Now CAD (Ctrl-Alt-Delete) is a fairy big web comic. Has it’s own line of crap you can buy, series, fans and books and (in my mind) probably second biggest to Penny Arcade in terms of money turnover (that’s just my thinking though). The guy who dose CAD, a Tim Buckley who can be easily called a “lazy hack” at times due to copy-paste comic style and MASSES of text. He always limits himself to 3-4 panels and at times he tries to force too much in and ends up with a crap load of text.

This has not escaped the glare of ZP.

So, ZP went after his web comic (and others but mostly CAD) to tell the world what’s wrong with it. You know something, he’s crappin’ right too.

I’ve read CAD for a while now; I’ve pretty much read every single one. It all started lovely in the early days. The art was a bit wobbly but not copy and pasted. Everything was his (Tim Buckley’s) and you knew that it was. In recent years though, he seems to have either gone insane or lost it in some other way.

Let’s start with the 1st problem. Copying crap. This has happened a few times in CAD and he doesn’t copy other comic writers stuff, no no. He doses the student thing and half’s the work by using Google. This has happened a few times but the one I remember is the Home Depot comic. Where he used a back round nicked directly from Google and pasted into a comic. I’m only a student but that’s plagiarism isn’t it? Just because it’s on the internet doesn’t make it free. If it where a smaller comic maker then it wouldn’t be an issue but, Tim sells copies of the comic via a book as well. So that’s not really on.

2nd problem for Tim is, well … for a while he went insane. He bought about a story arch where the main female character became pregnant. All well and fine, I’m all for character development. Then in the space of a few weeks she miscarried. Bang done, now the comic is almost running back to normal. Pardon? Hold on that’s a rather major thing to happen then vanish. Worse than that there was no really reason behind it either. It just sort of happened. Then it ended with barely a whimper from Tim. Most of the web comics I’ve read tend to be in two camps. Either their a weird sort of diary of the comic writer (see The Fart Party, The Devils Panties) but this had nothing to do with anything and then went. Seems a bit detrimental to the subject matter really.

Oh well, that’s my view on the matter. I really think I’ll stop reading CAD just because it’s gone so off track and gotten so crappy now. Stick with Penny Arcade. It’s the BEST gaming web comic on the planet and the writers are proper nice chaps setting up multiple charities. That and I’ve got comic books 1, 2 and 5.

The two original Steam threads.

Thread 1 - Thread 2.

As well as the sounds a picture of the new Heavy unlock have floated up onto the internet. No confirmation of this and if it’s a fake it’s a damn good one but;

As you can see it’s a rather harsh looking thing. Thing is it looks to be like a VERY heavy sniper cannon with five shots. I’ve always found the heavy to be good at just scaring the crap out the other team. Only giving him five shots short of screws that over.

Than again could all just be a fake.

Oh well, time will tell.

 Thanks to the chaps and lady of the O.C. forum for the info. 

As you all know I’m a great fan of TF2. I play it allot (50 odd hours in two weeks) and normally only play on one server as it’s the server I like with the people I like.

Problem is, having played on a server I like with people I like; I’ve started to get all elitist. As more new players flood onto the server, the problem of idiots playing grows. I know I shouldn’t get pissed off with new players but crappit, they all tend to be dumb as a sack of spuds. Take an example today on OilRig, a big fairly complex map I’ve been on a few times.

Spawn on map and as I medic have to follow people. I have no problem with the people I normally play with. Baz, Rummy, Monster all know what I’m like and do the thing of listening. So I following some guy and über him (mistake, big one) then spend the next 10secs going; “Dude, left. Left, man. On the left, F**KING LEFT” über runs out and the demo man on the left kills us both. So I don’t bother healing anyone, change to sniper and pop a few head (okay 2 with 25 shots. I’m a crap sniper) till the boring ass round ends.

People don’t seem to get that Team Fortress 2 is a TEAM game and should be played as such, even just a little. Was me and Baz again and even Baz was getting frustrated at everyone for being complete tits. Few round later some more [O.C. Regs] turn up and we get a good game in then I bugger off to Top Gear.

I know I should probably give the new people a chance but what’s the point when they all seem to act like complete tits. One end you got the clueless tit and the other end of the spectrum is the noisy balless tit with a voice so high it cracks glass. These people get muted as they fall into the “John Gabriel’s greater internet fuckwad theory” and shouldn’t be allowed near a mic.

It just gets very frustrating with new players. They just don’t seem to know what’s going. Rather than ask they screw about and act like tits. Did find one decent person today who I asked to fix my mate Burny’s SG which he nicely did so that’s the plus, some people are not tits.

I just been wanting a good game all day and it has yet to emerge. Okay the Ninjas and O do tend to be a giggle even if it’s via text but still.

Bloody (I’m going to say it) noobs.

Good: Clannad.

