Check it out guys, there is a Team Fortress 2 special going on now through November 2nd. There is some new hats involved as well as some steam achievements, and you’ll also be treated to haunted maps and exploding pumpkins. Also, you have less than two hours from the beginning of this post to purchase TF2 for 2.50$. That’s right, only two dollars and fifty cents. Its normally, what, like twenty bucks? You’d be crazy not to pick this up, but hurry, ’cause it’ll end soon. Enjoy the Halloween weekend. Check out the official post on their blog here.

While Left 4 Dead 2 is garnering all kinds of flak, Team Fortress 2 has a humble Halloween update. I love Team Fortress for this kind of stuff. It just makes it feel like the game is organic, and that I’ll keep wanting to go back in for more. Also, I’m not expecting anything from TF2, so its all better than anticipated, you know? I’m sure I’ll see you in game for some spooky fun.

I just witnessed a video for this game today. Witnessed, like witnessing a murder. I’m posting it here for you, and let it never be said that we didn’t give all games a shot on Pixel Well. As for the content? You decide.

As one commenter, Torque_AOD, on the Joystiq posting aptly said, “The pun alone makes me want to punch a baby.”

Video after the break.

Another great reason to get Modern Warfare 2, besides being able to play it at midnight on release, is the implementation of Steamworks throughout. This will allow players to hop from one computer to the next, or one Xbox to the next, and retain all of their profile’s properties, such as achievements and, I’m guessing, things like killstreak configurations. Here’s what Infinity Ward said with regards to Steamworks:

“Steamworks will make it possible for us to have a closer connection to our fans, and enable us to support our community much more than ever before. Steam is the hands down leader in offering a community focused experience on PC and the inclusion of Steamworks has allowed us to deliver the most feature-rich PC version to ever come from Infinity Ward, which at the end of the day will mean the most to our fans.”

This is a huge move forward for Steamworks, which I whole-heatedly support. The concept seems simple, and I actually wish that more games would use Steam’s budding technology. Recently I’ve gotten into Steamworks through Left 4 Dead, retaining my game settings even when I had uninstalled the game. Whats next will be the implementation of Steam Cloud, which as I recall will keep your saved games.

What has yet to be seen is whether or not the dedicated server boycotters will get their wish and we’ll see a retrofitting of dedicated servers in game. I’m thinking its a long shot.

So you may have seen by now that Modern Warfare 2 is available for pre-purchase on Steam. We here at Pixel Well have discussed to a large extent the way we will partake of the gift that is to be Modern Warfare 2, and I personally think I’ll opt for the Steam version. I was pretty excited to see that its finally up on Steam, having check a few days ago, but similar to others of you on teh webz I felt like the $60.00 price tag was a little stunning. But why? Steam gives us this really interesting paradigm shift. I remember being well-prepared to pay $60.00 for a game in the days of yore, heading off to Best Buy as soon as someone could give me a ride. And now I feel its obviously a rip-off; the game is worth it, but wont the price go down sometime soon, like before Christmas? Can I wait? Now the adept shopper may say that they just waited for retail, but the thing is, back then, that was work. Steam makes everyone a bargain hunter, nay, assassin. In fact, oddly enough, I just bought Assassin’s Creed off of Steam a couple of days ago because it was just $5. I had been waiting for it, and I knew I would know as soon as it happened.

So theres the folks preordering the night-vision goggles limited edition, reserving it at Gamestop… Me, well, maybe I’ll just wait a week or two and see if it goes on sale. How do you feel about it? I mean, that Left 4 Dead 2 trailer almost made me impulse preorder the game, especially at a discount. And that’s where this is really going. With so many games coming out, can companies afford to throw out a $60.00 price tag? The end result is that we as gamers win; Steam is the bargain tool of the future. Lets just hope Modern Warfare 2 drops in price in the near future. Not that we have anything to complain about, when everyone in Australia will have to shell out $90.00 to get there hands on a copy.

So some of you may know by now the awesomeness that is the second Left 4 Dead 2 trailer. For everyone else, check it out right here. Somehow, this video alone sold me on the game. Does anyone else think Valve’s facial animation is the best they’ve ever seen? How about the part where the undead horde is cloven in twain by a chainsaw wielding Coach, freeing an ensared Ellis? Man, Valve, make a movie. And more games.

Whats crazy about this is that Syndic and I were just talking about this last night as we drove back from a rousing D&D session with Eighth and Aeqoureus; using Microsoft’s touch table platform, Surface, developing a mapping system that let you do things on the fly. This was after we went over certain stats on some of the player characters that were kind of off base. So a computerized system would be great– in fact, why not have a dynamic map system, so that you could generate combat encounters on the fly and keep track of everything?

Well, the guys at Carnegie Mellon University beat us to the punch I’m afraid. They’re working on a program called “Surfacescapes” which will allow a band of heroes a dynamic interface that recalls character information via objects, view maps of the world, and map out encounters. You can check out a video of their walkthrough here. More after the break…

Supposedly these are two legitimate posters from the remaining campaigns set to be unveiled for Left 4 Dead 2. The first, Dead Center, seems to be appealing to popular demand by featuring what looks to be a shopping mall. The second seems to be using the newly implemented weather effects in Hard Rain.

I’m probably the most interested in Hard Rain, since the weather seems to me the most compelling addition in terms of creating tension. It makes me think of the screen shots they released earlier to the public of the zombies coming through the dense sheet of rain, and how cool that seemed. I think it will add a lot to the atmosphere for sure. Dead Center, well, I’m sure it’ll be great, but I got a lot of the shopping mall interest taken care of with Dead Rising. I guess the truth has yet to be known, like what will the special infected be for those two campaigns? I’m excited to find out.