Team Fortress 2 Halloween Events: Spooktacular Fragging

Every October, Valve Software gives a special treat to all the gamers who love the spirit of Halloween.  This treat is the annual Team Fortress 2 Halloween event.  I must say, whether you love Valve or hate them, you have to admire the fact that they're still supporting TF2 all these years after its 2007 release date.  So let's dive in and look at all the awesome features of this event.

Back in 2009, Valve initiated their first Halloween event in TF2.  They released a new king of the hill map called Harvest, as well as a Halloween-themed counterpart called Harvest Event.  The event map is set at nighttime with various visual touches to get you into the Halloween spirit.  These include jack-o-lanterns scattered around the map, tombstones, and re-skinned health kits which are now represented by candies and cauldrons.

Also placed around the map are pumpkins with sticks of dynamite strapped to them, which will explode when shot.  The highlight of Harvest Event is its resident ghost, which spawns at various locations on the map and slowly wanders around.  If you venture too close to it, your character will shriek in fear and will be unable to attack for a few seconds, leaving you vulnerable.

The ghost freaks out the Demoman.

After the inaugural 2009 event, the TF2 Halloween specials have become more elaborate with many more new features.  Each year Valve will either release a pair of maps (one standard map, along with its Halloween-themed counterpart), or they will give a standard map a complete Halloween makeover.  One notable case is Mann Manor, which is an extremely detailed counterpart of Mountain Lab, complete with spooky library sections, dark holes with creepy eyes peering out at you, and hair-raising noises throughout.

Mann Manor.

Instead of a simple ghost wandering around, all Halloween events after 2009 have introduced boss monsters which will spawn at various intervals.  Notable bosses include a gigantic floating eyeball which fires missiles, and the Horseless Headless Horsemann (Valve's humor at its finest), who runs around the map swinging a giant axe.

These monsters contain huge amounts of HP and will attack all the players on the server, therefore the best way to defeat them is for both teams to (temporarily) put aside their differences and work together to take down the boss.  Defeating these bosses will give players a special item, such as the Horseless Headless Horsemann's head (makes no sense but that's the whole point), which is a wearable hat.

Speaking of items, there are quite a few Halloween-specific goodies to grab.  Through random gift drops you'll be able to pick up Halloween masks (really just paper bags with a TF2 character's face drawn on it), worn-out top hats, and even class-specific Halloween costumes.  Costumes must be collected piece by piece, but once you complete a set you're usually rewarded with humorous results.  For example, the Engineer has a costume resembling a giant fly, which causes his voice to sound extremely high pitched.  The Soldier's robot costume unlocks a whole new set of voice commands, as well as a new robot-dance taunt.

Speaking of dancing, what would Halloween be without Thriller?  The developers at Valve were awesome enough to give a special Thriller dance taunt to all classes, which can only be used when the Halloween events are active.


Last but not least, a recent addition to Team Fortress 2's Halloween festivities is Zombie Fortress, which is a set of new game modes that will have players controlling both regular classes and zombies, depending on their team.  I guess Valve wasn't satisfied with just Left 4 Dead?

If you're a fan of Halloween and online first-person shooters, you should absolutely check out Team Fortress 2 when this special event occurs.  The game is free after all.  The nicely themed maps and intense boss battles are something to behold, and we can only hope that Valve continues this tradition for years to come!

Have you guys tried out the TF2 Halloween events?  If so, which one was your favorite?

The Disturbingly Awesome Zombies of Valve Games

Happy Halloween everyone!  What better day to play some scary games than this?  Maybe you're planning on taking a tour of the mansion in Resident Evil 1, or making your way through the fog in Silent Hill, or turning off all the lights and visiting Tingle Island in Wind Waker.

Seeing as this is the time for the rising dead, how about we take a look at some video game zombies?  Not just any zombies, but the zombies in Valve games.  This is because I find that Valve puts a little more creativity into these creepers, rather than copy-pasting the standard shuffling brain-eating undead monster.  With that said, let's start off with the Half-Life games.

Headcrab Zombies (Half-Life series)

End my suffering...release Episode 3!

Well there is definitely shuffling and brain-eating going on here, but not in the usual sense.  Headcrab zombies are the result of the inter-dimensional alien invasion that occurred in Half-Life 1.  These zombies are created when aliens called Headcrabs latch onto a person's head, bite through the skull, and then take control of said person's brain.  The result is that the host is alive and fully conscious while he is under control of the Headcrab.  The zombies come in a few forms, such as the standard Headcrab zombie pictured above, as well as the "fast" zombie (this is more of a Left 4 Dead type of zombie that can run and climb):

Note that the Headcrab probably forced the host to tear off his own skin.

And even a zombie that gives other Headcrabs a piggy-back ride:

Disturbed enough yet?  No?  Great!  Because it's time to move on to the Valve series dedicated completely to zombies, Left 4 Dead.

The Infected (Left 4 Dead series)

 Keeping with what seems to be a Valve zombie tradition, the zombies in the Left 4 Dead games are not undead.  The Infected are people who have contracted a fast spreading virus which is kind of like rabies, only much more extreme.  The Infected are alive but have lost their humanity.  They can't speak, they can't use tools or weapons, and they kill non-infected survivors by beating them down with their bare hands, all while growling and grunting like the sick beasts they have become.  The Infected can still feel pain but that doesn't stop them from charging at you even after you've shot off an arm or blown a gigantic hole in their stomach.

The most disturbing and cool zombies of the bunch are the special Infected, which are mutated forms of the regular zombies, but with their own special abilities.

For example, there's the Smoker, who has an extremely long tongue which it uses to entangle survivors and pull them to their doom:

There's also a special Infected called the Boomer, who vomits all over the survivors, which attracts huge hordes of the standard Infected:

In my opinion, the most disturbing special Infected is the Spitter, an extremely mutated Infected who coughs up burning acid which has done a number on her face:

There are plenty more special Infected in the Left 4 Dead games,and as you can see, they are all fitting to give you nightmares:

This concludes our quick look at some of the uniquely disturbing zombies in Valve games, hope this was able to contribute to the Halloween spirit!

Portal Mania

For all you Portal fans out there, now is your chance to grab Portal 2 at a great price. Steam is having a midweek sale, with Portal 2 priced at $15!

I also wanted to share an interesting video that my friend sent me. The video is about a Portal-type game created in the Unity 3D game engine, using a different approach to the portal gun we all know and love. In this game you take a snapshot of the screen, and then project the snapshot onto a wall. This allows you to step through the projected snapshot into the area you took a picture of. It's kind of weird to explain, so here is the video:


What's really interesting is that the portals allow you to travel back in time to the moment you took the snapshot. I hope Valve is keeping an eye on this, it would be a great feature to have in Portal 3!