“Tomoya Okazaki is a third year student labelled as a delinquent. Everything seems to be unchanging for his school life until he meets Nagisa, and Tomoya finds that his life is about to change. He starts to have dreams of a bleak world and meets a girl who has the ability to fuse junk together in order to create things, and doing so, creates a body out of junk for him. He is then reborn into this empty world and follows around the girl, the only two existences who are “alive.”"

~Fansub TV~

Okay, Clannad. I ripped through this series in a few days (that’s good) and really enjoyed it. It’s a lovely moving anime that almost bought me to tears in one or two instances but I have one massive problem with it.

It’s like AIR.

Air is an anime I watched a while back now about a guy who enter a town, meets a girl, girls weird, stuff happens, guy turns into bird and the story loops. It had a very annoy “pardon, what happen?” quality. Luckily Clannad doesn’t have this … past 10 odd eps. The story starts (after some intros and what have you) with Fuko. A little girl with a thing about starfish. Really, I can’t say much but the story goes fairly screwed up and weird then just starts over without Fuko … sort of. It’s very weird, but still good.

Anyway, bar that Clannad is very nice. I loved every character in it and really enjoyed watching stories unfold in a nice little order and it was all very lovely if a bit sappy. Still, if you want some nice romantic (mostly romantic) with some comedy and don’t fell like watching the 20,000 ecchi school comedies then give Clannad a shot.

Mmmm, old school: Outlaw Star. 

“Outlaw Star follows the outlaw Gene Starwind and his eleven year-old business associate, Jim Hawking. Together they run a small jack-of-all-trades business on the backwater planet Sentinel III. After the two take a job as bodyguards for a mysterious outlaw, they find themselves the owners of the XGP15A-II, a highly advanced prototype spacecraft, and the caretakers of a bio-android named Melfina. Through the course of the series, the crew grows to include the assassin “Twilight” Suzuka and Aisha Clan-Clan, a Ctarl-Ctarl and former Ambassador of the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire.”

~Wiki~

A bit of the old school for you, Outlaw Star. Been kicking about a while but I’ve just got back in touch with it so … meh.

A nice comedy mixed with a nice blob of action to keep everyone entertained. The story follows Gene the outlaw and his crew in search of the Galactic Leyline. Think pirates in space after treasure and your pretty much there. Just with more people and giant armed space ships … and castor guns.

The castor gun brings the silly-ness of magic into the mix. Gene owns a castor gun, it basically fire magic at people to achieve some random effect. Problem is the bullets are expensive and Gene is cheap, leading to hilarity.

Okay, some of the funny is a bit crap and the whole series has a bit of the Cowboy Bebop (was made just before though) and the animation is a bit shoddy and changes at times. BUT! The series has a nice bit of charm to it. It’s fun, silly and interesting. If anything it will keep you entertained while you’re watching and there some fan service if you need to go pocket mining at some point. I like this series, was one of the first anime I watched and it was on proper TV (CNX back when CNX existed and was awesome). Go on; give it a shot if you want something a bit simple to watch.

Well, that’s about it for now. Come back next week for more. Really need to do Lucky Star at some point too.

Last Thursday the new Pyro stuff came out for Team Fortress two along with some tweaks and some new flashy bit and what have you.

With new items come the constant of achievement to unlock the new stuff. Which normally results in allot of running about going; “one more kill with the axe and I get my ach …. F**KER SHOT ME!” or a similar sort of thing.

This is why I farm achievement now. Yes it’s a horrible dirty thing but still I wanted the new stuff and I really hate attempting to get achievements. Although allot of the ones with the pyro update you could get over time. Roast 50 heavy’s, destroy X number of Y. It was all stuff you could get over time. I chose to farm it for time and just wanting stuff.

If you never farmed achievements before it’s a horrible soul crushing thing to do. Even worse on an achievement server as you have on ass with a mic playing crap rap music and killing people. So now I use bots which is just as bad.

I farmed my stuff. Went online. Got slated for farming and went about my day.

As there are still a fair too many pyros about I decided to stick with medic and engi for the time being. I got all but one medic achievement and was working towards it (the kill/assist in killing 10 nemesis) so hoped onto the O.C. server and played away.

Mid-way though Pl_GoldRush something happened? I got my last medic achievement. I was bloody ecstatic with glee. I whooped and shouted down my mic and equipped my Uber-Bonesaw.

You know, I really wish I didn’t farm all my pyro ones now. I’ve screwed my scores right over and people really rag on you if you do get via farming. Then again, if I didn’t farm I would play JUST to get the achievement so it’s pretty much the same thing but more annoying.

So, in future I’ll do a bit of a mix. Some farming, some proper play. Some things though I can never see how you would get them UNLESS you farm them. The medic ones like healing 10,000 in one life I could never get near. The pyro ones are allot more softcore in comparison though.

