KritzKast

Hold on to your hats lads, we’re losing a few species of unusual headgear. Valve are messing with the status quo a little and taking the hats first introduced to the game, back out of the game. Never fear though, there’s new items on the way. The Cave has promo items,  Last Straw, Grizzled Growth and Prize Plushy. You’re in luck if you need to raise some dosh to buy Steam games as the Steam Community Market is now accepting Genuine items too. On to the awesomest news we’ve heard in 2013; Gabe Newell has fessed up to The Nerdist Podcast (at the 1hr, 1min mark) that a 15 minute TF2 film is in the works. In other steam news valve showed off their first official Steam Box – the Xi3 Piston at CES 2013 and there are more boxes in the works. Gabe takes the time to explain why a full on body suit controller isn’t the best solution. Ruskeydoo gets his name in PCGamer with an article about item makers. We also get to see what Robin Walker looks like in a second article. No pics of this brother Kevin though. News on MagicalKillaCow‘s mini marathon for Cancer Research UK: over £1111.11 was donated on the day, far exceeding his original aspirations. Our thanks to everyone who donated or came alone, or both. Special mention to Helene for working tirelessly to make sure everyone showed up and had a good time. Speaking of fun on our servers, and Helene, we’re now running a KillCam comp. The idea is that the admin of the week will be wearing an orange Max head called First Among Equals. Get yourself killed by them, take their pic and post it here. The best/funniest/weirdest image wins the prize of the month.

That’s it everybody. Smissmas is over. No more presents, No more festive keys, No more festive weapons. Don’t worry. there is no need to panic. We are here for you. Why don’t we all sit down and watch the latest TF2 Mix up together  That’s right, Its out. to celebrate, we’ve grabbed Evil Ninetales (one of the lucky raffle winners in the match) to join us this week. After less than a week, the videos have already racked up half a million views. To watch them, Either click here for the first video, or head over to TF2Mixup.com for all the details surrounding the match. Strangly, that isn’t the only charity event TF2 is associated with this week. We also want to tell you about MagicalKillaCow’s 12 hour stream of TF2 on Saturday the 12th. As you can see from the picture above, some people who might be dropping by included ourselves, Sal, Byte, Kiptv, Star_ and Stabby Stabby. If your part of our steam group, facebook or twitter, we’ll let you know exactly when its happening and how you can help. Other news in the world of TF2 this week include the UGC Allstars matches, featuring our very own Ruskeydoo. Ready Steady Pan Season 2 will be starting on Monday the 14th and even have a fancy new poster and website to celebrate it. Plus we ask why did somebody delete Golden Wrench number 38 Please don’t forget that you have a chance to win yourself a Vintage Lo-Fi Longwave by surgesting questions to ask brad pitt of Backpack.tf fame. Click here for more details

We’re back! Following our moments of insanity breaking into song for the KK200 show we’ve much to catch up on. Tempest didn’t quite make it through Smissmass unharmed so we were happy to have Helene, our head admin step up to fill the void. Valve’s Mecha update brought with it new weapons in the form of the Vaccinator, Loose Cannon and Rescue Ranger. There were warm winter wears in the Nice Winter Crates and weapons wrapped in fairy lights in the Naughty Winter Crates. Though you could bypass the drop system all together and grab the lot, including reindeer hats and reindoonicorns in the Smissmass Bundle. While we’re on the topic of buying things, it’s now possible to buy in game items outside of the game Mann Co. has finally broken free of TF2 and is running their own store website. Aside to one side the Mecha Update also brought with it a new MvM map, Big Rock, the Engineer Robot (we thought it would never happen) and a slew of fancy new giant robot types (in hats); Giant Burst Fire Soldier, Captain Punch, Sergeant Crits and Major Bomber. Oh and a new comic too. Map makers, the unsung heroes of the TF2 creator community finally get some love in form of the stamps. When you taunt on a map a trail of stamps follow in your wake, assuming you’ve bought a stamp for that map. The more your buy the longer your trail. I wonder if you leave a trail of invisible stamps if you’re playing as spy? Adult swim see a little more of their work appreciated in TF2. Someone at Valve must love these guys as there’s now an entire pack of items with hints of characters you may recognise from the mad genius animators. We didn’t though.. The previously closed beta for Steam on Linux has been opened up to the public. It’s only a matter of time till we get Neon Genesis Evangelion style pet penguins in game now. It’s too late to make a Smissmass present now but that’s okay since there aren’t any left but Mann Co. branded GameCom Commander headsets were briefly available on the Valve store.  Technically you can still get your hands on (should this be “your ears on”, or “on your ears”, no probably not) them directly from plantronics. Lastly, a quick update on our hat, the Lo-Fi Longwave. We gave out close to 700 of these beauties following the release of KK200. Twitter, facebook and Steam each received a budget of 200 (plus a few more). They have all now been distributed, largely due to the speedy and efficient coding of JimboMcB. Please join these groups if you haven’t done so yet. We’ve already got things brewing for 2013 and news of them will surely break there first.

