Team Fortress 2 Raises Over $430,000 For Japan Relief Efforts

That above is the exact amount: $430,543.65. All of it will go directly to the American Red Cross to be put to use in relief efforts for the devastating natural disaster that occurred in Japan a month ago.

The money was raised from TF2 players purchasing special hats that were available to purchase for a limited time. I've decried and bemoaned TF2's Mann Co. Store since its inception, but this was a very nice use of the service and I commend Valve for doing putting this together. Of course, if they really wanted to raise a lot of money, they'd include earnings from selling crate keys, but that's a whole different story...

Congratulations to Valve for raising a lot of money for a very worthy cause.

The Shogun Pack Brings Feudal Japan to Team Fortress 2

In their typical out-of-the-blue update style, Valve released to TF2 players everywhere today the latest major content pack in the venerable online shooter: The Shogun Pack. It brings with it 4 new weapons and 4 new hats, each imbued with the spirit of feudal Japan (why not; the stylistic coherency of the game was abandoned long ago anyway). Here's what the new update brings:

The Concheror: A secondary slot weapon for the Soldier that operates similarly to the Buff Banner. On buff, some of the damage your teammates dish out comes back to you as healing.

Conniver's Kunai: A melee weapon for the Spy. The player starts with -65% max health, but you absorb the health of every opponent you backstab.

The Fan O'War: A melee weapon for the Scout. It does -90% damage, but on hit, it marks that player and does mini-crits on him for every hit.

The Half-Zatoichi: A melee weapon for both the Soldier and Demo. On kill, it restores the player's health back to 100%. However, once it is drawn, it can't be put back until it kills.

The Dread Knot: A hat for the Heavy. It looks like a the kind of knotted haircut you often see sumo wrestlers sporting.

The Geisha Boy: A hat for the Medic. A geisha hairstyle for the Medic? Really? As a primary Medic player, I'm offended.

The Noh Mercy: A hat for the Spy. An awesome kabuki-style oni (demon) mask, easily the best hat out of the four in this pack. I'm guessing it'll fetch a pretty penny on trade servers.

The Samur-Eye: A hat for the Demo. A plain ol' samurai helmet, not unlike the Soldier's Killer Kabuto.

Also, there's the Koto Noisemaker, which is a noisemaker that makes some stereotypical Japanese-y noises. Buy a bunch and troll your friends!

This pack was just released as I write this, so I haven't had time to try out any of the new stuff yet. Just from reading the descriptions, I don't think I'd really use any of them, but I usually think that about all new weapons in TF2.

Valve Experiments with Double Health in TF2

It looks like the Team Fortress 2 beta game is finally going to have a purpose beyond testing Natascha variants. Earlier today, an update was added to the beta version of TF2 that doubled the base health of all 9 classes (and sentry guns, too). Now the mighty Heavy roams Dustbowl with a robust 600 health, making backstabs and headshots all the more important to bring down the big Russian.

I played a little bit of the beta with the new health modifications, and I have to say, it doesn't dramatically affect the game as much as you'd think. It just takes a little bit longer to kill or be killed. In one instance, I rushed up to the side of an enemy Heavy as a Pyro, and it took me at least a full five seconds to bring him down at point-blank range with the flamethrower. If that guy wasn't a terrible player and didn't just stand there and let me kill him, he could have easily turned around and chased me off with his minigun.

I very much doubt that Valve would bring this into the true game, but it's an interesting experiment nonetheless.

Play Alien Swarm for Free, Get TF2 Hat

If there's one thing Team Fortress 2 players covet more so than anything else, it's the almighty hat. Valve, knowing this, smartly decided to add an irresistible incentive for TF2 players to play their new free-to-play game, Alien Swarm. Complete a couple of co-op missions and a new hat is yours (as you can see in my screengrab below).

Like I said, it's free, so go out there and claim your hat!

Engineer Update Nigh for Team Fortress 2

The long awaited, much anticipated final class update for Team Fortress 2 seems to be close at hand. The Engineer is the only remaining class without class-specific weapons and achievements of his own. Over at the official TF2 blog, an Engineer-centric comic serves as a harbinger for the upcoming update.

There are several clues within the comic that hint at what might be included in the update. There is a sequence in the comic that explains that all of TF2's sci-fi-esque gadgets (teleporters, cloaking devices, etc.) are the inventions of the Australians (global leaders of the "moustache sciences"). Their technological prowess is a result of their possession of the transformative element Australium, a gold-looking metal that can only be found in Australia. This provides the backstory to the first semi-confirmed weapon in the update: the Australium (or Gold) Wrench. As you can see in the video below, killing an enemy with this wrench turns them into an Australium statue which can be gathered up to replenish your metal supply.



Also within the comic is a lot of talk about Life Extender Machines, the blueprints of which end up in the hands of the Engineer. What will the battlefield applications be for such a machine? An ÜberCharge-capable dispenser? Let us also not forget the new-and-improved shotgun we saw a glimpse of in the trailer for the Mac update. What kind of perks will that provide? All will be revealed (hopefully) soon, so just grab a sandvich and stay tuned.