Spoiler Warning FourXOne: Right Behind You

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Nov 9, 2010

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 139 comments

I guess I’ve already made it clear that I thought the opening to Mass Effect 2 was a complete stab in the back on the part of BioWare. Well, now we also are guilty.

Hello, person from the future. This space used to have an embed from the video hosting site Viddler. The video is gone now. If you want to find out why and laugh at Viddler in the process, you can read the entire silly story for yourself.

At any rate, the video is gone. Sorry. On the upside, we're gradually re-posting these old videos to YouTube. Check the Spoiler Warning page to see the full index.

 


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139 thoughts on “Spoiler Warning FourXOne: Right Behind You

  1. ToastyVirus says:

    What happened with the pitch to The Escapist? What did they think?

    1. Theodolus says:

      Question seconded. I’m curious to know if we’ll be seeing your quirky commentary on their site any time soon.

      1. X2-Eliah says:

        Same here – what happened?

        And should be be happy about it?

        Anyway, putting the show on buffer and getting some Peanut Buter sandwitches with tea to enjoy this.

        1. Psivamp says:

          I’m guessing it’s mainly the length. Nothing on the Escapist runs for more than ten minutes an episode or so…

          1. eri says:

            The attention spans of their viewers are far too short, and Spoiler Warning doesn’t have enough forced, awkward “comedy” and “witty” Internet references to fill their quota.

            1. mad_wolf says:

              yea i agree on thet, if it were up to me extra credits could be a whole lot longer, more deep thinking is good thinking

          2. Jamfalcon says:

            Actually, the finale for There Will be Brawl was 35 minutes, so they can run videos long enough. I could see them not wanting to run half hour long shows every week however.

    2. Irridium says:

      I’m guessing it went something like this:

      HI SHAMUS YOUNG HERE WITH ANOTHER FANTASTIC PRODUCT!

      Or something Billy Mays-like. Only half the voice. And beard.

      1. bit says:

        And twice the mustache.

    3. Gandaug says:

      delete

    4. Jaerys says:

      Maybe the Escapist hasn’t decided yet. It’d explain the content of this episode. Which, to be fair, was interesting to me.

  2. jdaubenb says:

    As good an opportunity as any to find out what all the fuss is about with that game.

  3. Ouchies81 says:

    Nice. Good episode! The dialogue was informative and well paced.

  4. krellen says:

    Well, now I see why people like TF2 so much, and also why I’ll never play it.

    1. Sekundaari says:

      Exactly my thoughts, now that I think about them. All the jumping around, strafing & firing, rampant backstabbing, frequent deaths and respawns and crazy special action moves are a bit too wild for my taste. I can see the game is very well polished and appealing to others who like faster FPSs.

      1. Cyanide says:

        To be fair, they only played Spy and Soldier. TF2 has a lot of different roles for a lot of different people.

        Engineers, for example, tend to be a lot more stationary (and longer-lived). It becomes a game of geometry: Where can you put a sentry that will leave it most likely to damage enemies while being hard to destroy? Do you have easy access to it if it gets damaged? What about your dispenser? Can you read the tide of the battle to know what you should build and upgrade first? And so on.

        1. Sekundaari says:

          I see. That sounds interesting enough, but it would still be hard to avoid being stabbed, right? In any case, I’m much more keen on more realistic FPSs, so this isn’t really my thing.

          1. Someone says:

            Well, stabbing people drops the disguise so, if a spy tries that, he will likely get killed by the turret you set up, unless he can plant a sapper on the turret a split second after he stabs you, which is a trick only the top spies can pull off.

        2. Veloxyll says:

          And where will spies have trouble getting to you. GOD DAMN SPIES GETTING IN MY BASE AND WRECKING MY STUFF >: (

        3. Inyssius says:

          Exactly. Josh picks the twitchy fast-paced critstackingbastard classes and plays them in an especially twitchy fast-paced critstackingbastard way, because that’s his entire playstyle.

          There are seven other classes in the game, though. Demoman? Pyro? Heavy? Medic? Engineer? Much less of the twitchy, especially with those last two.

        4. Someone says:

          Indeed, one of the joys of TF2 is that different classes allow for wildly different playstyles.

          The scout is the class for twitch players, it relies on perfect “I’ve played Q3 for 10 years” reflexes.

          The engineer is the thinking class, it needs a good knowledge of maps and rewards players being able to read the flow of the match, and exploit it by setting up defensive perimeters or forward bases. Build your stuff too far behind enemy lines and you will never see any action or contribute anything, build it too close to the frontlines and you will get chased away by enemies before you have a chance to properly set up shop. Build it in just the right spot, and rake in the points for team support as it forms the backbone of your team’s assault/defense.

          The heavy, my personal favorite, is a very strategic class. It’s one of the heavy hitters, as opposed to support classes, and it doesn’t require excellent precision or perfect twitch, relying on tactical thinking instead. It’s the biggest, slowest class. It requires having a plan, thinking ahead and clever positioning, you can’t really get out of a sticky situation with good reflexes, if you have made a mistake planning your movement and escape paths it’s usually too late. Similarly, no matter how good your enemies are at shooting, if you know what they are going to do and can properly manipulate them, it won’t save them from your wrath.

