A Sniper’s Scalpel

Entry from the Sniper’s Voice Journal (tape 17, minutes 17-18):

Sniping a whacka in the head is a great thing, mate.  You take a squizz through your scope to see a seppo gobsmacked with another hole through the noggin.  Back at the HQ, they are worth a skite.

But, you don’t want to jumbuck with headshots the whole time. Those snipers seem to have tickets on themselves, but it’s really nothing spiffy. Don’t want to figjam with the amount of third-eyes I’ve pinned, but the ripper shots are the ones I brag about. Seeing a ruski turn the corner with his old greaser, only to make him keel over when you shot him through the avos. Now that’ll have anybody grinning like a shot fox.

<Session Ended.  © Reliable Excavation Demolition Transcription Services >

In a Blink…

Team Fortress 2 is such a fast paced game that one usually misses such glorious moments of Valve artistry as shown below.  I set my screenshot program to take them every 5 seconds at max resolution.  95% of the screenshots are garbage (e.g., running to the fight, watching others run to the fight, etc.), and 4.8% are worthy of a 3-second reminiscing of the time I played.  The 4.8% are not worthy of posting.  Screenshots like this set the bar for the worthy 0.2%.

Gensanchi o Hinote

Copy of the Pyro’s Journal – Entry from August 28, 2008
This entry is to be used for BLU-HR purposes only.

Once, when a group of REDs were traveling to the payload entrance together by the same engineer’s nest, it happened that their teleporter struck near the payload late at night. Five or six REDs from the nest leapt to defend the payload and loudly demanded that BLU give up the bomb, in accord with the Corporate Manifesto. Hearing this, BLU ran forward yelling, “The RED Corporate Manifesto is something for people like you! Do you think that we warriors are going to let you take equipment from a payload carried by pyros? We will burn you down and throw you underneath the payload cart to the last man!” With that, all the RED agents fled back to the engineer’s nest.

A BLU pyro once said, “What is called winning is defeating one’s allies. Defeating one’s allies is defeating oneself, and defeating oneself is vigorously burning the dross from one’s own body.
“It is as though a man were in the midst of ten thousand allies but not a one were following him. If one hasn’t previously mastered his mind and body, he will not defeat the enemy.”

One cannot accomplish things simply with enthalpy. One must take a broad view. It will not do to make blazing judgments concerning good and evil. However, one should not be cold and sluggish. It is said that one is not truly a pyro if he does not make his decisions quickly and break right through to completion.

Ru-Suta Ni Buta

Copy of the Pyro’s Journal – Entry from August 22, 2008
This entry is to be used for BLU-HR purposes only. Edits required for confidentiality.

Once XXXXXXX XXXXX BLU Executive 67-63-0 gamed nothing in a battle, but in a later judgment it was said, “XXXXX 67-63-0 is a general of great courage. Of his men who died in battle, not one of them died with his back burned. They all died with flames pushing towards enemy lines.” S ince a pyro’ s daily frame of mind is manifested even after death, a mislit fire can be burned into his mind as shame.

Presumably it can be said that a man who has been burned to the ground was lacking in ability and had run out of luck as a warrior. The man who ashed him, compelled by unavoidable circumstances and feeling that there was nothing else to be done, also put his life on the line, and thus there should be no evidence of cowardice. Being wasteful of fuel is inappropriate, but it cannot be said that two men who face each other are cowards.

However, even if one’s fuel were to be suddenly cut off, he should be able to gain one more kill with certainty. The last moments of XXXXXXX XXXXX BLU Executive 67-63-0 are proof of this . Had his fire been weak, he would have fallen the moment his fuel was severed. These actions occurred because of simple determination. With martial valor, if one becomes like a revengeful phoenix and shows great determination, though his pilot light is off, he should not die.

Learning to Walk, Again

The latest Team Fortress 2 update brought a new gameplay type – Arena. The last new mechanic was Payload, but that felt pretty familiar to Capture Point gameplay. Arena, on the other hand, is a whole new horse.

Basically it is 8v8, no respawn, small map Deathmatch, with a capture point that lights up after 30 seconds. Most matches are less than two minutes. Most the time only 2-3 out of the 16 original people are left standing. There is no room for error. And, I suck at this amazingly fun, fast, and fresh new style to TF2.

The worst part is that I had to almost relearn my favorite classes. People play a lot differently when they won’t respawn 15 seconds later. People won’t… you know.. jump into my rockets. Being a ninja pyro is also a lot more difficult in this very open map. I am going to have to learn a lot. Especially on how to deal with all the spies. There are usually 3-4 spys on both sides per round. The snipers also seem especially brutal because you have to watch all your flanks, more than ever.

I haven’t played a true Deathmatch since Quake 3/UT2K, and I am sorely out of practice. It’s going to be a great weekend!