Anyway, that’s about it. Bit rambly and point but sod it.

Just found all this stuff so I’m splatter gunning it into a post.

Ready?

 Pyro Weapons;

The Flare Gun;

“The first Pyro unlockable is The Flare Gun, which replaces the shotgun. It allows the Pyro to ignite an enemy at long range, but does require careful aim on their part. It’s particularly useful for causing havoc on Snipers and Engineers who want to keep their distance.”

Sounds like a crap load of fun!

 The Backburner;

“The second Pyro unlockable is The Backburner. This flamethrower is built for the Pyro who likes to ambush their opponents. It removes the compression blast capability, instead guaranteeing critical hits whenever it’s used on an opponent from behind. To aid in survivability, it grants the Pyro an extra fifty health.”

Right, the stock pyro thrower is getting a compression blast. In that it can fire a compressed ball of air and force things away from the pyro, rockets, scouts that type of stuff. This new weapon removes that BUT adds in the crits and extra health!

The  Axtinguisher;

The third Pyro unlockable is The Axtinguisher. This mighty axe guarantees critical hits on any enemy that’s currently on fire, although it’s significantly weaker against enemies who aren’t. A great combination with the The Flare Gun, or with another Pyro buddy riding alongside doing the igniting.

Maps;

Two new maps. Both made by people who love TF2.

Turbine - A CTF map but a non-crap one. It’s a real hoot to get a couple SG spots and decimate the other team. A well balanced map with fun spots for all. Really good map glad it’s offical now.

Fastlane - Never played so here’s the blurb from the site;

“A control point map with five points, in the style of Badlands. Its symmetrical layout provides for high-speed and well balanced gameplay, while the multiple indoor routes, connected to larger outdoor arenas, provide a wide set of interesting and varied combat spaces. The arena-style control points require solid teamwork to capture and hold. ”

 Achivments;

Combined Fire: Use your shotgun to finish off 20 players you’ve ignited.

Firewall: Ignite 5 Spies who have a sapper on a friendly building.

Cooking the Books: Ignite 5 enemies carrying your intelligence.

Spontaneous Combustion: Ignite 10 cloaked Spies.

Trailblazer: Ignite 10 enemies that have recently used a teleporter.

Camp Fire: Kill 3 enemies in a row, all within the same area.

Lumberjack: Kill 3 people with your axe in one life.

Clearcutter: Kill 6 people with your axe in one life.

Firewatch: Ignite 10 snipers while they are zoomed in.

Burn Ward: Ignite 3 medics that are ready to deploy an Uber-charge.

Makin’ Bacon: Kill 50 Heavies with your flamethrower.

Plan B: Kill 10 enemies while you’re both underwater.

Pyrotechnics: Kill 3 enemies in a single uber-charge.

Arsonist: Destroy 50 Engineer buildings.

Controlled Burn: Ignite 50 enemies capturing one of your control points.

Dead Heat: Kill an enemy in the same second that he kills you.

Pilot Light: Ignite a rocket-jumping Soldier while he’s in midair.

Freezer Burn: Provide enemies with freezecam shots of each of your taunts.

Hot on Your Heels: Kill 50 enemies with your flamethrower, from behind.

Next of Kindling: Ignite an enemy, and the Medic healing him.

Second Degree Burn: Kill a burning enemy who was ignited by another Pyro.

Weenie Roast: Have 2 enemy Scouts on fire at the same time.

Baptism by Fire: Force 10 burning enemies to jump into water.

Fire and Forget: Kill 15 players while you’re dead.

I Fry: Ignite 10 disguised Spies.

OMGWTFBBQ: Kill an enemy with a taunt.

Got A Light?: Ignite an enemy Spy while he’s flicking a cigarette.

BarbeQueQ: Cause a dominated player to leave the server.

Dance Dance Immolation: Kill 3 enemies while they’re taunting.

Hotshot: Kill a Soldier with a reflected critical rocket.

Firefighter: Kill 500 enemies.

Fire Chief: Kill 1000 enemies

Attention Getter: Ignite 100 enemies with the flare gun.

Pyromancer: Do 1 million points of total fire damage.

Hot Potato: Reflect 100 projectiles with your compressed air blast.

>>Full  Set Of Achivment Icons.<<

So there it all is. Ready and waiting. Will write more later as this is my lunch break. Cheers to the guys at The O.C. for point this out. 

 OFFICAL PYRO AND NEW MAP SITE FROM VALVE

The boys over at Valve have been working away and the new updates are coming out for this weekend along with a free weekend!

Lets start though with the new “Meet The” video.

Newest video from the good TF2 boys is “Meet The Sniper”. They seem to have gone a bit differently from previous videos with this. Where as meet the Engi, Scout, Demo where all set inside of maps and the TF2 world we know and love. Meet The Sniper (MTS) is set just in the real world with the sniper as a hired assassin of sort.

