The International 2012 - Three Weeks Later

Valve's Premier Tournament: The International

The hype has finally died down. My heart has finally stopped beating after the splendor that was an event fully sponsored by Valve. Some three weeks ago, The International Dota 2 Championships were held in Seattle, Washington under the control of the fine folks over at Valve. The top sixteen Dota 2 teams in the esports community competed over a prize pool of over $1.6 million USD, as well as a chance to have their names engraved on the Aegis of Champions that served as the tournament's trophy. I won't say much, as whatever would have been said has already been said by people more knowledgeable than myself at this particular artform. I will do this, though:

This video posted above is probably some of the best Dota seen in years. I haven't seen plays this big since the first International, a year ago. It truly shows the level of skill needed to play at the very height of the scene. Without further ado: The Play. Seen over a hundred thousand times by loyal fans, this just proves that this game (not even out of beta, mind you) has the potential to become huge. Just huge. Even now, as I finish this blog post, I'm thinking about what hero I'm going to play as I enter the matchmaking queue.

Meet the Troll

It's finally here.

Meet the Pyro is released. Go watch it.

Day three of the Pyromania update will be featured later today. Day two was a bunch of weapons, which doesn't really matter.

An interesting thing that went along with MTP's release was the announcement of the Source Filmmaker beta, which can be signed up for starting today. The Source Filmmaker is what VALVe uses to create all their "Meet The" shorts.

The Pyromania Update: Day 1

IT BEGINS

This morning, the TF2 team put out a blog post and a new sub site for what they call "the long-awaited final Meet the Team short, Meet the Pyro". Dropping in on Wednesday (which would coincide with that whole Adult Swim business that was announced a few days ago).

The sub site has day one of the Pyromania update, detailing the story of Poopy Joe, the simian astronaut. Players were given an idea of the new game mode, "Doomsday", in which the teams are tasked with taking enough fuel to Poopy Joe's rocket to send him to space. "Both teams will attempt to get the necessary fuel up a preposterously slow-moving elevator and into Poopy Joe’s Australium-powered rocket to the stars," notes the description of the new game mode.

More posts will be made as the update pages progress. For now, enjoy this promotional image of the Doomsday launch, straight from the Doomsday page linked above:

Adult Swim and VALVe partnership?

Screenshot from the AS/Valve Promo Website.

So I'm looking at my Faecbook wall this morning when I see some of my other friends' blogs posting something like this. Intrigued, I checked out the promo site here, and then signed up for the newsletter.

