Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Pyromania!

Valve is currently in Day 2 of their Pyromania! update, which they hinted heavily at and alluded to in several ways over the past week. Hell, I even picked up a new term, ARG.http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/ARG

For myself I've been looking forward to this update for some time, as it will finally release the final Meet the Team video, Meet the Pyro. Speculation has always been afoot for who or what the Pyro really is, with probably the most popular supposition being that the pyro is really female.

Hudda hudda hudda!

Whole new definition to "hot girl"


I've been waiting for this for some time because since I started playing TF2 (admittedly it was after it went F2P, sue me) they pyro has quickly become my "main" character class to play. And it wasn't the whole "burning" thing that appealed to me but the actually complex and interesting gameplay combinations afforded to the class.

This despite the subtle and well-thought out criticisms of "W+M1 class!" or "EZ mode newb class." "W+M1 (meaning the player holds down the "W" key for forward movement and M1 meaning they hold down the mouse 1 button to fire the flamethrower) is often used to refer to pyros due to the class having to close the distance to light someone up with their flamethrower, and despite their "afterburn" effect it's not a fire and forget weapon, you have to hold on the player to do some serious damage. Some players take this to be the extent of the pyro's abilities in the hands of even above average players and take offense to being killed with the flamethrower. Fuck em, they havne't a clue what they're talking about.

Pyros are the hard counter to spies, so "spychecking" is often the role expected of them. This means spraying anyone acting suspicious (like a "friendly" running toward the rear) or just sweeping areas around controlled areas such as around a sentry gun or control point. Pyros are even helped in this role by the Homewrecker, a melee weapon that allows the pyro to destroy sappers placed on engie building by enemy spies.

SPYCHECK!


But probably the coolest thing a pyro can do is use M2 on their flamethrower to throw out a blast of air. This airblast can deflect projectiles, including rockets, grenades, flares, balls, and even jarate or milk, can push back enemies, and can put out the flames on a teammate. This makes the pyro an asset in nearly any situation.

Got an uber coming in? Pyro juggle! Or, even better, airblast the medic away from his patient far enough to break the bond, the medic will still be ubered and invuln, but he'll have no teeth and his patient will be helpless against your teammates. Another option, knock the medic away and down, still breaks uber and the patient has a choice to follow or push on alone.

Rocket spamming soldier? Make him eat his own rocket with a well-timed airblast reflect. Same for demo 'nade spam.

Actually this video should sum up the pyro's capabilities nicely:

 


But in any case, it's now my favorite and "main" class that I play, followed by sniper and engineer. So I've been waiting patiently all year to see this freaking clip that probably won't be 4 minutes long! But the thing that troubles me is all the speculation. I don't want the pyro's identity to be revealed, and I'm hoping that the MtP video doens't go that far. 

But in the end, I don't really care if the pyro is a girl, a monkey(naut), a robot, or Abe Lincoln (seriously SPUF, wtf are you smoking anyway?), the MtP video is going to be awesome.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Custom Grid Items in Steam

It's always kind of bothered me that the Steam Grid view, while allowing the user to add non-Steam games to it's library, only uses the default shortcut icons for those programs added to the Library. I thought it would be a great addition to Steam's functionality if the player could create their own icons for use in the Grid view.

Someone at Valve, it seems, felt the same way. While updating Steam today I noticed this line among the list of the usual technical changes, "Grid view now supports applying custom images to games and shortcuts, via the grid item's context menu." A quick right click on a grid item later and sure enough, there it is.


Following the link will give you the dimensions, 460x215 pixels, for use in your favorite graphic program.

I'm going to be using GIMP myself, and for simplicity's sake I'm just going to modify a wallpaper image for both Minecraft and Neverwinter Nights Diamond Edition, non-Steam games added to my library. So, first things first, find an appropriate image.

For Minecraft I've found 2 images with a quick Google search right away. The first is pretty true to Minecraft's colorful style and simplicity.


The other has a more stylized and modern look to it:


But I think I'm going to just use a screen with no text, so I can add my own later. Probably the single most iconic thing about Minecraft, aside from the blocky style of the game and the pickaxe as seen in the image above, is the menacing Creeper enemy from the game.

If you look closely, you can see a player character peeking around at the creeper from behind the blocks lol!

The image above has the Creeper and the ubiquitous dirt blocks that most any player will instantly recognize as having a Minecraft origin. So I'm going to use that for my custom image, so when scrolling through my games I'll instantly recognize the picture without need of reading through the game list.

The process for making a custom image is actually pretty simple. Step one, open up the original image in GIMP. Step 2, create a new image in GIMP with the proper dimensions for the custom image, as per Steam's recommendations:


Next, make sure you've selected the original image, and use the edit > copy visible to copy the image:


Then select our NEW image and use Edit > Paste as > new layer:


The next steps depend on what you want to do with the image. Here, I've  scaled the layer with the creeper image to make it smaller and thus more visible in the smaller frame:

 And for a finale, I added the same logo text as the from the 1st image I might have chosen. Luckily for me, I found one that was already on a clear (invisible) background, meaning I didn't have to clean up the layer to remove excess pixels I didn't want. Finally, I choose Save As, and I rename the image Minecrafticon.jpeg (which tells GIMP to automatically save it as a jpeg without having to choose the profile manually) and choose the hightest jpeg settings when the dialogue box comes up after the option to Export the image.