          And these are only 3 out of 9 classes present in the game, others have different playstyles still. I think it is safe to say that there is something to be found for any FPS fan.

          1. Sekundaari says:

            Is that your final answer…?

            I guess it really depends on what does one mean by the term FPS. The similar games I play (OFP, ArmA) are often called milsims, but are also called tactical shooters, and can be played in first person.

            I think that even if there was an Infantry class with serious fatigue, vulnerable health, realistic weaponry and camouflage, the other classes would ruin things for me. Unless it had a tank…

            1. Someone says:

              Well, I guess what I was saying is that the game has a lot more depth and variety than your standard Q3/UT, it’s not just a “run’n’gun”,”Boomheadshot!”,”may the twitchiest win” type affair.

              But, If you get your kicks by trekking across miles of terrain in an entirely realistic manner, picking off enemy snipers by their muzzle flashes, ambushing convoys and so forth, you might want to keep playing Flashpoint and give TF2 a pass.

              1. Sekundaari says:

                Will do, though I’ll take a truck ride instead of trekking for miles any day. The prospect of having to walk for so long does make even the simplest of vehicles that much more rewarding. ;)

                I do acknowledge the depth and variety in TF2 too. And I can greatly enjoy watching others play it, like Josh here. The important thing is that both games exist, for different tastes.

      2. bit says:

        Actually, especially compared to stuff like counter-strike and CoD, TF2 can be a really slow shooter. Even playing as the faster classes, individual direct fights can take up to a minute on average, and full scale battles are often a quarter or third of the whole match. It looks fast, but in reality it’s more about planning than twitch. Or so I play/find.

        1. Sekundaari says:

          Then I want nothing to do with Counter-Strike or Call of Duty. :)

          I’m familiar with direct fights in multiplayer usually taking a couple of seconds, like a simple machine gun burst to the chest of a soldier, or an attack chopper destroying a tank with a missile. However, in my opinion the real slowness comes from the game emphasizing stealth first and cover second. Avoiding hits by moving would be the very last resort, except for vehicles.

          1. bit says:

            In TF2 it’s more about positioning and timing, which is a part of what makes the class system so fun. You want to push your opponent into your class’s ideal range, which helps you break up their attack rhythm and validate your own. With the team and map strategies on top of this, it’s like playing a game of chess, inside a game of checkers, inside a game of risk. Twitch is important to a degree, but once you’re past that hurdle, it’s more about what you do rather than how well you do it.

      3. Winter says:

        appealing to others who like faster FPSs.

        Man, my “fast fps detector” is calibrated differently… TF2 seems so slow, to me.

        But then, i also can’t play any FPSes that were made in the last, say, ten years or so.

    2. Zukhramm says:

      Same here. Though I already know. Biggest problem for me is the “Team” part. I’ll always be the medic stabbed five times in a row by the same spy, or I can’t play whatever class I want because someone else is already doing it and better than me. People’ll just end up annoyed with me. Too hectic, too serious.

      I wish there was a multiplayer FPS were playing sniper was really calm, were you’d just follow an enemy for an hour or two, then just shoot him when you get a good chance.

      1. Gandaug says:

        If you want a sniper fix like that play Project Reality.

        1. Jarenth says:

          Or Sniper: Ghost Warrior, perchance.

    3. Robyrt says:

      This is a great example of why I don’t like Valve games: The default walk speed is too high. It’s hard to follow what’s going on, and it creates a sheer cliff of difficulty that I simply don’t possess. (This also applies to Starcraft, and it’s why I had to eventually quit Street Fighter.)

      It’s like playing chess while juggling. Sure, the game is excellent and deep and caters to a variety of play styles, but if you can’t juggle you’re out of luck. Then Microsoft comes along with a “dumbed down for consoles” version that only makes you juggle 2 balls, and suddenly I can have fun and succeed.

  5. Elec0 says:

    This was a good episode, quite funny.
    I was playing then as well, it’s interesting to see yourself play from a different angle.

  6. Jabor says:

    Oh you conniving backstabbing bastards.

    I love you guys.

  7. mumakil says:

    hmn just noticed no Rutskarn :D

    What happened and will he be around for the real spoilerwarning?

    (If i have made a fool of myself about forgetting some annoucement or something
    A wizard made me forget :D)

    1. Shamus says:

      Rutskarn is totally still with us. He just wasn’t available when we recorded this episode as he was busy rescuing a team of supermodels from a terrorist robot factory.

      1. jdaubenb says:

        Good to know he has his priorities straight.

      2. omicron says:

        His last name’s not “Stark,” is it?

        ‘Cause if it is, he’d best watch out for those Lannisters.

        1. Nick C says:

          A Song of Ice and Fire reference! Whoa!

          1. Greg says:

            If you like references to that have a look at the edge of the snowy area at the top of the twentysided minecraft map :P

      3. Jarenth says:

        Now I’m imagining terrorist robots.