I suspect it might be something either involving stupid amounts of hats, or (gasp!) a certain Meet The Team video might be released very, very soon.

~~~~~

In other news, I've been playing a ton of Dota 2 and Crusader Kings 2, and I fucking love both of those games.

So yeah, that's my life story as of now. I'll try to put more posts in later.

Also, Vinderptus is on Steam now. Go check that shit out.

Happy Thanksgiving! (Day 2 Steam Sales)

Happy Thanksgiving!

From all of me here at Traditionally Virtual, Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your flying turducken, your turbaconducken, or even your turbaconepicentipede on this fine day.

Now, as I said yesterday, the Steam Autumn Sale has begun, and here's today's list of featured sales:

*Monkey Island Special Edition Bundle -66% ~$5.25
*Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 Platinum -66% ~$10.25
*Total War Mega Pack (Medieval II Gold, Rome Complete, Empire Complete, Napoleon Imperial w/DLC) -75% ~$12.50
*Fallout: New Vegas -75% ~$5
*Sniper: Ghost Warrior -80% ~$6
*Rift -75% ~$7.50
*VVVVVV -75% ~$1.25
*Zeno Clash -75% ~$3.75
*L.A. Noire Complete -50% ~$25
And the 3 Franchise sales:
*Two Worlds II -66% (If you're into that thing.)
*Operation Flashpoint -75%
-Dragon Rising ~$3.75
-Red River ~ $11.25
*Red Orchestra -50%
-Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 ~$5
-Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad ~$20

Happy Spending and Happy Thanksgiving!

Steam Fall Sales Have Begun

I love these dudes. Seriously. They're adorable.

In the interest of always being ahead of everyone ever when it comes to holiday sales, the fine folks at VALVe have begun their "Autumn Sale" over at the usual place. And as usual, they have a rotating list of major sales plastered on the top half of their splash page; this list rotates at around 8 AM GMT-10, and are the best deals for the day if you're looking for something cheap to pick up. On top of this, many publisher's catalogs are also hugely discounted for those looking for that special something from their favorite dev team or something.

The current games on the featured list are (with the discount and price rounded up):
-Dejobaan Collection -50% ~$10
-Renegade Ops -50% ~$8
-Oddworld: The Oddboxx -75% ~$4
-Test Drive Unlimited 2 -75% ~$5
-Sam & Max Complete -75% ~$12.50
-Duke Nukem Forever -66% ~$7
-Risen -50% ~$15
-Orcs Must Die! -75% ~$4
-Portal 2 -66% ~$10.25
-Call of Duty: Black Ops -50% ~$30
and the two franchise sales:
-Mass Effect -75%
ME 1 and 2 for $5
ME2 Digital Deluxe Edition for $7.50
-Men of War -75%
Men of War ~$3.75
Men of War: Assault Squad ~$8.75
Men of War: Red Tide ~$6.25
Men of War: Vietnam ~$8.75
Men of War: Complete (Includes the above, also has various DLCs not listed) for ~$19

Happy Spending!
New posts featuring the new sales will be up as the lists are updated.

Portal Free Until Sept. 20

Probably one of the best puzzle games ever, says me.

I know this is a couple of days late, but I figure I'd announce it here as well as all the other social networking sites I frequent, because, well. If you don't already own a copy of Portal, you really are missing out.

VALVe even put out a sweet YouTube video about how educators are starting to use games like Portal and the Hammer editor to learn physics, and things of that nature.

In any case, VALVe has made Portal free until September 20. Yes, all you need is a valid Steam account and you're set. Here's the place, and the pretty interesting YouTube video:

http://learnwithportals.com/

The Post-Summer Camp Sale Post or: "Holy Crap, Terraria is Fun!"

My Summer Camp Achievement Box

Now that the Steam Summer Camp Sale is over, I'm able to take a look back at all the games I've played and all the sweet freebies and other awesome games I picked up.

First off, I like this new way Valve is doing in regards with major sales. The Steam Treasure Hunt was fun as hell, and this is just a better version of that same promotion. In this case, I picked up what probably amounted in at least $25-30 in free DLC and full games, while rediscovering hidden gems and rediscovering what it means to have fun (like with Poker Night at the Inventory)

One such game is Terraria, which to me looked like a shitty 2D Minecraft clone. This was the original reason for me to pass the game by and continue to look for more entertaining venues (Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood was one such entertaining venue, which I'm glad I played). Well, I had a copy of Terraria gifted to me, and, well.... it's incredible. I love just going around creating awesome shit all while dodging zombies, slimes and other incredible enemies. You think Creepers are the worst things to deal with in Minecraft, check out the motherfucking Eater of Worlds. This guy will fuck your shit. Seriously.

Anyways, here's a picture of my floating death yacht. The floors are made from hellstone bricks, which can only be mined at the very lowest levels of the World, commonly referred to as Hell.

Floating a mile or so above the ground, my battlecruiser of death will kill most visitors that have not made proper trips to Hell.

I love the soundtrack that this game uses, and it's hard not to hum along with the day and nighttime tracks as your in game day progresses.

Anyway, back to more Terraria.

First Impressions - The Über Update

Partners in Racketeering.

So, now that I've given myself some time to acquaint myself with the new major Team Fortress 2 update, entitled, The Über Update, I suppose I should write my opinion on it as a whole. This was indeed the most ambitious update for Valve as a whole, because while there was weapon packs for every class but the Pyro (who only got a small flare gun as a consolation prize) or the Engineer (who got jack shit), the real update was with the game itself. As of last week Thursday, Valve made Team Fortress 2 a free to play game, like Nexon's Vindictus or World of Tanks. All a person needs is a Steam account (which is free) and they can jump on into the class-based combat that is TF2. Of course, this means the best time to learn (or relearn) TF2 would be now, with all these new players running around, even an average player can dominate with little to no problems.


As for the actual items themselves, well... Figures Valve would go and give the easiest class to play another two weapon sets. On top of this, they give the Scout another overpowered weapon set that literally makes anyone average at Scout become Scoot, Destroyer of Everything. Meanwhile, average, fun classes like Heavy and Demo get shat upon by "competitive" whiners.

In any case, the game is still fun as hell, if one were to ignore the ramblings of it's crazed player base. Now it's free to play. Go play it.

The New Facebook Infused Steam Community

Yep, these folks are now in our Steam.

So I haven't posted much in some time, owning to the fact that I cared little for what was happening over at this year's E3 and that as a gamer I had become stuck in a rut regarding looking for new forms of entertainment. I was even thinking of writing a blog post where I play around with the new Team Fortress 2 replay editor (I'll probably still do one, since that replay editor is pretty neat.)

Now, I restart my Steam as I usually do to check for updates for my client and games, when a notice pops up stating that the Steam Community service Valve maintains now has Facebook integration. I thought this was rather neat, so I did it.

Update news for profile linkage.

Upcoming topics I'll be talking about -- the new MTG summer product, Commander (known by many MTG vets as Elder Dragon Highlander or EDH) and me playing around with the TF2 replay editor.

Portal 2

The wily GLaDOS is at it again.

What better way to start this blog off than to talk briefly about the newest in Valve's distinguished collection of games, Portal 2.

This game is incredible. From the incredible cinematic opening sequence of the game (which blew me away) all throughout the entirety of the various test chambers, there was never a real dull moment for the player. The puzzles were elegantly simple, yet just challenging enough to last most of the 8-10 hours an average play through would take. The animation suggests almost Pixar level detail in everything, and comes a long way from the animation detail of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and the Orange Box (which I felt was very impressive for its time).

The characters were unforgettable, witty, and charming. I always find myself quoting GLaDOS or Cave Johnson (We're done here.) in my conversations with people, which may make me seem like a douchebag or a very crazy Potato lover. The plot is engaging and clever, and the ARG that surrounded its release had me on the edge of my seat.

In any case, this is definitely a game that should not be left unplayed.

Portal 2 is available on Steam (PC/Mac), PS3, and the XBox 360.