Eachweek, X3F tips gamers to the tricks of the trade of Achievement hording in Points>Life. Every week a new achievement is unlocked to help you continue your unhealthy obsession with the Xbox 360 meta-game.
This week in Points>Life we tackle The Orange Box. While we could have copped out and threw out one of the easy achievements we tip you off on getting a hand-full of points in this fantastic compilation. Grab points in both Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 by following our guide above!
[iTunes] Subscribe to X3F TV directly in iTunes. [Zune] Subscribe to the X3F TV directly (Zune Marketplace link coming soon). [RSS] Add the X3F TV feed to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically. [MP4] Download the MP4 directly.
Brooklyn Boston born and raised let us introduce you to the Scout; one of the stars of the hit title Team Fortress 2. While you may have thought the scrawny Southie kid was another pawn in the game of tactical shooters, you'd be wrong. In the informative video above we get to learn the truth about the kid who might run like the wind, but won't back down from any fight. You might think this video is a little late to the party, but we dare you to not laugh when the Scout puts a beating on that poor Heavy.
Posted Mar 4th 2008 10:45AM by Dustin Burg Filed under: News
More news on the Team Fortress 2 front as Valve busily plans the release of a new set of DLC and how they are planning on offering the content for free
Speaking with Eurogamer, Valve's VP of marketing Doug Lombardi mentioned that their development team is hard at work on new TF2 multiplayer maps for the 360 version and that their plan is to offer the content for free. Lombardi tells Eurogamer that "free is the way to go. The gamers play the game, they want to keep playing the game, so we've collected their fifty bucks at the start, and once they're in the park, they can ride any ride they want in the park. So, for us that's been the philosophy." And a DLC philosophy we whole-heartily agree with. But nothing is set in stone just yet as Microsoft has certain rules pertaining to free content and we all know how much Orange Box publisher EA loves to make a quick buck off of DLC. In a perfect world we would see TF2 DLC for free, but we have a feeling we're in for another Hidden Fronts disagreement either between Valve and Microsoft or between Valve and EA.
Yesterday, we mentioned that a new Team Fortress 2 title update was released via Xbox Live but that we were in the dark pertaining to any of the specifics. We went as far as to call out Valve on their lack of information support surrounding the Orange Box for consoles. But today, we eat our words. Valve developer Kerry hopped onto the Xbox.com forums to inform the masses about the TF2 update and tell us exactly what it fixes. We've posted Kerry's complete list of changes after the break as we're sure our fellow TF2 exploiters are ever so curious to know which exploits in their vast exploit arsenal are no longer effective. Anyway, check out the update list as we go on to officially retract out "evil Valve" comment that we made yesterday. We acknowledge that our name calling was a bit much, but we still stand behind our request at having some sort of Valve supported news hub for getting Orange Box updates. We still cool?
Update: We're now more informed about the changes that went into effect with this latest update. Check out all the details here.
Recently, Valve's magical Orange Box received a title update with its sole purpose being fixification of Team Fortress 2. Though, sadly, we don't know exactly what changes the update made seeing that Valve has no central news hub for Xbox 360 Orange Box owners. All we get are PC centric updates like this. Evil Valve. But we're guessing the update has something to do with changes that werementioned a few months back. We're also hearing from our oh so reliable X3F tipsters that the TF2 update adds the option for 14 player games, auto-balance management and other general class enhancements. Again, we can't be exactly sure what modifications were made seeing that Valve doesn't have a central news hub. Did we get that point across yet? Ahem, Valve, we need you to update us on things like this. Mmkay? And until they do, if while surfing the internets you spot a list or breakdown of what changes were put in place with the latest auto-update, please drop us a line. Thanks much.
It's a good thing too, because most of you would like to see more Portal. Speaking to Eurogamer, Valve spokesperson Doug Lombardi confirmed that there will be more Portal and, furthermore, it won't simply be "a bunch of new puzzles." When exactly we'll see the next installment of Portal remains a mystery. Also a mystery is exactly what form it will take. At this point, it's unclear if Valve intends to create a full blown sequel or if the company plans to stick to an episodic format in the vein of Half-Life 2. Speaking of Half-Life 2, Lombardi notes that Episode 3 details are still a long way away -- "months not weeks," according to Lombardi. Lombardi also reasserts that Valve wants additional content for its games to be free. That's a good to hear with new Team Fortress 2 content in the pipeline.
Now that we know there will be more Portal, allow us to create a subtitle for the sequel: The Quest for Cake. What would you call it?
We knew some changes were headed to Team Fortress 2, namely to the Medic, but CVG is now reporting some of the planned changes for other classes as well. Specifically, we're talking about the Pyro and Soldier classes. So far, the only change announced for the Pyro has to do with scoring. Basically, Pyros will now be rewarded with points when they successfully light an enemy on fire. The idea, according to Valve's Robin Walker is to reward the player for foiling enemy plans even when doing so didn't necessarily end in their death. The Soldier class is due for an interesting change as well, as Walker notes that Valve "is focused on making Soldiers a little more careful firing their rockets at point blank targets." We're not exactly sure what that would entail, especially when factoring in rocket jumps, so we'll just have to wait and see. The changes should be rolling out within the next two months.