        If Rutskarn draws this at some point in the future, all will be forgiven.

  8. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Well as long as we wait for mass effect 2,how about you do more mini seasons of some silly games requested earlier,like nethack,dwarf fortress,I wanna be the guy,etc?

  9. HeroOfHyla says:

    I’m terrified to try Your Eternal Reward + Dead Ringer. The idea of having absolutely no way to hide the fact you’re a spy for the first moments of the map is not something that sits well with me. I use Dead Ringer with the normal knife and the Cloak and Dagger with Your Eternal Reward.

  10. Samkathran says:

    Wowzers, looks like a crazy fun time. I have a hard time getting into multiplayer game nowadays though, and by that I mean I pretty much avoid them at all costs. Got way too tired of playing with people who took the games way too seriously, which generally resulted into spazzing out at teammates, swearing profusely at anything and everything, and eventually ragequiting which left the rest of the match horribly imbalanced.

    Most of my experience comes from playing Halo 2 and DotA though, and I’m pretty certain both of them are somewhat notorious for having exceptionally bad playerbases. I think the only game worse would be Modern Warfare 2, judging from all the whining I hear about it.

    Now if there were more games like this: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/9/15/ where people are laid back and just trying to have fun (how dare they!), then I’d probably consider getting back into some multiplayer action. But even then I hate being that guy who’s new and does a terrible job and drags the team down (ie the bad scout).

    Looking forward to whatever you decide to do next!

    1. RTBones says:

      Seconded about some folks taking their games way too seriously. That is the reason I rarely grouped when I play (played) WoW. Its why I dont play TF2, Halo 2, etc. I get sick of the name-calling, put downs, and the “what do you mean you dont know that spamming ctrl-alt-shift-left bracket while you verbally pass gas into the microphone causes baked beans to fall from the sky” mentality.

    2. Amnestic says:

      DotA (and the spinoff games like Heroes of Newerth) are *awful* to new players. I was lucky in that my brother was fairly adept at it already so he gave me a few tutorials to learn the ropes before I jumped online, but people – both teammates and enemies – will rip the ever-loving crap out of anyone who doesn’t play to at least a moderate standard, even on games that are explictly labelled “Newb” games.

      I can’t speak for Halo 2, though considering my experiences with 3 and my friend’s experience with Reach then I can safely say that if nothing’s changed, it’s not *quite* as bad as I found DotA. At least, not bad in the same way. Halo seems/ed more about just badmouthing each other – good and bad alike, whereas people were generally more polite to you if you were better at DotA.

      As for WoW: This one’s different for me. I expect a modicum of play and research from anyone who’s stepping into a endgame raid dungeon with me. I don’t expect perfection, I don’t expect everything to be done right, but I do expect a few minutes researching talent builds, stat prioritisation and ability usage. These things are not hard to find out for yourself and can be located within minutes either via google or by asking someone for help.

      Bad play is fixable, voluntary laziness is not. If you’re playing alone, I couldn’t care less. Play however you want. However, if you step into a group you’re weighing down 4/9/24/39 other people for hours on end because you couldn’t spend five minutes looking up a guide.

  11. Pontifex says:

    what server do you guys play on, and is it open to whomever? I miss the days of Shamus d20 server that had both sides’ audio on… made for a fun game!

    1. Elec0 says:

      They were playing on Josh and Mumbles’ server Death by Kukri: 68.232.161.80:27015

      1. Jarenth says:

        How is this server with regards to people who don’t know their TF 2 classes from a hole in the wall, but would like to check the game out at some point to actually see what all the fuss is about?

        Hypothetically speaking, of course.

        1. Mumbles says:

          It depends. When a kid joins and starts asking stupid questions about different loadouts or cries about not being ubered, then the dogs usually get loose. I don’t think you’ll have that problem. It’s a friendly, all-talk server that is pretty forgiving to new kids that don’t make asses of themselves. Except for Josh. He hates everyone.

          The thing about multiplayer is that you have to keep your head down and just play regardless of what people say to you. The first couple months of playing TF2, I barely used my mic if I could help it and I still don’t if I’m on a different server.

          tl;dr tell them you’re a friend of Mumbles. I will fuck them up later if they misbehave.

          1. Pontifex says:

            Thank you so much! I will be reinstalling TF2 in the next day or two and am looking forward to playing again. Without a friendly home, it just wasn’t the same!

          2. Jarenth says:

            I’ll look into it somewhere later then, thanks.

            After Project Snowglobe is finished, of course. And possibly Project Underglobe as well.

            And maybe a Tesla Coil.

            1. Stupidguy12 says:

              And someday, when I scrape up the cash for my new laptop, I WILL BE THERE.

              1. Jarenth says:

                Unless you’re on my team when you do so, you might want to steer clear from that Tesla Coil.

          3. Nahazzat says:

            I think I will be reinstalling Team Fortress 2 to try this out. What kept me out of the game for a long time was the lack of servers I could practice on without being cursed by my team.

