough to stop me caring about the whole sucking at it part - but then it started getting more and more annoying. And it was much more fun on Lumberyard (haven't yet played on Ravine, since I'm now avoiding Arena maps altogether) than on the Arena-fied Granary, Well or Badlands. Maybe because Lumberyard was specifically made for Arena, the rest are the same old maps, just... Arena-fied.

Maybe it's just not my cup of tea. And my two cents: they should maybe remove crits from Arena on default. Because it does get kinda frustrating when you get out of respawn, run to the central area and get gibbed by a crit rocket from a Soldier who hadn't fired even a single rocket before that. Yeah.
Kritzkrieg should work, though.

But Lumberyard is awesome! I love the grass.

Other updates

Increased The Kritzkrieg's uber-charge rate bonus from 10% to 25%

THANK YOU. Now I might be using the Kritzkrieg more, since it was... face it, it IS pretty useless most of the time. D: Now that the charge is so much easier to get, the uselessness of the charge itself doesn't hurt that much. I should try to use the Kritzkrieg more on clear attack/defense maps like Payload maps and Dustbowl and Gravel Pit, since it is pretty useful on defense when you don't have to go against sentries, and sometimes crits make clearing a point easy as pie.
And people have actually started using Kritzkriegs because of this: at least I've seen them around so much more than before the update. Which I think is cool, as long as the Medic knows how and when to use it.

And this next thing is not update related, but something I just wanted to talk about:

Weighted Companion Cube Soccer

As seen, for example here.

I hadn't even heard about this game mode before, but Slaver told me about it and we went to try it out almost instantly. It's lots of fun! I haven't played any of these strange "party modes" before, since I stick so much to official maps, but at least the Soccer is tons of fun.
So the game is ... well, it's soccer. Weighted Companion Cube is the ball, and you need to shoot it to "kick" it. And you need to get it in the enemy team's goal in order to win the round. The Cube radiates health and ammo (like a Weighted Companion Cube should <3), but there are usually no ammo pickups, and only one medium medkit between the team's goal poles, so you need to either salvage dropped weapons, or, better yet, stay close to the Cube. Which you need to do in order to score a goal.
The mode really requires some teamwork, it's nearly impossible to just push through by yourself, and if you just concentrate on killing others, ignoring the Cube, you'll lose pretty fast.
I don't know, but the cube seems to fly farther if you hit it with a crit. I don't know if the damage your weapon normally does has any effect on the "kick," but it would seem that strong projectiles like rockets and bombs make it go farther than, for example, shotgun shots do.
I didn't do any goals, but I had fun.
And it IS lots of fun, even without getting into fundamentals, and I highly recommend it to anyone who's getting bored of the same old capping business.

And then on a completely unrelated note, I finally got the Axtinguisher for Pyro. And after that my Arena adventures took a turn for worse since I started fooling around with it, trying to set people on fire and then hit them with the axe. No, didn't kill anyone. Haha.
Also broke Soldier's most points record on Steel (and once again, the very second I wander away from Newbies Only servers, I start owning. Maybe the latency really does that much, or maybe it's that everyone else just plainly sucks outside of Newbies Only. Haha. I found a random 24/7 Steel server, owned, got a most points record, dominated half of the enemy team and ended up on top of the scoreboard with a score of 130. Only Sonneteer was above me, as Medic. So, yeah), and got a new most points and kills record for Demo, like I told you.
And I even played more as a Sniper, on Gold Rush, and I was doing fairly good! I got owned by the enemy Sniper, but he was the scoreboard leader, so, yeah. Well at least he never got to dominate me, so it could've been worse.

And I can't wait to get the new damn computer.

And haha, now I'm heading out to try and own my little brother in-game: I told him about the Free Weekend and he replied dismissively something along the lines of "well... I MIGHT play if I have the time..." And now he's saying that he's played for like ten hours, and that the game is damn addicting. Well, duh. And apparently he's been trying out Soldier and Scout as well, so he hasn't been just being a pain in the ass Sniper.
So, here's to hoping he hasn't got too good at it yet, I can take advantage of his weaknesses and dominate him fair and square. Haha.

"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.