And inputting the image into Steam was ridiculously easy:


And there we have it. Dirt simple, and damn that looks much nicer now. Thanks Valve!

Friday, June 8, 2012

Let's Blame Videogames! Part 1

Well not really part one, but the next iteration in the continuing war being waged on video games by the media and unscrupulous "journalists." This weeks episode guest stars this guy, who, I will readily admit, is one freaky as fuck dude. He's a gay porn star, is rumoured to have killed cats, and possibly another dismemberment of a body in L.A. Oh, and apparently either a huge fan of Christopher Walken (personally I can't blame him there) or of a video game called Ripper.

The apparent connections include the actor changing his name to match the name of the character Walken plays in the game, sending an email to a British newspaper saying "I can't stop killing" (unconfirmed in the report), mirroring the characters email to a newspaper claiming he's addicted to killing, and of course the mutiliation and murder of his victims.

Well, where do I start? Let's start with the video game itself. Ripper is an adventure game from 1996 made with video footage characters and a point and click interface. The games starts, as accurately reported in the article, with a newspaper receiving emails from someone claiming to be the person responsible for recent murders.

And I'll bet you can guess which real-life historical figure the game, the murderer, and murders in RIPPER are all based on.

That would be the guy who was hunting Heather Graham, the bastard!

Here's some video of the game:


So all of the is pretty circumstantial so far, but the really damning "evidence" is the conscious decision by the "Canadian Psycho" to change his name to Magnotta, which happens to be the name of the character Walken plays in the game. But here's where the reporters little pet theory hits the reality wall, Magnotta is one of 4 characters in the game who are randomly decided by the game to be the Ripper during each playthrough. Meaning essentially that there's a 25% chance that the Detective Magnotta character will be discovered to be the murderer, and the story reports the same, "Although the Walken's character Vince Magnotta character is ostensibly a police officer investigating the series of murders one outcome of the game sees him as the 'Ripper' killer himself." The insinuation, however, is very, VERY, clear.

Yep, positively damning evidence. The story goes on to report the remarks of a police commander in Montreal, Canada. "Asked about parallels with the game, Montreal Police Commander Ian Lafrenière admitted: 'There are lots of similarities there.'" Really chuckles? You mean similarities in the game to actions taken by Magnotta and the famed serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, who the game was based on? Or how about similarities to Dahmer?

Oh fuck it, this is, surprisingly, the only article I found with a quick Google search to bring up the argued Ripper - Canadian Psycho connection. Most do mention the "gay porn star" frequently. Unsurprisingly, it's from a UK news source infamous for anti-video game articles. The author here is attempting to make the insinuation that the killer got his inspiration for his murders from a video game thats over 10 years old at this point, and thus make an argument that violent video games or games that depict violence can cause a person to become violent, even murderous.

By that reasoning I should be a raving, psychotic sociopath hell bent on reducing everyone I meet to a pile of bloody flesh in progressively more creative ways. Hell, it's a miracle that my wife and 3 children have survived this long, I'm a ticking time bomb. This sort of thing pops up once in awhile, but as in this case it's usually bunk put forward by people with an agenda, to label the video games industry as underminers our children's moral code (since, y'know, ALL games are aimed at children...) and society at large.

I'm still waiting for someone to make the connection between the Florida bath salt "zombie" and F.E.A.R.'s Paxton Fettel....


Saturday, June 2, 2012

A Gaming Conundrum

My oldest son, like most children his age, will happily while away an afternoon (or a week) playing games on his now seriously dated PS2 or Gameboy. And I'm always trying to find ways to introduce him to the glorious world of PC gaming via various games. Recently we bought him a laptop that can play some older pc games and a few of the more recent indie titles like Terraria.

So I'm always looking for games that would be interesting for both myself and for him to play, including games that he won't be able to play right away but will be able to next year when we buy me a new pc and he gets my old one (hopefully). But, by at the same time, I have to watch my gaming budget pretty seriously. With my current job I'm only paid minimum wage (don't laugh, it's honest and I have time to study at work for my classes) so recent innovations like the Humble Bundle are a godsend for my wallet and my gaming.

I do always try to beat the average though
But then sometimes the gaming gods decide to get their laughs from me and drop bombs like:


and


and of course Steam has to get in on the act with the pre-order of:


with Team Fortress 2 items! With some of the people involved in the original Portal game!

The problem with the Humble Bundle was that I already owned 4 of the 5 games included, and the day before I had purchased the Indie Royale bundle for The Ship (with additional copies for my Steam friends). So I went against the grain and bought the bundle for a buck so that my son would be able to enjoy those games as well. And the Quantum Conundrum will have to wait, as our current funds were needed elsewhere (we cleaned up at a weekend yard sale event, nabbing a number of needed items for the upcoming baby ).

I've bought several bundles now, with loads of games to share with my sons and probably eventually my daughter as well. But the gaming goodness just keeps on coming. And I can't help myself. My Steam library is full of indie games, moreso than AAA or mainstream titles, and I can't help but think that it's a good thing that indie games are breaking out of the shadows and into the limelight.

It's just not such a good thing for my wallet.