            That said, I will need to play a slow class. Probably medic or engineer. I don’t mind getting killed repeatedly, Global Agenda got me used to that.

      2. Someone says:

        It’s a shame the latency across the ocean is so bad, I would have given the server a try.

    2. Veloxyll says:

      alltalk is the best talk :D

  12. ngthagg says:

    This was the first Spoiler Warning I’ve watched. I was never interested in the other ones, because I just didn’t have the time to get into them. But a one-shot deal works well for me.

  13. Beardface says:

    Ubering a soldier is a terrible waste!Unless it’s a kritz, then it’s kredit to team.

  14. X2-Eliah says:

    Okay, this was surprisingly good.

    Way too frentic for me, though – half the time I had little idea what Josh was even shooting at.

  15. Seth Ghatch says:

    The episode ended really abruptly, what happened?

    1. Aldowyn says:

      The round ended, they won. Not abruptly at all.. timer was counting down.

  16. Antman says:

    awesome video. i could get used to single episodes, or multiplayer, or maybe coop games. or whatever deserves commentary that cant last more then 1 ep lol. maybe do it every now and then to break p the monotony of the same thing for 20 eps straight. not that im complaining lol, ill watch whatever is posted haha

  17. Yashas Bharadwaj says:

    Wow!! The epicness of Valve just shot through the roof in my books. Awesome Game. Shown off in an awesome manner. Great show, guys. I didn’t watch the show before because, well, didn’t want any spoilers. :) But this was just a lot of fun.

  18. Andrew says:

    I’m not really sure if I can play TF2 anymore.
    I used to play it quite a bit about a year or so ago, but having tried to come back it feels like a different game with all the new updates.
    That and all the hats/extra items.
    Tonight is vanilla night because of server maintenance though so I may give it a go again.

    1. Groboclown says:

      It’s still not “vanilla”, though, because of the changes they’ve done even to just the simple things, like upgradable teleporters, pyro’s airblast, heavies jumping & spinning up, and so on.

  19. Rosseloh says:

    And as I see him aiming with that revolver, I can see:

    A) That YES, Josh gets his motion-sickness inducing movement from TF2
    B) Just as I suspected, he still can’t shoot straight, even in TF2.

    I’m guilty of it too, I’m a sniper at heart, but can’t play one effectively in TF2 for the life of me. So when I see bad aim, I just cringe, whether it’s myself or someone else doing it.

  20. Irridium says:

    I usually play as an engie on Badwater. For both offence and defense.

    Mainly due to connection issues. My boolets don’t register so I just set up a sentry in a sweet spot and have it get kills.

    For offence I try to get to the front lines and set up a lvl 1 sentry quickly. Its pretty deadly when nobody expects it.

    1. O.G.N says:

      On offense go with the mini-sentry instead. It’s faster to build and need less metal than a lvl. 1 sentry. Perfect for the offensive engineer.

      1. Irridium says:

        Tried it, and I didn’t do so well.

        I prefer the standard sentry, it works for me.

  21. Andy_Panthro says:

    Is that person [KoD] Snake…(can’t read the name) from Kiss of Death? I used to be [KOD]ICI_Bill in another life… Counterstrike and Firearms were the games of choice.

  22. SpammyV says:

    So I don’t see what’s so bad about the beginning of Mass Effect 2, I mean sure the stuff blowing up was kinda out of nowhere but the gameplay was solid at least it looked like although I couldn’t tell who was Sheppard and it seemed like too much combat for an RPG introduction.

    1. krellen says:

      The bad part is Shepard dying.

      1. swimon says:

        over and over apparently ^^

      2. Jarenth says:

        The bad part is Shepard dying to set up an introduction that makes no sense, goes against any and all character motivation from the previous game, and could have been just as easily set up without resorting to faux-killing Shepard.

        1. acronix says:

          I´m quite sure it was just an excuse to update the Normandy´s interior. Which doesn´t excuse it, just makes it dumber.

          1. Raygereio says:

            At least we got toilets now. That’s something… I guess.

          2. krellen says:

            Definitely dumber, because you can blow up the ship without killing people (see: Joker, Kaiden/Ashley.)

  23. Internet Kraken says:

    Interesting seeing TF2 played from the perspective of that Spy I’m always punching/stabbing/burning.

    The Spy never really appealed much to me, at least in practice. I liked the concept of his class, but I was horrible at it. Plus I always hated when my careful planning was ruined by a single stray bullet. So I abandoned it in favor of other classes. Really, the only two classes I’ve stuck with since the beginning of the game are the Engineer and Medic. Though I find myself playing Pyro a lot more now, though that probably has something to do with all the brain slugs I collected for him to wear.

  24. Aldowyn says:

    You are quite guilty of backstabbage. I actually thought it was Mass Effect 2… :( Ah well that just means I can finish it before you start. I played like 30 hours of ME1 and ME2 this past weekend…

    ANYWAYS, that was a little (or a lot) annoying, but I do appreciate the little one-shot episode while we wait for the actual start of the new season, so I got over it. It’s nice to see TF2, I never really saw it much. Looks cool! Certainly a lot, well, different from Call of Duty.