Posted Jan 14th 2008 3:00PM by Dustin Burg Filed under: News
The new downloadable content (slash) update for Team Fortress 2prophecy is slowly becoming a reality, with confirmation that changes will be in place within two months.
Talking to ShackNews, Valve has confirmed that Team Fortress 2, one-fourth fifth of the Orange Box, will be receiving an update that'll bring significant gameplay tweaks aimed at being a "large scale modification to the core of the game," that will "debut in a limited fashion through the Medic first, but it'll be affecting all classes eventually". Specific gameplay changes were not detailed, but we do know they will rollout as part of the Medic Achievement Pack which, as it sounds, will bring 36 new achievements to the medic class. Valve also mentioned that they are working on two new multiplayer maps including a remake of Team Fortress's classic map Badlands, but both maps are currently slated to be only available on the PC with a 360 release yet to be determined.
There's a bunch to look forward to for TF2 fans, but we can't help being a bit bummed about the uncertainty of the two new maps releasing to the 360. We are also torn about the medic class getting all the tweaks and achievements, while the other classes sit on the sidelines. And 36 new achievements? That has to be a mistake ... right?
Posted Dec 12th 2007 2:15PM by Dustin Burg Filed under: News
NeoGAF member Shamrock was a bit annoyed at Valve for what he felt to be a lack of Team Fortress 2 news, updates or community interaction from Valve and he wanted answers. And after shooting off an email to Valve's Gabe Newell (who later handed it off to a Valve software engineer) he and the rest of us got a TF2 update. Yay!
According to Valve software engineer Kerry Davis, the TF2 development team has been busy lately, working on a patch as well as some downloadable content. The patch will fix numerous bugs in the game including bandwidth issues, stats reporting, menu enhancements and exploit fixing which are all issues they investigated after reading forum posts made by TF2 players (aww shucks, they listen to their community too!) The patch has already been submitted to Microsoft and should be applied before Christmas. Finally, Davis mentions that they are working on new multiplayer maps as well which do not have a release date just yet, but they'll be rolled out on both the PC and Xbox 360 which smells of free DLC to us. Oh, and Davis also reminds us that Valve cares, loves us and will do anything to please our ungrateful bums, except they refuse to wash our car. Which sort of stinks, seeing that our car is hella' dirty.
Wowzaz! We've just been blindsided by a new game demo on the XBLM this morning, we didn't even see it coming, but oddly enough we're loving it.
Available for download off the Marketplace to nearly all Xbox Live members around the globe is a brand new, Thanksgiving surprise The Orange Box: Half-Life 2 Episode 2 demo from team Valve. The demo, which we expect to feature only HL2 EP2 fun and not any other Orange Box goods, will take up 732MB of hard drive space and will probably leave you wanting more Orange Box fun ... especially Portal. Speaking of which, we're overjoyed about today's surprise HL2, but where's the Portal demo? We want demand Portal and we want demand cake!
Team Fortress 2 players will be happy to hear that The Orange Box has finally received the update promised by Valve. The patch went up over the weekend, and players will be prompted to update the title whenever they load the game on their 360s. We haven't had a chance to see if Team Fortress 2's lag problems have been effectively addressed yet, but here's hoping. Anyone out there noticing a difference?
Friday always seems like a good day to post some funny videos. It's the end of the week. People are happy to be getting off work for the weekend. And so, we're less likely to get all the outraged "THIS ISN'T NEWS" comments. So please, sit back, relax, and enjoy these videos we have gathered for your enjoyment. First up is the Halo 3video you see above. Oftentimes in the game, the only time we appreciate the physics engine is when you see your limp, dead body crumple to the ground. However, most objects have physics attached to them, including rockets and grenades. In fact, with proper timing (or incredible luck), a grenade can deflect a rocket. Watch it happen in the video above, and stick around for the surprise ending. We've got another Halo 3 video and a Team Fortress 2 video after the break.
We're not much for rants here at X3F, but every once in a while rants must be made. This rant is about the multiplayer FPS du jour, Team Fortress 2. This rant goes out to everyone who thinks it might be a good idea to set up a game of Team Fortress 2 with no time limit. For the sake of all that is good, do not do this. Please.
If you've played Team Fortress 2 on Xbox Live, chances are you've experienced some annoying lag. Not "hey I shotgunned you and you didn't die" kind of lag either, but "why can't I move away from this wall ... what the hell how did I get outside?" kind of lag. Lag so unbearably bad that you literally can't play the game. Lag that results in host connection errors. Typically, this occurs during games with higher numbers of players, which also just so happen to be the more fun and competitive games. The good news is that Valve is aware of the issue and has created a patch to fix the problem. The bad news is that it now has to clear Microsoft certification before we can all reap its benefits. Valve has said they expect the patch to be released this weekend or early next week.
Going down this Friday, October 19th from 3-7:00PM pacific you'll get the chance to game side by side with some of the Orange Box developers on Xbox Live. This Game with Fame event will feature thirteen Orange Box developers playing Team Fortress 2 on Xbox Live, which will allow you to prove to them that the guys who made the game aren't always the best at playing it. If you want to get in on the Team Fortress 2 developer pwnage, send a friend request or message the Gamertags posted after the break and be online Friday night. Be warned though, Valve is notorious for talking lots of smack.
Update: We're now more informed about the changes that went into effect with this latest update. Check out all the details 