Its actually here. Episode 200. A number that most podkasts can only dream of. But the only reason we have been able to live this dream is because of you, the fans. Thank you for everything you have done for us. Now. because its Christmas  and because the number 200 looks so damn good. We are going to treat you. Instead of your usual Episode, we are going to give you another musical episode. We hope you enjoy listening to it, as much as we did making it…………..IT WAS REALLY HARD TO MAKE. KritzKast wishes to thank the following people for their contributions to this the most epic episode we’ve ever made: Benjamoose – TF2 wiki Greaver – GreaverTV Sal – fatmop Nahanni – Apocalypse gaming Eric – EricRuthGames Xerxes – UKCS Miss Stabby – Steam Profile JimboMcB – youtube Comedian – VanillaTV Lastly, we need to put out a special Thank You to Valve you wonderful dogs, in all your awesomeness for creating the most wonderful game of the year. Merry Smissmass one and all! Update: visit our facebook, twitter and steam group for a chance of getting your very own non-vintage Lo-Fi Longwave hat this Smissmas

It’s good to have someone on the kast who actually knows what’s going on, we have Ruskeydoo. He’s made a fair crack with experiments to figure out what the Ullapool caber changes mean. With Christmas (in Tempest’s case literally) round the corner, Valve add back in the Naughty and Nice Winter crates. A search function is added to the Mann Co. store. Players who owned the the free Faerie Solitaire game before December 13th get the Genuine Faerie Solitaire Pin. Steam Game Guides appear on the beta version of Steam. But the biggest story this week is the Steam Community Market. Finally there’s a legitimate way to buy and sell 2nd hand items. All money goes back into your steam wallet and Valve takes a share of the profit, again. In other Valve news, theirs reason to believe that the Steam Linux beta will be opened up soon and Value opens a studio in San Francisco. Finally, back to the community for news that the next Ready Steady Pan Tournament will see 70 teams for North America and Europe, though only 5 teams have signed up in Asia to date. PotW goes to SuperSoupy for his festive video entitled “How the Spy Sapped Christmas”, shown below. This week’s show was edited by our new guest editor, DougRattmAnnThEpyRo - our thanks to you good sir.

Just to keep you interested before you start reading the rest of the episode. This week we discuss redundant Caber tactics, Play with toys and rip Samuel Jackson a new asshole. Got your attention? Good. Now your with us, I’ll tell you in more detail about how we talk about big picture being available for the masses. Plus we have a great discussion as to why the Caber nerf was justified but also upsetting. After that, how could we not talk about VGA10. Sorry i should rephrase that. How could we not talk about VGA10 and how Sam Jackson shouldn’t host it. (If Sam Jackson is reading this. I have huge respect for your body of work, So please don’t quote the bible and kill me) However, We couldn’t get through this episode with out talking about toys. We’ve got a toy for everybody. If your into sandvitches (I’m looking at your Ruskey) then ThreeA have given an extra 200 Sandvitches for valve to sell on their store. However if your looking to buy one of them. your already too late. However your not too late to pre-order your sniper Gaming heads Statue. It may cost a lot, But boy to they look good. Lastly we have been given a sneak preview of the NECA Action figures for the Pyro and Demoman. If you haven’t pre-ordered yours, check out our blog post to help you find the best place for you. In the rest of the TF2 world, we talk about the Finals of the Round Robin Mentor Tournament. Please have a watch, its a good game. While your at it, watch this charity match over at Bar Room Heroes. You get to root for either the young-lings or the elderly folk. Plus there is a possibility that we may have another ready steady pan tournament. All in all this turns out to be a great episode.

Four of the usual’s are joined by the infamous fatmop for this the one hundred and ninety seventh episode. Did i say fatmop? I meant Sal….you know Sal. What do you mean you don’t know Sal. Well get to listening, then you’ll know who Sal is. This week we give our opinions on the Saxxy winners. In fact its a very Saxxy episode. We go through the 3 Saxxy items that drop in the game, The Tuxxy, Saxxy Clapper Badge and the Memory Maker. Not only that but we give you a look at a real life saxxy to be unveiled at the spike video game awards. Like I said, Its a very saxxy show.  Out side the Saxxys we celebrate women…..that sounded less sexist in my head, sorry about that. I am of course talking about the NA vs EU ladies showmatch ran by the Round Robin crew. If you’d like to have a look at the match, click here. We also talk about TF2Center.com, a possible replacement for the slightly abandoned TF2Lobby.com. However, its not up and running yet, but they have been working on it for 3 months in secret and estimate another 3 more before going public. To hear more about the project why not listen to the latest episode of Work In Progress, where Agro talks with Marty, the man behind it all. Over at TF2Maps.net they are having another of their highly popular mapping contests. This time its all about MvM, So if you’ve always wanted to make an MvM map, or just want to watch other people try, Head on over to mvm.tf2maps.net and get all the details. Just remember you’ve got until early February to get it done. We also talk about how Steam vouchers have made their way over to the UK and show you a crazy video of a TF2 mode based on Binding of Issaac. Yep. thats right. crazy times indeed. Did we mention we had Sal on this episode?