  25. Ateius says:

    That was hilarious. I especially loved the title cards, with the dead spy and “(badly)” on the second.

  26. Amnestic says:

    I main Medic and Engineer most of the time. Thoroughly a support class kinda guy. My backup choice is Pyros, as I like punishing Spies who annoy me while I’m Medic/Engi.

    And yes, I too was cringing at the Medic repeatedly getting backstabbed. How hard is it to turn around every few seconds or bounce around? Just because you don’t see anyone doesn’t mean you’re safe :|

    Thanks to shitty internet it’s been a while since I’ve played and I notice a crapload of new items I don’t recognise so it’s gonna be interesting once I get back online to find out what they all are.

    As for why an Engi might be running around the front lines with no escort, well, a quickly placed Lv. 1 sentry plus a shotgun can be surprisingly deadly. It’s absolutely delicious when you wipe out 2-3 guys as an Engi with just your shotgun through their own poor play. Offensive Engis – like Battle Medics – can be a bit hit and miss, but it gives you such a rush when it works.

    1. Someone says:

      The heavies made me cringe when I was watching, probably because I favor heavy myself and have some experience in duo play with a medic.

      I mean seriously, pretty much all of the heavies on the server had their medics killed (which is usually enough to warrant a turnaround bullet shower and, at least, force the spy into hiding) and got killed themselves, several times, and they still never turned around.

      If I was their medic, I would have ditched them and went with someone who knows what he is doing.

  27. Caffiene says:

    That was a lot of ridicule for the medic and others who didnt seem to know how to play very well…

    If these 3 reasonable personable, intelligent people have that sort of attitude, I can only imagine what the less civilised players are like…

    Bit of a turn-off for somebody thinking the game looked interesting.

    1. guy says:

      Only complete lack of pattern recognition gets people mocked, generally. People don’t tend to turn on their mics to laugh at others.

      1. Veloxyll says:

        Yeah, I’ve noticed that usually there’s not much actual mockage if you’re bad at the game. I mean, we were all there once (some of us still are). TF2 is a lot of fun though. Even if I can’t use my skillet because I like my equalizer too much :(

        1. Jabor says:

          I know how you feel :(

          Still, I play plenty of demo, which gets some awesome frypan action. Still waiting for a real kill icon though :(

    2. ngthagg says:

      Two responses to this: first, they were in Spoiler Warning mode, but playing a game without much to criticize. Second, comments made to friends in a private chat are quite different than comments made publicly and directly to the individual. Just like getting frustrated at bad driving isn’t road rage, complaining to your friends is not jerkwad behavior.

    3. Someone says:

      The thing is though, they still contributed a lot to the game. It’s one of the best qualities of the Medic and, to a lesser extent, the Heavy classes. Even if you suck, you help people who don’t suck survive by either drawing fire on yourself or healing and giving the occasional “invincibility”. It’s not nearly as frustrating as well, the effects of your actions, however inept those actions are, are visible and destructive (to the other team).

      And really, from my experience, the TF2 community tends to be a lot less hostile and immature than your average “hot summer multiplayer blockbuster 3” crowd.

      As long as you don’t play on 32 player servers.

    4. Caffiene says:

      Righto, fair enough.

      I didnt think these guys acted badly, my worry was how would the usual fanboy trolls be in comparison?

      The answer appears to be “Playing Halo”. So its not so bad.

  28. guy says:

    I’d just like to take the opportunity to say that Your Eternal Reward is the best thing ever. Even though it’s not really very practical. Nailing a pyro with it first thing is so satisfying, but not as much as swiping a medic’s heavy without him noticing and stealing an ubercharge.

    I also really hate dancing medics. Incidentally, my pyro reflexes need work, and I need to work on dancing around more in general.

    EDIT: Hey, two snipers is a perfectly fine number. Three is a little much. Four is right out. Two spies are also fine.

    Then again, I tend to play on 30-man servers.

    EDIT EDIT: Yeah, being stabbed kind of sucks.

    1. 2 shall be the number of the sniping, and the number of the sniping shall be 2?

    2. Jabor says:

      As far as numbers go, on a 24-man server, you really want no more than three spies/snipers in total. Two spies and one sniper is fine, two snipers and a spy is fine, two of each is a third of your team that can’t actually hold any territory.

      Three snipers or three spies usually means (at least) one of them is not actually contributing it all, but if all of them are competent and the rest of the team is more combat-oriented classes it can work out.

  29. TheDarkOne says:

    YES YES ITS HERE!
    Edit – Oh its tf2. Oh well STILL AWSOME

  30. Torpedo Vegas says:

    I KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING NEXT! The vaguely French/Italian sounding music obviously means they are going to dedicate an entire episode to the Support guy form Monday Night Combat. There is no other possible interpretation.

    1. Nyctef says:

      In case you don’t know: It’s the end music for “Meet the Spy” :)
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnuYi-nzE90

    2. Jarenth says:

      RIGHTEOUS CHOPSTACHE HAS SPOKEN

  31. Gandaug says:

    I used to love TF2. Back before all the class updates. I thought the medic update was good, but every update after that just threw the wonderful class balance off a bit more.

