Valve Software, developers of highly successful multi-game title The Orange Box, have recently announced that new achievements will be added to Team Fortress 2 in the coming weeks. There will be 36 in total, all for the Medic class, and they’ll include ‘House Call’, ‘Hypocritical Oath’ and ‘Infernal Medicine’. Further details are not yet available.

In the same announcement, Valve described numerous additions to their online store, including concept art lithographs from other Orange Box games (Portal, Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Team Fortress 2). Also for sale are Portal-themed ‘Aperture Laboratory Holiday Greeting Cards’ and The Orange Box gift certificate packs, which offer a significant saving on the retail price.

Source: PalGN 

Moby Francke is the art director of Team Fortress 2. In an interview at GDC Lyon, he said, “The next thing I’d love to do is not based on realism, but stylizing with a little more in-depth look to the materials in the world. Instead of just having an impressionistic background, or having highly stylized characters. Making the characters a little bit more believable, even incorporating bold design, getting a little bit more specific.”

He indicated that there would be a little bit of slash realism and stylization all at once and said that they have done experiments like that. Besides that, Moby Francke spoke about video games not having unique art styles. He mentioned the high risks to produce a game as a possible reason.

Source article: Game Guru

Posted some Team Fortress news.

Added some more styling to the news section.

Added Soldier page.

Added reviews to the reviews page.

Added comedy section

That’s all for now. Might be more updates coming tomorrow.

I’ve been amongst the thousands of people enjoying Team Fortress 2 since it was finally released a couple of months ago, and I continue to have a great time with it. The graphics, art direction, gameplay, and general atmosphere are all superb and I never seem to get tired of it.I was quite intrigued when I saw a thread on the Steam forums that linked to an image of some missing Team Fortress 2 models. That is, the models themselves exist in the game’s resource files but they can’t be viewed anywhere in the game — they don’t have any textures either.

You can tell what a bunch of them are from their shape alone. The Demoman MIRV grenade (dynamite) we saw in one of the original trailers is there, as well as a bear trap, a fire extinguisher, a crowbar, a funky pistol, and what are presumably various types of grenades prior to their removal. I especially like the Medic’s grenade, which has a cross on the top and clearly resembles the Holy Hand Grenade from Worms.

I don’t think Team Fortress 2 would really have been enhanced by having all these glorious grenades in it, though. The game is already very chaotic and explosive, which would only get a billion times worse if every class could throw a stockpile of devastating grenades into areas where enemies will probably be, just like in Team Fortress Classic (You think trying to break through Dustbowl in Team Fortress 2 is bad? Try the Team Fortress Classic version!). The Demoman alone can wreak havoc in most maps thanks to his grenade launcher and sticky bombs.

Source: http://www.ryansgoblog.com/2007/11/16/missing-team-fortress-2-models-found-in-game-data/

Electronic Arts has told Eurogamer today that The Orange Box for PlayStation 3 will be released in Europe next month on 14th December.

Rumors of a slip to 2008 have been tumbling around behind the scenes in the past week, but an EA spokesperson was adamant that it will be released before the end of the year.

The exact date has now been confirmed since we first published this item a few minutes ago. That’s how fast things move in the fast-moving world of the Internet, players.

Eurogamer asked Valve to comment on the release date yesterday but was told it was still to-be-confirmed.

The Orange Box PS3 port, handled by EA in the UK, brings Half-Life 2, Episode One, Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2 - all hugely critically acclaimed - to a Sony format for the first time.

In its Xbox 360 and PC incarnations we celebrated it all the way up to 10.

Portal, in particular, stood out as one of the most interesting games of the year, while Team Fortress 2 has already attracted an enormous online following. The latter will be playable online over Sony’s PlayStation Network.

Expect an Orange Box PS3 review in the run-up to its December release!

Source: http://www.ps3news.com/PlayStation3/Orange_Box_PS3_in_December-1/ 

Alright, here we go again!

The Contact Us page is now fully active. Here, you can email me directly.

I fixed a few problems that were brought to my attention recently. Thank you again,  TempestTenor.

That’s all for now. More to come.

Here are the last updates for today…

The Times Orange Box PC Review Added

HGamer Review Updated

Added more images to the image gallery

Added more hacks and images to the hacks page

Updated the Advanced Strategies page

Until next time…

The Team Fortress Image Gallery is now live!!!

Once I work out the kinks, everyone will be able to add to the gallery. You will be able to submit your own gibs, intelligence captures, and just overall crazy pictures as long as they are Team Fortress 2 related.

I will make another post once it is open to the public. For now head on over and check it out; I have loaded it up with over 100 pictures to give you an idea of what it will be like!

The Team Fortress Language page has been updated a ton.

A Team Fortress Spy Training Video has been added, along with other updates to the Team Fortress Spy page.

The latest patches have been added as well.

Some other aesthetic things were added to the ul’s and li’s. I’ve also started adding some nice magazine style quotes to the site to emphasize important strategy elements so they aren’t missed.

More updates coming…

The Team Fortress Advanced Strategies page has been updated.

Some strategies for how to kill engineers, spies, medics, and more have been added.

More updates to come…