It seemed like the show was going to be a little light on content this week. Luckily for us, we know how to turn a small amount of news into a large amount of debate. Ranging from what F2P players can actually do, to how we should organize our backpack. This is due to the minor update with massive affect on traders. Including the New “Upgrade to Premium Gift” and the back being able to expand to 2000 slots. But also news in the world of trading is the new restriction that forces players to have steamguard on before any trade can take place. Some are not happy with this, Personally we are. This week also saw the end of the Saxxy voting. Now its a case of waiting til Friday for the winners to be made public. Except of cource for the best overall winner, which will be announced on GTTV for the Spike tv Game Awards. We also take the time to remind you to follow the TF2mixup’s Facebook page. Although your chance to play in the match may have passed, We can tell you that there will soon be a way to get hold of in game items signed by some of the famous players of the match. So keep your eyes pealed for more info coming soon. Are you into Comp? Are you into Stats? Do you like numbers? Do we have a site for you. Take a look at Logs.tf and see in amazing detail how some people play, What classes are more vulnerable on certain maps and how many kills people really get. When you add onto that the new pyro poster on the valve store (that we said was coming in episode 191….called it) and the steam sale, its very easy to see how what some would consider a slow week actually turns out to be very big indeed.

Cockfighter! There, I said it. Possibly the stupidest name for a hat we’ve had yet. What makes even less sense it that it’s the tie-in for Scribblenauts Unlimited’s arrival on Steam. So it only seems fair that the idiocy continues with ducks being used as the tie-in for a super violent garrot and run, Hitman: Absolution. Here is where fairness gets out of the car then rolls it off the cliff just to hide its tracks. Facepunch reveals the badass weapons that didn’t make it into the game with this cross over. In other news, TF2Mixup has only a few days left, ESEA LAN happens without eXtine, Sonic All Stars gets some TF2, Russian card scammers make a profit from buds and PubComp becomes the living dead.

Its all over guys. Halloween has left us. But don’t despair  so much awesome stuff has happened in the TF2 world this week. This is the week that Gabe revealed to the world (via 4chan) That valve is working on source2. The new Graphics engine to drive Valves future releases. Click here if you want to see this histroric moment. Speaking of historic moments, This week Steam arrived on Linux….for a small number of people. This marks a huge moment where TF2 can be played on 3 different Operating systems in the same game. Is this the first game to do this? How could we top news like that? By telling you that YOU…Yes YOU, Could be playing a match with Notch, Robin walker, Tay Zonday and Day[9]. Thats right TF2 Mix up is giving you another chance to play a game of Team fortress with a great selection of Game developers and Internet celebrities. Check out TF2mixup.com to find out how you could be part of it. Elsewhere in the world of TF2 we have been blessed with all kinds of viewing pleasure. How about a Highlander game between eXtv and Vanilla TF2 Casted by kritzkast. Sound good to you? maybe you like your TF2 more main stream. How about a robot chicken sketch featuring TF2? Or maybe your into Community driven content, Then we have 2 Saxxy Videos you need to see now. Bad Medicine and Pyro in love.

This week we have the wonderful Droogie on the show. If the names sounds unfamiliar to you, this is the man who uncrates 100 Crates each month and publicly gives away their contents (with the exception of unusual hats). However, Halloween is not over yet (when this was recorded) so valve have added more stuff to keep the fun going. The biggest change is how Merasmus levels up. Each time he is killed in a game, he levels up and come back even harder. Now killing him once, is just not enough. He must be killed over and over again. Outside of the halloween update, Valve seem to be prepairing. They are prepairing for linux by updating the Beta. However, More importantly, they are prepairing for the Saxxys. you can now submit your entires on the website. Not only that, but you can submit them directly from SFM. But do it quickly, the closing date is on Thursday (November 15th). Have you heard of Faerie Solitaire? You might be hearing it a lot soon, Because this page……..click it, Would lead you to believe that Faerie Solitaire and TF2 are going to be smashed together in the form of promo items. Also in this episode we talk about how valve fire people from the company and tell you where to find all the Vods from i46 ….Oh, I almost forgot……HAPPY BIRTHDAY GABE!  