    I reinstalled recently to try to get back into the game. Then the Man-conomy happened. Uninstalled and will probably never come back.

    Shame really.

    1. Gandaug says:

      Despite myself this video has got me interested again. Multiplayer is defined by the server you’re on and the players that frequent it. Maybe Death by Kukri is a place to try again. I don’t know. We’ll see.

    2. John Magnum says:

      The Mannconomy doesn’t seem to be that big a deal to me. For me, the main issue would be the set bonuses that are easiest to get by spending a significant chunk of change on a Polycount hat… but you can still find them according to the ancient traditions of simply playing for a really long time. Since so much of the game is sidegrades, it’s not a huge deal if there’s a disparity in how many people have which loadout–as has been established by the old system of random drops, which results in disparities.

      I don’t really think the Mannconomy has had game-destabilizing effects any worse than the original system it’s supplementing. You might say that the entire system of random drops and Achievements providing sidegrades (and, occasionally, straight upgrades) is a big game destabilizer. Perhaps. There’s always the console versions, in that case.

  32. SpammyV says:

    So, I wish I could talk about TF2, but the only thinky-planny multiplayer FPSes I’ve ever played(kinda played) are The Ship, which I never got to really experience because my computer was just outside of the lower hardware bracket; and Savage: The Battle for Newerth, which was this FPS/RTS hybrid game. Computing power wasn’t the problem there, my internet was just so terrible that I lagged extremely badly, so I usually wound up playing the class that was least affected by lag, the Beast healer. But man was I good at healing.

  33. Nidokoenig says:

    Josh, I hate you so very, very much right now. It’s been more than an hour since I watched this, my stomach’s still spinning and my head is a disaster area. ALL MY HATE. Strange thing is, I’m usually OK with Spoiler Warning, but twenty minutes of this wrecked my shit.

    Aside from that, great episode. I’ll fill all my kaleidoscopes with browny orange, blue and red from now on.

    1. MintSkittle says:

      Same here. Had to stop watching it, switch over to something else, and let it play in background and just listen. Hopefully, ME2 wont be this bad. It’s been thirty minutes now since I finished watching, and I still feel like crap.

      1. guy says:

        ME2 is a slow, cover-based shooter without a jump button. It should probably be better.

    2. Elec0 says:

      Haha. It didn’t bother me at all because that’s generally how I play TF2. XD

      1. Nidokoenig says:

        I do occasionally play shooters, but it’s usually something slower paced like Deus Ex, or something so hectic I burn out before motion sickness sets in, like Painkiller. There’s also the fact that I’m not controlling the video, so I have no expectations for how the camera’s going to move, which makes my insides go sideways a lot faster.

  34. Adalore says:

    Heheheheh.

    Shame I didn’t know you were playing, I would have hopped on just for the chance to frag you on… uh… Public interweb video? … … Meh.

    I can play all the classes pretty well, but I prefer spy and scout, REALLY different play styles there.

  35. Duoae says:

    Have to say whilst i appreciate the joke i was very disappointed. I also hate TF2. Didn’t get more than 5 minutes into this before i had to turn it off – if i’m honest it wasn’t very interesting, possibly because i don’t think you guys have an in-depth knowledge of all the TF2 systems (which i do tend to find interesting).

    1. Roger says:

      The problem I think your seeing here is that the most knowledgeable TF2 person, Mumbles, spent most of this episode letting the other two talk. Josh is moderately knowledgeable, and Shamus is a casual.

      1. Mumbles says:

        Bingo. We were introducing the game to people who have never seen it before, so a lot of the in depth stuff I know would go right over heads. If we do another installment, maybe with a couple different classes, this will probably change.

    2. Shamus says:

      I even said at the beginning of the ep that people who were familiar with the game would be bored by it. Looking at the rest of this thread, I think we had a solid episode for TF2 newcomers.

      I’m not so keen on offering “protips”. I usually see that as an exercise in frustration. For any given piece of advice you could offer, you’ll get a dozen people who can’t believe what FOOL! you are to overlook situation X, or ability Y, or that you didn’t even mention tactic Z. Turns into a big wank between people who have logged hundreds or thousands of hours in the game. That’s fine, but not something I’d ever want to take part in.

      The game has gotten more complicated and chaotic since launch. That, added to the extreme skill disparity between a newbie and a pro, means that TF2 is now very insular. I’d like to knock through that and show the game to outsiders in a way that means they get to actually see the game.

      1. Elec0 says:

        I think you did a good job introducing TF2. Of course, it’s not for everyone, and there will always be haters.

      2. Irridium says:

        Perhaps you could do one episode dedicated to each class?

      3. Robyrt says:

        This was definitely a good introduction to TF2. You showed off some conventional shooty stuff and some TF2-specific stuff, you talked about what your opponents should have been thinking instead of getting backstabbed, and I wouldn’t have understood any of the pro-speak anyway.