So you see him driving an RV, drinking coffee, hacking people up and peeing in jars. So it’s a bit different, but it’s still damn good. It’s still funny, smooth and very damn slick. It’s funny as well from the sniper phoning up his mum.

Anyway, that’s the MTS video.

Pyro Updates, oddly very little has been said about the stuff the pyro is getting. The most I’ve heard if the Axtinguisher which causes a crit for any hit on an enemy on fire, so the Q button is going to get work out with that.

The only other thing if from the MST video, for a few frames you can see what looks like a flare gun, just a big, slightly toy looking sort of gun. Here’s a random pic taken from the MTS video.

Finally.

TF2 is having ANOTHER FREE WEEKEND. This coupled with the pyro updates (meant to be some tweaks and new maps) means the game is going to be flooded with idiots and pyro spamming. Still, if you never had a go it’s worth a shot. It’s a good fun game and if you’re lucky you’ll have a good giggle playing even if there are nothing but pyros running about. Going to lag allot of systems like hell with all that fire kicking about but, oh well.

 ~ Full Steam Blurb HERE~

No?

Really?

Well it’s from the people who have made Sim-insert-random-subject-here games Maxis and is the game that seems to have many going “oooow” over. The idea of the game is to be a god of sorts. No really, you design a little life and let it grow. You start at the single celled level and work your way up to space exploration. Really, it looks rather good.

Thus, being good someone leaked the demo of it early. So I decided to sneak a peek.

After smuggling the demo to my lair I installed it and fire it up. You’re greeted by a few EA/Maxis messages about “this is a demo blah blah” and the like. Then you get to the main sort of screen which to anyone who’s played The Sims will recognise.

Hit the create creature button and your off.

Off to a pink blob. At first it seems a bit crap, till you realise you can mess about with what little bone structure there is. You can pull, twist, stretch it for all it’s worth and that’s just the body.

Moving on you’ll want arms (you don’t need them but meh) which again you can pull, twist, rotate and generally do what ever the crap you like. Really it’s like having a mass of play dough to mess about with. If you don’t like something you can just twist it and stretch it until you do with your godly mouse powers.

Several minutes of twiddling I let my creature walk!

I shall call him Wobbly.

I found that because of where his … it’s .. err .. knees are placed it walked backwards. So I made a pink abomination with backwards legs, a freaky mouth and thumpers.

Thing is, it’s fun to mess with. You watch this thing you made walk and move really rather well. It doesn’t look wrong. It moves as you would expect it. It sort of lumbers about being tall and squawking away at anything it wanted to.

I let it walk around, played with its emotions and general enjoyed its short tragic life (didn’t save Wobbly, the shame).

So, Spore demo impression; It’s pretty damn good really. It’s still sort of early but it’s fun just to make a creature and let it lumber about then try to improve it. Go for a freak or something more human. Or as the guys at Kotaku have done, recreate the Fruit Fucker from Penny Arcade because you can.

I await the MONSTER that will be Spore. It’s going to be damn good for everyone who wanted to control a tiny virtual life.

 Edit.

 Another DNA abortions I made.

Right, the arms. Well … my mouse slipped and … errm … yeah.

After reading The Fart Party for some while I decided to buy the book. I love Julia Wertz’s work. It’s funny and real. It’s not fantasy, sci-fi. It’s Julia’s life in comic form with much swearing and beer!

Anyway, tried to buy the book and found the shop only took Visa. So after a few e-mail back and forth with Julia, I bought the book (as well as a sketch) direct.

Guess what came today?


WHOOP! My book and sketch! As an added bonus I got a cool little scribbly sketch (I do like the scribbly ones) inside the cover.

Awesome book, awesome sketch, awesome scribbly sketch!

So, my thanks to Julia for all the help while she was moving and what have you. Go visit her site.

The Fart Part

MySpace

Flicker

Here’s the Steam blurb: -

“We’ve almost completely wrapped up the next big release for Team Fortress 2, which will focus on the Pyro class, along with the Meet the Sniper movie. We’ve spent time looking at how the recent Medic release went, and have rolled feedback from that release into the new item designs for the Pyro and into the design of the achievements required to unlock those items. One item, shown here in concept form, will be the Axtinguisher. Although it does about half of normal damage to standard run-of-the-mill non-burning enemies, once you light someone on fire the Axtinguisher will guarantee a critical hit.

Along with all of the new content, we’re also going to be making some significant changes to the Pyro class for everyone, regardless of whether they have unlocked any new items.”

 Quoted From Steam.

 So that all sounds lovely. My only problem is with “we’re also going to be making some significant changes”. This to me translates as “we’re going to cock up pyro class”. I think it might be like the demo and having the ammo chopped in half.

Ah well, we’ll have to see what happens. All I do know is much whoring will happen.

~Thanks to Kotaku for original link~