Its that time of year again. When the world is full of spooks and specters and TF2 is full of awesome. Its time for Scream Fortress. This year Valve (and the community) have done an amazing job. Starting with a hidden image and a Great Comic, we very quickly got exposed to the massive List of items that can be found in the way of gifts, Voodoo items and eerie crates. But on top of that, we’ve got 2 new haunted maps. One of which has a brand new boss, Merasmus. Besides a great boss fight, including elements of prophunt, The map also has the wheel of fate. That is hella fun. The other map is wave 666. It looks like coaltown painted halloween…but with one big difference. Zombies, Lots and Lots of Zombies. (See picture above). However, it wasn’t just valve that got into the halloween spirit this year, we also had a massive boost of items from the Night of the Living Update II. Just like last year that gathered a large quantity of fan made items and gave you and easy way to install them in your game. This year however, they have developed a great way of showing off their items in a unique and fun way of exploring. Additionally this week saw a full year of the workshop being open. seeing how most of the stuff we talk about in this episode was involved in with the workshop in some way, it feels fitting that we celebrate.

Mann up you dogs! Saxton is on the warpath, gunning for all those fools who leave the MvM servers early. If you don’t understand the FAQ we have a crack at explaining it. Our apologies if we make it worse. At least now one of the mysteries of the special boxes has been solved. A gift of unknown splendor awaits those who purchase the Portal Soundtrack on CD. While we’re on the topic of gifts, the XCOM preorder promo items are now tradeable, craftable, giftable and at least one more variant of “able”. Coming just-a-little-bit late, the 2nd annual Mann Co store sale is now on. One thing you won’t find in the Mann Co store though is a the Pyro and Demoman figures created by NECA. These beauties are 6.5-7″ tall and an absolute bargan. Though with a first run limited to just 10,000 you’d better get yours fast. While you’re fingering your plastic, you may want to put some cash aside for this, soon to arrive in the Valve store, a painting of the Pyro. Valve have a hiccup with Steam. A security exploit specialist finds a way to manipulate your PC using vulnerabilities. Fear not though, it’s already been fixed. Lastly, one of the longest running tournaments of this year is finally finished. Agro got to shoutcast the closing donk donk donk minutes of the Ready, Steady, Pan! tournament, alongside Skully and Comedian of VanillaTV.  

If you thought that you had completed all of MvM, Then you are wrong. This week Valve added 2 new Tours of duty. If you think of what we’ve had so far as easy mode, then Oil Spill would be medium difficulty and Gear grinder is Expert mode. But for your more difficult task, you are rewarded with new loot. Also added in this update were 8 more mysterious gifts that are currently unobtainable. Is something big coming on the horizon? Meanwhile, If you have a highlander team, make sure they sign up to season 3 of ETF2L’s Highlander league. The sign ups started Monday 15th and will last til the 23rd. Soon after that we will all be treated to more highlander matches then we can shake a stick at. But until then we have 1 Huge match that you’ll want to look up. SNSD and Sydicate, The 2 best highlander teams from North America and Europe went head to head on Sunday. What to know which continent is best at highlander? Check out the Vods here. As for our “Community Corner”, We have 2 videos to show you. The first one is a single player map that lovingly smashes Super Meat Boy and TF2 together. The video shows this work in progress map taking you through all the levels of Super Meat Boy, But played out in TF2. Our second video is….well……Tell you what, Just click the link, you be the judge.

It’s hard to say goodbye, especially to those who’ve given us so many happy moments. Which is why we’re saying farewell, so long and until next time to Shwiggan, the animator behind so many beloved and quirky (if somewhat dubious) SFM shorts. The irony of his departure is that it coincides neatly with the release of information about the 2012 Saxxys. In other news arguably the best two Highlander teams from North America and Europe; Syndicate and SNSD, are to play a show match on Sunday 14th Oct at 9pm CEST. The dastardly fellows at VanillaTV will be livestreaming at the exact time of our live broadcast. I wonder if I can get away with hosting at the same time as watching? At least we can play TF2 lobby again. At the time we recorded it was down and had been for several days. I guess the code was remastered to fix their problems. Speaking of Codemasters. our friends there have sent us a promo copy of their new racing game, F1 2012. Rather than make a big song and dance about it, we figured we’d just give it out to whoever’s dumped the most cash into our donation box. Call it a big “Thank you” for keeping us afloat. Also in line for a “thank you” in the form of a KritzKast Vintage Lo-Fi Longwave is TheMinttu. His artwork dons our show notes here but we’ve talked about him many times in the past. Click on the player of the week to take you to his TF2 gallery. Lastly we have two snippets of news we think you’ll like. The first is the Unlocks Only Tournament where you’re old to leave your stock items in the closet and play with stuff that didn’t come in the box with the game.  Secondly the “Blood Bothers” comic to celebrate the dawn of the MvM era has been reconstructed into a living breathing YouTube video. Check it out below.