  36. Warden says:

    Back when me and my friends played TF2 we each had a role, and got very pissed when somebody else took that role, because It would usually be better to pick a new class or tactic, than double up.
    I was the Pyro, but if anybody needed a new class it was my job to switch and get the job done.
    The others were demo, spy, sniper and engie/medic.

    “Yay we win. Slaughter the survivors, leave none alive”
    Good times.

  37. Selater says:

    Hey Shamus, if you’re going to do another single episode Spoiler Warning, how about L4D2?

    I know I’ve said that two or three times in the past, but that’s only because I think it’s a totally great idea.

    1. Gandaug says:

      A go on L4D2 would make for an excellent one off Spoiler Warning. Campaign of course. Vs is too chaotic and unreliable for Spoiler Warning.

  38. Mathygard says:

    I would like to voice my opposition to the use of the word ‘oober’.
    Otherwise, good watch.

    1. scowdich says:

      In this context, it’s short for “ubercharge”, a callback to the Medic’s Germanic heritage and one of his powers, which can either make both he and his target invincible for ten seconds, or have ten seconds of guaranteed critical hits (also referred to as the “kritz”). It’s just part of the game.

  39. Zagzag says:

    I have never played or even seen TF2 before, and this was the perfect introduction. I would get it right now if my poor laptop was capable of running it.

  40. Someone says:

    Ahh, TF2. The game I love, but, sadly, cannot play because it tends to drive me into a state of psychotic rage. And I am not talking about the “muttering obscenities” type of rage, oh I wish. No, I am talking about “getting mouth froth on the laptop monitor, having neighbours at my doorstep politely asking me to please, please stop screaming so much and let them enjoy their 2:00 beauty sleep”.

    Other games tend to infuriate me when something is not going according to my plan, but it rarely happens in singleplayer games, they are far too easy these days, and TF2 is the only multiplayer game I play.

    Aside from the usual “10 snipers and a spy on my team” type stuff (which always happens if I try to play the game before around 20:00), there is always THIS ONE GUY…

    So I am on the 2Fort, playing as Soldier, leading the assault and carrying the match. I am on the roll, in the top 3 and all the medics want to uber me (some strange unintentional poetry there) when This One Guy joins the fray. He takes me out as a scout a few times, ruining the ubercharge push and snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Eh, fair enough. I make a point of paying attention to any scout that tries to rush me, but nothing I do seems to work. I would kill other scouts with ease, lead another assault team to the enemy base, when This Guy will show up again to completely ruin me and any advantage I have managed to wrest from the other team.

    Then he does it again. Now he gets a “Domination” and really starts getting on my nerves. I switch to Heavy and he goes spy and keeps killing me. No other player seems to have a problem with killing him, I get close to killing him every time, but somehow he always manages to escape my revenge. I take most of his health but he facestabs me before I manage to finish him off, only to be killed by a stray arrow which, somehow, doesn’t net me an “assist”.

    I get him just where I want him, he makes a bunch of mistakes and, just when I should have him by all laws of decency and nature and we both know he is going to die, I get instantly killed by a random crit rocket and a kill taunt he tried to pull off out of despair.

    So it’s personal now, I go exclusively after him, pull off stunts and tricks I normally wouldn’t imagine myself capable of, but, due to increasingly improbable circumstances, he always manages to best me. There is always a sniper waiting for just the moment when The Guy has 4 hp left to ambush and kill me with a lagged arrow, a demoman spamming the exact corridor I chased Him into with 3 critical grenades in a row or a medic ‘just happened to pop his ubercharge late and giving it to him because there is no one else around.

    It gets to the point when I am so angry I get completely thrown off my game, and I cant play anymore even if I get this damn revenge.

    …whew. Sorry for the ranttastic wall of text, just needed to get it out of my system.

    I wonder if anyone else out there has the same problem.

    1. Irridium says:

      It actually happened last night on Josh’s server. It was on harvest, and I was a sniper. The other team had its own sniper. No matter what I did, I could not shoot him first. He was just too damn good.

      We were the two best snipers in the game, but he was better then me. After him killing me over and over, I just said “fuck all” and moved to another part of the map where he couldn’t get me.

      Then some jackass of a Scout kept getting behind me and killing me with a fish. Bastard.

      But I still did very well, got in the top 3 on my team by just sniping, so I did good, despite the setbacks.

    2. Selater says:

      Oh hey, I’ve met That Guy, too!

  41. GM says:

    i dont hear sound? yet my headset works fine strange,nevermind wors third time.

  42. I couldn’t disagree with you more, Shamus. The opening to Mass Effect 2 had more emotional impact than the vast majority of games I’ve played, for me.

    Watching the ship that was mine get torn apart so easily along with everyone I knew shattered the aura of invincibility that all the super-space-marine games have created these days, and it really punched in the thought of “we could all die on this mission”.

    More than that, the two years’ difference lets you see the consequences of all the choices you made in the first game, it lets you see how things have changed while on the path you set the galaxy on.

    If you just wanted more of the same, well, I suppose that’s fine, but as a writer I appreciated the added gravity and raised stakes.

    1. krellen says:

      How the heck did you get “added gravity and raised stakes” from that opening sequence? It’s nothing but a cheap-shot gimmick that never plays out to any actual risk when really playing the game. You’re still invincible; the only way you could die was in a cutscene, because it’s the only way to make you do things badly enough to end up dying.

    2. Sleeping Dragon says:

      The whole “consequence” thing in ME2 is sort of blown out of proportions. I continued a “lawful stupid” (pure paragon) save and what I got was mostly various NPCs I only half remembered approaching me with “ohhhh, I used to be a mobster but you talked to me two years ago and now I spend my days petting kittens… have some cash”. Not that surprising really considering they wouldn’t want to make separate games for different alignments (and they’re being notorious about the whole “anyone can be talked into good” and “good gives rewards” thing). There were a few nice touches and I DO hope that ME3 will introduce some more elaborate consequences and some more emotionally involving morality. I made lengthy rants on what I imagine will happen in ME3 so I’ll skip that bit but aside from the genophage thing the series keeps falling too much into the “stupid VS jerk” rather than “good VS evil” polarization.

    3. Shamus says:

      I’ll have more on this once we start the series. :)

      1. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. Honestly, I truly love Mass Effect 2, and I -really- love listening to and reading every comment you make on anything, so I’m really hoping you won’t just be tearing the game down a lot. I know you like some things about ME2, but you guys do tend to focus on the negative a bit during this show.

  43. Sleeping Dragon says:

    Slightly late for the party but I wanted the comments in the vid to pile up a bit. Didn’t happen, strange… maybe because there was a lot of commenting here. So, this is what TF2 actually looks like? Definitely not a game for me but it does look interesting and I like how the concept of different classes makes it something more than just rocket spam quake I played waaay back in school with my classmates.

  44. Dragomok says:

    My only opinion after watching this episode is:

    THAT. WAS. AWSOME.

  45. The_Zoobler says:

    So this was a funny thing about FPSes.

    http://www.halolz.com/2010/11/12/fps-map-design/

    Not sure how it fits into TF2 or Mass Effect though.

  46. Viktor says:

    I’d be interested in seeing more of these with the other classes. This game looks fun, and provides a nice backdrop to your conversation.

  47. Another Josh says:

    When I first got The Orange Box for the 360 (before you start: I’ve been playing on consoles exclusively for the entire time I’ve been playing video games. I literally can not aim with a mouse.), I played TF2 nonstop for about 3 days before I realized it wasn’t going to get any more fun.

    Don’t get me wrong. I still love Valve and TF2 unequivocally. I’m sure if things had been different, I would be playing it even now. However, the console version is absolutely horribly broken through no fault of Valve’s. There are no servers, meaning you never get to play with the same people more than once. There is ostensibly a ranking system designed to allow for a gentler curve, but no-one ever plays on it at lower skill levels, which means everyone has to be thrown into the melee that is the Unranked Match. With the Unranked Match, there are two types of people: the Demi-Gods and everyone else.

    Demi-Gods are generally those who have been playing since release, when there was actually a fair balance of power. At that point, the naturally-skilled players got better, and anyone slow on the uptake didn’t. This process continues to weed out all but the very best until about two years after launch, when I pick up the game. At this point, there is a pool of a few thousand players that are absolutely unstoppable. They know every inch of every map, have logged 1000 hours in their chosen class(es), and have reflexes that would put a caffeinated mongoose to shame.

    Because the games are everybody-against-everybody, regardless of skill level, and the number of players is rather small compared to, say, Halo, there is always at least one Demi-God in every match. They naturally run around stifling any gameplay by the other team, preventing their own teammates from accomplishing anything, and generally ruining everyone’s day.

    Not only do you have to worry about the people who are legitimately good at the game, you also have to worry about people exploiting glitches and just outright cheating. Although Microsoft would have you believe it’s impossible to slip any naughty behavior past their highly-trained team of Video Game Police, it’s apparently quite easy to cheat your way through any online game.

    All this, coupled with the knowledge that Valve could never feasibly support the console version like they do on the PC, lead me to stop playing TF2 altogether.

    (tl;dr: Console TF2 sucks, Valve remains awesome.)

  48. some random dood says:

    Came back to take a look at the Mass Effect Spoiler Warnings, and now Viddler doesn’t, um, Viddle for me (i.e. it don’t work!)
    Too much to ask for Mass Effect 1, but is there any chance of getting the first episode for Mass Effect 2 put onto Youtube so people coming to look at this series (well, ok, me!) have a chance to see the whole glorious spectacle (not saying whether that’s ME2 [cough] reapernator [/cough] or your comments that are spectacular, but I think you can guess ;-)

  49. qwksndmonster says:

    I’m pretty sure this is the only old spoiler warning that hasn’t been repossted. Sorry to revive an old comment thread but is the file still around or was it lost to the ether of Josh’s hard drive?

    1. Coming back three years later because I too want to re-experience this episode, and have the same question.

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